Losing Our Joint Religion

On March 26 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Senator John McCain outlined his priorities for defense reform over the course of the 114^th Congress. And McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has decided to go big in his reform effort, announcing a review of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Revisiting the legislation is long overdue, as its emphasis on “jointness” has created a managerial culture in the military services that stifles debate and institutionalizes logrolling.

Coordination on the battlefield makes sense, and thus maintaining joint operational commands make sense. But leaving aside for the moment whether “going purple”—the color the various services’ colors make when combined—has improved the U.S. military’s operational performance, the Goldwater-Nichols promotion system has also produced a managerial jointness that some describe as a “secular religion.” It is a faith where service comity is the highest ideal, suppressing the competing ideas and alternatives perspectives necessary for effective strategy.

Competition is the cardinal sin under religious jointness. For example, in 2010, naval analyst Bryan McGrath related how aghast the other services were at the Navy’s 2007 decision to produce a maritime strategy. Services simply do not produce their own strategies; they merely organize, train and equip forces to serve nationally determined strategy. Whether an emphasis on sea power is proper for a country drawing down from two unpopular land wars, or the best way to allocate resources under tightening defense budgets, does not seem to enter into the equation.

Under religious jointness, such questions must be sacrificed at the altar of service comity. But when service comity leads to collusion against attempts to cancel favored programs, difficult choices between missions and platforms get avoided. When service logrolling is institutionalized, tradeoffs for savings across services become impossible.

Religious jointness at the managerial level inevitably trickles down to the battlefield. Writing about that problem in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor warned, “If for its sake conformity is achieved at the expense of uniqueness, we could end up with a military that is inflexible, uncreative and, most importantly, predictable.” Another Marine officer, Major Christopher Downs, argued in a 2008 Naval War College paper that jointness was approaching the point of diminishing returns because core service capabilities were being sacrificed in favor of greater degrees of interdependence.

Reversing that trend will take personnel willing to challenge the status quo. Today’s military leaders, however, are products of the Goldwater-Nichols promotion system and hence steeped in religious jointness. Any review of Goldwater-Nichols must include rethinking the joint service requirement for promotion to flag grade. McCain, during his March 26 remarks, asked in regard to that system, “Does the constant churn of uniformed officers through joint assignments make them more effective leaders, or has this become more of a self-justification for a larger officer corps?” While he was referring to the worrisome glut of general officers produced by the system, a purple priesthood in the military should be just as great a concern.

Eliminating the joint service requirement for promotion to general or admiral will go a long way to breaking the fervent religious belief in jointness. Without the priesthood, there is no religion. And without a religion, jointness is likely to be a means to more effective military operations, rather than what several officers told Roman and Tarr was “jointness for the sake of jointness.”

Matthew Fay is a foreign and defense policy analyst at the Niskanen Center.