Twice in the last century, Congress has rewritten the rules for how America organizes its military. Each overhaul unlocked leaps in US combat power. In 1947, the National Security Act dissolved the War and Navy Departments to create the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, and National Security Council. It was the first time America intentionally organized itself to manage a large, globally deployed peacetime military. That was DoD 1.0. (Later, the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 addressed deficiencies of the previous plan and growing interservice rivalries by empowering the secretary of defense, setting a DoD 1.5.)
American military struggles in Iran and Grenada led to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. This ushered in DoD 2.0, with modernized military commands that empowered the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, codified jointness, and established the combatant command structure that still shapes how the US military operates today. This reorganization improved unity of effort across services, making global postures more coherent.
Four decades later, the seams in that system are showing. Global threats no longer fit neatly within geographic boundaries. Adversaries move faster, coordinate better, and exploit exposed institutional gaps. At the same time, more global taskings with less forces and increasingly outdated bureaucratic models are straining force readiness and regional postures. More risk is carried, and yet, the Pentagon is using last century’s tools and policies to compete.
Congress must intervene to enable a third transformation: DoD 3.0. This reform would revolutionize how the legislature equips, organizes, authorizes, and funds the US military to better manage strategic competition, improve deterrence, and fight and win.
Why Change Is Needed
Governments and their militaries are struggling with the information revolution, as they try to break away from industrial age systems and institutions. The digital age is producing significant changes in societies, as well as the ways and means in which warfare is waged. Yet the Pentagon’s structure, authorities, and conceptual tool kit remain frozen in a Cold War mold—built for regional conflicts, linear escalation, conventional force-on-force fights, and prolonged procurement and modernization time horizons. Industrial age warfighting is three decades removed from relevance, and trying to organize, train, and equip a military for that era is like charging horse cavalry against an Abrams tank.
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