Decision-Making for Defense

As the Army grew in the early years of our history and its supply and administration became more complex, the organization of the War Department began to proliferate. It started with a so-called General Staff, consisting of an Adjutant General, a Quartermaster General, and a Commissary General of Ordnance, plus a separate Chief of Engineers; in 1818 a Judge Advocate General and a Surgeon General were added, and later, still more staff offices. These predecessors of the so-called technical and staff services of the Army became firmly established as statutory institutions in their own right and created major problems of coordination and command within the War Department itself. A similar trend toward a proliferation of specialties manifested itself in the Navy, and, in 1842, culminated with the establishment of the bureaus, creating the same kind of problems within that department. It was not until 1903, following the great difficulties encountered in the management of the Spanish-American War, that a beginning was made in solving the problem within the War Department. Ever since 1821, when a Commanding General of the Army was appointed, the Army had been plagued by a system of dual control. Army regulations prescribed that "The military establishment is under orders of the Commanding General of the Army in that which pertains to its discipline and military control. The fiscal affairs of the Army are conducted by the Secretary of War, through the several staff departments." 12 This organizational doctrine gave rise to endless confusion, misunderstanding, and friction. The regulation was interpreted to mean that the Secretary of War had no control of the Army in the field while the Commanding General had no control of the resources required to support the Army. 13 The latter was the responsibility of the "General Staff" operating under the Secretary of War, and each of the staff departments When President Kennedy appointed Robert McNamara Secretary of Defense in January, 1961 and McNamara called on Charles Hitch to join him, a new era of defense policy leadership was clearly at hand. Great problems of organization had emerged along with vast increases in American responsibility for the security of the free world in the post-war era of rapidly changing military technology. Defense department unification and other controversial questions of organization of the defense establishment assumed new dimensions with the advent of the new techniques of planning and analysis. Hitch discusses, from the rare perspective of an analytically gifted insider, how the Department of Defense achieved balanced programs and more effective forces through the firm application of the new management techniques without sweeping changes of organization structure. Important challenges still lie ahead. As Hitch says: "The objectives, the organization, and the management techniques of national defense are all interrelated. Organization and procedures must be adapted to our changing nationaal policies and objectives as well as to changes in the character of our resources and technologies. It will take all our ingenuity and skill to make these necessary adaptations so that we can continue to provide unified management of so great an enterprise as our present military establishment. At the beginning of our Constitutional history the building of three frigates and the management of a few companies to fight Indians were considered too great a task for the War Department alone." Management of the American defense establishment has been a subject of fascination, concern and occasional despair to generation of Presidents, legislators, military leaders, and informed citizens. Hitch provides historical perspective on these tasks of decision-making for national security, and he explains clearly and succinctly the contemporary problems of fitting together strategic alternatives, weapons technology, and economic resources to achieve a rational pattern of defense management. The modern tools for this task are new techniques of planning, programming, and budgeting, and, for evaluating complex situations, the methods of systems analysis, all of which are discussed in detail. Hitch was involved both in the origination of these management techniques while at the RAND Corporation and in the tremendous task of putting them to consistent, far reaching, and practical use in the Department of Defense. President Johnson termed Hitch "a principal architect of America's modern defense establishment . . . It is largely as a result of [his] efforts that this country now possesses the most balanced, flexible, combat-ready defense force in history and management system to maintain our superior military posture and use it with precision." This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1965.