Road Not Taken: Defense Secretariat Reform

摘要

This paper argues the need to extend defense reform to the defense and servicesecretariats. The author argues that secretariat reform is the logical 'next step' in the now 50-year old process of defense unification begun with the National Security Act of 1947, and that the American tradition of civil supremacy over the military as distinguished from the modern practice of 'civilian control', is not threatened by secretariat reform. The author also proposes a concept for secretariat reform in which the service secretaries would be retained with small personal staffs and their service staffs, but with dual or 'joint' roles, and the service secretariats would be consolidated into a single defense secretariat.