R.D. Hooker, Jr
The U.S. Department of Defense makes much of the Joint Force, stressing its overriding importance. Particularly since the advent of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols legislation, “jointness” became a mantra, amplified by reams of joint doctrine and scores of “joint” organizations. The importance of a truly joint approach to warfighting is, or should be, obvious. In theory, the synergistic employment of all forms of military power across all domains generates effects greater than the sum of the parts, optimizing all military operations. In practice, however, the U.S. military often falls far short.
The evidence is everywhere around us and reaches back at least to the Second World War, if not before. In WWII, interservice rivalry was intense and pervasive. In the Pacific, Army and Navy disputes forced the bifurcation of the region into Army and Navy bailiwicks: MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific theater and Nimitz’s Pacific Ocean Areas theater. Arguments over Pacific strategy forced President Roosevelt to personally intervene by flying to Pearl Harbour in July 1944 to referee. In Europe, tensions between the nearly-independent Army Air Forces and General Eisenhower, the European theater commander, over strategic bombing permeated the campaign, at one point prompting Ike to threaten resignation.
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