Department of Defense

I

Introduction

Department of Defense, executive branch of the United States government, created by Congress in 1947. It is administered by a secretary who is appointed by the president, with the approval of the Senate, and who is a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council.

II

Purpose

The department directs and controls the armed forces and assists the president in the direction of the nation's security.

By authority of the National Security Act of 1947, the National Military Establishment was created on September 18, 1947. The first secretary was primarily a coordinator, developing general policies for the three executive departments—the Department of the Navy, Department of the Army, and newly created Department of the Air Force. The act was amended in 1949, renaming the National Military Establishment the Department of Defense. The former War Department became part of the Department of the Army. A chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was added, and the military departments were placed under the Defense Department without Cabinet status. Major legislation in 1953, 1958, 1977, 1986, and 2002 resulted in increased responsibilities for the secretary, establishment of an operational chain of command to the unified and specified commands, and authority (for the secretary) to bypass the military departments on operational matters.

III

Organization

The major subdivisions are the Office of the Secretary, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military departments, the unified and specified commands, the Armed Forces Policy Council, and the agencies. The staff of the Office of the Secretary is primarily civilian. It advises and assists the secretary in top-level management. Senior members include the deputy secretary, the undersecretary for policy, the undersecretary for acquisition, the director of defense research and engineering, and the assistant secretaries and their staffs who specialize in international security, personnel, logistics, and similar matters. Also at this level, the military, economic, and political elements associated with military preparedness are balanced to determine size and structure of the armed forces. The Armed Forces Policy Council advises the secretary on a broad range of policy matters.

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IV

Liaison of Command

The Joint Chiefs of Staff consists of a chairman, chiefs of staff of the United States Army and the United States Air Force, the chief of naval operations (United States Navy), and the commandant of the United States Marine Corps; all the members are four-star officers. As a group they are responsible for preparing strategic and logistical plans of the armed forces. They also constitute the immediate military staff of the secretary of defense. In 1986 Congress passed a defense reorganization bill, making the chairman alone the principal military adviser to the president and creating the post of vice-chairman as second in command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Each of the military departments is separately organized under its own secretary but functions under the control of the Department of Defense. Thus, the chain of command descends directly from the president to the secretary of defense to the military departments, except for operational matters. The chain of command for combat or similar operations goes from the president to the secretary of defense and through the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the unified and specified commands, bypassing the military departments. The 1986 legislation increases the authority of commanders in the field over their units and emphasizes joint planning among the armed forces.

Unified commands are highly trained ground, air, and naval combat forces from two or more of the military departments operationally controlled by the president through the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unified commands are assigned broad continuing missions that involve the security of the United States and its allies. Specified commands are usually composed of one service but also have missions of vital importance and warrant the operational control of the president. The nine unified commands currently are the Joint Forces Command, headquartered in Virginia; Pacific Command, in Hawaii; European Command, in Stuttgart, Germany; Southern Command, Central Command, and Special Operations Command, all based in Florida; Transportation Command, in Illinois; Strategic Command, in Nebraska; and Northern Command, in Colorado. A tenth unified command, the Africa Command, was to be created by September 2008. Its headquarters was yet to be determined. The two specified commands are the Air Combat Command and the Forces Command.

The Northern Command was created in October 2002 in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Its purpose is to provide command and control of the DOD’s homeland defense efforts and to work with civil authorities in coordinating defense support. Several other commands were reorganized and renamed following September 11. President George W. Bush announced the creation of the Africa Command in February 2007. Previously, responsibilities for Africa had been divided between the Central Command, the European Command, and the Pacific Command. The Africa Command was to be functioning by September 2008. Its creation was recognition of the growing strategic importance of Africa and concern over the activities of radical Islamic groups that could threaten important resource areas, such as oil-producing nations, or strategic areas, such as the Horn of Africa, which borders the vital waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.