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The passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act ushered in an era of sweeping change in U.S. military acquisition policies and processes. Reform was necessary, but the legislation1s implementation resulted in a host of unintended and undesirable consequences, especially in the Department of the Navy. Drawing on research, interviews, and their own professional experience, the authors examine these negative effects and propose associated recommendations.

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 is the most important legislation to affecting U.S. national defense in the last 50 years. This act resulted from frustration in Congress and among certain military officers concerning what they believed to be the poor quality of military advice available to civilian decision-makers. It also derived from the U.S. military's perceived inability to conduct successful joint or multi-service operations. The act, passes after four years of legislative debate, designated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the principal military advisor to the President and sought to foster greater cooperation among the military services. Goldwater-Nichols marks the latest attempt to balance competing tendencies within the Department of Defense, namely centralization versus decentralization and geographic versus functional distributions of power. As a result of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has achieved prominence, but his assignment is somewhat contradictory: the spokesman and thus the advocate for the Commander in Chief, while simultaneously the provider of objective advice to the President. While the act did succeed in strengthening the CINCs' authority and in contributing to the dramatic U.S. achievements in the Gulf War, the air and ground campaigns revealed weaknesses in the CINCs' capability to plan joint operations. In addition, the increased role of the military in ad hoc peacekeeping operations has challenged the U.S. military's current organizational structure for the quick deployment of troops from the various services. Rapid technological advances and post-Cold War strategic uncertainty also complicate the U.S. military's organizational structure.

War is waged not only on battlefields. In the mid-1980s a high-stakes political struggle to redesign the relationships among the president, secretary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and warfighting commanders in the field resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Author James R. Locher III played a key role in the congressional effort to repair a dysfunctional military whose interservice squabbling had cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and put the lives of thousands of servicemen and women at risk. Victory on this front helped make possible the military successes the United States has enjoyed since the passage of the bill and to prepare it for the challenges it must still face.Victory on the Potomac provides the first detailed history of how Congress unified the Pentagon and does so with the benefit of an insider's view. In a fast-paced account that reads like a novel, Locher follows the bill through congressional committee to final passage, making clear that the process is neither abstract nor automatic. His vivid descriptions bring to life the amazing cast of this real-life drama, from the straight-shooting chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Barry Goldwater, to the peevishly stubborn secretary of defense, Caspear Weinberger.Locher's analysis of political maneuvering and bureaucratic infighting will fascinate anyone who has an interest in how government works, and his understanding of the stakes in military reorganization will make clear why this legislative victory meant so much to American military capability. James R. Locher III, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School began his career in Washington as an executive trainee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked in the White House, the Pentagon, and the Senate. During the period covered by this book, he was a staff member for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Since then, he has served as an assistant secretary of defense in the first Bush and the early Clinton administrations. Currently, he works as a consultant and lecturer on defense matters.

This research frames a strategic approach to reserve joint officer management that addresses the requirements for, and the supply of, joint officers in the reserve component, and also accounts for the unique constraints and challenges involved in joint officer management for reserve active-status list officers. Because the work required of many reservists is becoming increasingly joint, the need for a systematic examination of how reserve active-status list officers are trained and developed in joint matters is becoming more and more urgent-especially given the dramatic increase in the use of the reserve forces. A strategic approach to joint officer management for reserve active-status list officers must assess the need for officers with prior joint knowledge, experience, and acculturation in certain positions as well as their availability. The authors estimate the supply of joint reserve officers and make several recommendations to help implement a strategic approach to reserve component joint officer management.

Under the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, several changes were instituted by Congress in an effort to reform the U.S. military. Title IV, Joint Officer Management, of the Act was aimed at reforming the officer development of the services in an effort to eliminate the parochial service dispositions that had previously plagued U.S. military efforts. Title IV instituted policies to provide officers with joint education and joint experience in an effort to develop officers with a multi-service or joint perspective. In an effort to provide senior officers with joint experience, all officers promoted to the rank of brigadier general or rear admiral (07) must have completed a joint duty assignment prior to promotion. This dissertation looks specifically at the joint duty promotion requirement instituted under Title IV in an effort to analyze the U.S. military's ability to implement a congressional mandate. The implementation of the joint duty assignment as a promotion requirement has been a source of concern for both the services and congressional policymakers.