sional oversight by focusing primarily on the question of how much before we answer the key questions of what for, why, and how well.”

Of greater concern, congressional approval of the budget on a year-to-year basis contributes to and reinforces the Department's own historical penchant for defense management by fits and starts. Anticipated defense dollars are always in flux. Individual programs must be hastily and repeatedly accommodated to shifting overall budgets, irrespective of military strategy and planning. The net effect of this living day-to-day is less defense and more cost. Although often hidden, this effect is significant-and it can be avoided.

Biennial budgeting, authorization and appropriation of major programs not annually but only at key milestones, and a focus on strategy and operational concepts instead of line items are among the most important changes that could be made to improve defense planning. They would enhance the congressional role in framing good national security policy.

Budgeting based on strategy and operational concepts also would provide a far greater improvement in the performance of the Office of the Secretary of Defense than would any legislated reorganization of that Office. In general, we believe, Congress should permit the Secretary to organize his Office as he chooses to accomplish centralized policy formulation and decentralized implementation within the Department.

The Commission concludes that new procedures are required to help the Administration and the Congress do the necessary long-range planning and meaningfully assess what military forces are needed to meet our national security objectives. Public and official debate must be brought to bear on these larger defense policy questions. The Commission strongly urges adoption of a process that emphasizes the element of sound, professional military advice provided within realistic confines of anticipated long-term funding.

Recommendations

To institutionalize, expand, and link a series of critical determinations within the Executive Branch and Congress, we recommend a process that would operate in substance as follows:

Defense planning would start with a comprehensive statement of national security objectives and priorities, based on recommendations of the National Security Council (NSC).

Based on these objectives, the President would issue, at the outset of his Administration and thereafter as required, provisional five-year budget levels to the Department of Defense (DoD). These budget levels would reflect competing demands on the federal budget and projected gross national product and revenues and would come from recommendations of the NSC and the Office of Management and Budget.

The Secretary of Defense would instruct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to prepare a military strategy for the national objectives, and options on operational concepts and key defense issues for the budget levels provided by the President.

The Chairman would prepare broad military options with advice from the JCS and the Commanders-in-Chief of the Unified and Specified Commands (CINCs). Addressing operational concepts and key defense issues (e.g., modernization, force structure, readiness, sustainability, and strategic versus general purpose forces), the Chairman would frame explicit trade-offs among the Armed Forces and submit his recommendations to the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense would make such modifications as he thinks appropriate and present these to the President.

The Chairman, with the assistance of the JCS and the Director of Central Intelligence, would prepare a net assessment of the effectiveness of United States and Allied Forces as compared to those of possible adversaries. The net assessment would be used to evaluate the risks of options and would accompany the recommendations of the Secretary of Defense to the President.

The President would select a particular military program and the associated budget level. This program and budget level would be binding on all elements of the Administration. DoD would then develop a five-year defense plan and a two-year defense budget conforming to the President's

determination.

The President would submit to the Congress the two-year budget and the five-year plan on which it is based. Congress would be asked to approve the two-year budget based upon this plan. It would authorize and appropriate funding for major weapon systems at the two key milestones of full-scale engineering development and high-rate production.

DoD would present the budget to Congress on the basis of national strategy and operational concepts rather than line items. The details of such presentation would be worked out by the Secretary of Defense and appropriate committees of Congress.

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II. Military Organization and Command

To accomplish meaningful, long-range defense planning, certain modifica

tions are needed in our defense establishment.

The President and the Secretary of Defense require military advice that better integrates the individual views of the nation's combatant commanders and the Chiefs of the Services. Today, there is no one uniformed officer clearly responsible for providing such an integrated view, who can draw upon the best thinking of, and act as an effective spokesman for, our senior military leadership. The current authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is insufficient to enable him to perform effectively in this capacity. The Chairman's advisory relation to the President and the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman's mandate over the Joint Staff and the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chairman's place in the channel of communications between the Secretary of Defense and the Commanders-in-Chief of the Unified and Specified Commands (CINCs), all must be strengthened to this end.

So, too, must the views of the CINCs be more strongly and purposefully represented than they are at present within the councils of the Joint Chiefs and in weapons requirements decision-making. Because it is the responsibility of the Chairman to integrate the sometimes conflicting advice of the Service Chiefs and the CINCS into a national strategy, the necessity for impartiality and objectivity in doing so argues for another voice in the Joint Chiefs of Staff to represent the views of the CINCS. For these purposes, and to assist the Chairman in his existing and additional responsibilities, we conclude that the position of Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be established.

There is an important need to provide for continuity of advice to the Secretary of Defense and the President in the absence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The current system, in which the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) rotate quarterly as Acting Chairman, has provided continuity better than earlier systems. It also has served to enhance a needed joint perspective among the Service Chiefs and increase their effectiveness in both their JCS and Service roles. The establishment of a Vice Chairman as a mem

ber of the Joint Chiefs of Staff having special responsibilities for representing the interests of the CINCs and reviewing weapons requirements would be an important innovation. While underscoring the importance of continuity, the Commission believes the procedures under which an Acting Chairman is designated should remain flexible. Under the President's direction, the Secretary of Defense should be permitted to adopt those procedures which are best suited to the particular circumstances and to revise them in accordance with changing needs.

We find that improvements also are needed in the several Unified (i.e., multi-Service) and Specified (i.e., single Service) Commands into which our combat forces are organized.

The measure of command now accorded the nation's combatant commanders is not always sufficient for our forces to perform with high confidence of success and coherence of effort. Unified Commanders require broader authority than "operational command," as now understood and practiced, in order to meet the heavy responsibilities that their missions place on them.

The Unified Command Plan divides responsibilities among combatant commanders too arbitrarily on the basis of geographical boundaries. Today, some threats overlap those boundaries and must be dealt with functionally. Moreover, the current command structure reflects command arrangements that evolved during World War II to deal with high-intensity conflict across vast regions of the globe. However well the layers of the present command structure suit the contingency of general war, they are not always wellsuited to the regional crises, tensions, and conflicts that are commonplace today.

Finally, loose coordination of strategic lift of military forces throughout the world now constrains military effectiveness. There are demonstrated managerial shortfalls in our ability to allocate available air, land, and sea transportation among many claimants.

Recommendations

The specific changes recommended by the Commission are necessary to assure unified action by our Armed Forces. They include the following reforms in federal law and Defense Department practices.