14. Legvolt, Robert. Soviet Policy in West Africa. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1970. 15. Moore, Clark D. and Dunbar, Ann. Africa Yesterday and Today. New York: Bantam, 1968. 16. Robson, Peter. Economic Integration in Africa. Evanston, Ill. Northwestern Univ. Press, 1968. 17. Singleton, F. Seth and Shingler, John. Africa in Perspective. New York: Hayden, 1967. 18. Woolf, Leonard Sidney. Empire and Commerce in Africa: A Study in Economic Imperialism. New York: Fertig, 1968. ) DEFENSE MANAGEMENT The past two decades have seen far-reaching changes in the organization and management of the Armed Forces. Successive legislative and administrative actions reflected progressively bolder steps to integrate the defense establishment and consolidate power in the Secretary of Defense. Why has the movement toward Service unification been so tortuous? It must be appreciated that unification was much more than a matter of reorganization. It required new viewpoints, new doctrine, and new habits of thinking throughout the military establishment. For almost 150 years before the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947, the two major Departments--the Army and Navy--had evolved as distinct and separate entities. They had been established and organized by separate legislation. They looked directly to the President for leadership. They were monitored by separate congressional committees. They drew their funds from separate appropriations and got on as best they could with their own peculiarities, preoccupations, friends, and enemies. No well-established habits or instruments of collaboration and cooperation existed. Where disagreements on questions of planning or policy arose, only the President could make decisions effective on both. It was left largely to the President also to link foreign policy and military planning. The experience of World War II provided strong impetus for the unification of the Armed Services. While unified commands were established in the theaters of operations, no comparable unified direction or command existed in Washington. The Joint Chiefs of Staff emerged early in World War II as President Roosevelt's principal staff instrument for forging allied strategy and directing global warfare. The need for joint action by the Services and for objective recommendations on military matters inevitably brought increased authority to this one joint and most nearly objective body. However the JCS was a committee dependent for its success upon the voluntary cooperation of its members. The same high degree of cooperation achieved under the stress of war was not apt to be forthcoming in peacetime. Furthermore, with the Air Corps certain to achieve independence from the Army, the President would face the prospect of having to coordinate three separate military departments. As Commander in Chief, the President could not delegate responsibility for decision on the truly fundamental issues of defense policy. With all the other problems before him, however, the President needed a single civilian at the Cabinet level to help him coordinate the Services and to contribute, along with others, to the combined judgment which the Chief Executive uses in formulating the administration's fundamental policies. Being a strictly military body, the JCS was not the proper agency to serve the President in this way, although he would certainly want its advice and counsel on basic defense problems. With their missions and roles no longer clear cut, the three military departments could be expected to fight hard for what they considered their legitimate interests and a proper share of tightened defense appropriations. In such a situation the JCS as then structured could hardly be expected to function as effectively in the formulation and execution of defense plans as it had during World War II. Insofar as the departmental Secretaries were concerned, each would personify the time-honored concept of civilian control of the military. With the three military departments likely to clash on fundamental issues, however, the departmental Secretaries would be cast in the role of partisans of their respective Services. If civilian control was to be truly meaningful, there would have to be someone who could transcend individual Service interests and try consistently and imaginatively to serve the President in his broadest constitutional responsibilities. It soon became equally clear, moreover, that the U.S. leadership role in the postwar world would have to be exercised in an environment of Soviet hostility toward the West, political turmoil, and seemingly endless insurgencies. And in the background was the prospect of nuclear warfare with its horrifying implications for the future of all mankind. The National Security Act of 1947 gave statutory recognition to a new and broadened concept of national security involving a -le close, interlocking relationship between the military and civilian Under this concept, the guardianship of the Nation's security was to be the collective responsibility of the entire Government. Military defense, though playing a most vital role, would function within this larger framework of national defense. Besides the coordination of the Armed Services, there would have to be the coordination of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security. In Support from the Executive Branch and Congress for the concept came readily. An entirely different atmosphere, however, surrounded the design of the postwar military establishment. this area, proponents of organizational reforms faced the formidable job of winning acceptance of departures from deep-rooted institutional patterns, customs, and traditions. The vastness of the issues and the complexity of the problems involved served as warnings against precipitate action in adopting changes in military organization. Initially, agreement could be obtained only on a loose federation of the three departments in a "National Military Establishment. Over the ensuing years, experience and a steady progression of top-level studies laid the foundations for repeated reorganizations (in 1949, 1953, and 1958) which brought the Services closer toward a more truly integrated Defense structure. The emerging pattern of Defense organization was shaped by many forces, not all strictly organizational: accelerating changes in the technologies and techniques of warfare and disagreements over strategic concepts, roles and missions, force levels, and weapon systems; the need to centralize civilian control through a single Secretary, while at the same time finding a proper blend of civilian and military authority and skills at appropriate levels of the Defense establishment; the pressure for economy and efficiency in a vast and complex establishment; and, no less significant, the complexities of Executive-Legislative relations and the delicate balance between the two branches in considering the vital issues of defense policy. With the 1958 reorganization, many of the impediments to unification were removed. Congress retained some brakes on the Secretary's authority; but the authority he had was sufficient to enable him to bring about effective unification of the Armed Services. By the time Robert S. McNamara arrived at the Pentagon in 1961, the way had been paved for a de facto unification of the Armed Services. Secretary McNamara brought about several fundamental changes in the management and organization of the Defense establishment. He was quick to formulate objectives that were clearly part of the President's program. He instituted what are now considered "common sense" methods of tying together the planning, programming, and budgeting processes, but in 1961 this was a trail-blazing effort of the greatest importance. Techniques of management and economic analysis have been applied to point up, in light of cost and effectiveness, the basic considerations and alternatives for decision making. New agencies have emerged outside the military departments, either directly under the Secretary of Defense or under the JCS. Within the military departments themselves, major organizational changes have been introduced to focus responsibility for planning and project management, to facilitate communications, and to ensure responsive support of the operational forces. Inevitably the net effect of the changes wrought since 1947, and of the McNamara techniques particularly, was to bring up to the Defense Secretary's level actions and decisions previously lodged in the military departments. While a similar development took place in industry, it was argued that Defense centralization |