Defense Reform 2016?

Congress again returns to a beloved topic, defense reform, and its policy lineup lacks any thought or imagination.

For now, let's examine the appeal of decentralization. Rep. Mac Thornberry believes that this is done by allowing the services to have more say in planning and programming through an increased role on the requirements generation and acquisition milestone processes. He also would like to break up his staff in OUSD(AT&L) by bringing back the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E).

Note there are two "decentralizations" going on.

First, there is a decentralization of power from the OSD staff to the operating services. More decisions will be made by service executives than staff. The focal point of decision making on the services will resemble a weakened form of what had existed between 1949-58 and 1969-86.

Second, there is decentralization in the OSD staff itself. OUSD(AT&L), which is in the line of command but not an operating unit, was itself the product of a merger between DDR&E and manpower and installations functions from Goldwater-Nichols in 1986. Where decision making focuses on the OSD staff, they inevitably will come down to the detail of operations, requiring greater scale and specialization. This process grows staff into a hierarchy within a hierarchy.

The old myth of the staff had it that it that staff wasn't an operating unit, nor in the line of command. It collecting information, advised, and evaluated on behalf of the commander, and had no authority of its own.

However, with the 1958 Reorganization Act, DDR&E was created in order to bypass the long chain where lower echelons in the staff have to run up to the Secretary of Defense and then back down the appropriate chain in the services. The staff to the Secretary gained "legal" authority to exercise power over directing the services.

While the services are mission oriented with their own straight-line hierarchies, the staff is organized functionally. The functions, such as R&D, logistics, etc., are shared by all missions. Numerous lines of command in the staff have authority affecting operating decisions in the service hierarchy but no responsibility for the resulting outcomes.

This is how you get, as Admiral Rickover once lamented, a six month delay "just because one staff person with no responsibility but with authority had on his own decided that the policy was wrong."

What is ironic is that the second decentralization, fragmenting OUSD(AT&L), doesn't really appear to be reducing its overall power. While it reduces its authority in some aspects, which are devolved to the services, it appears that the strong mandate pursued by DDR&E will provide it new areas of authority which, by being out front of the acquisition process, might grow those areas.