Many of the people who spoke with us noted that, in many respects, the services have never really accepted the need for, existence of, and long-term viability of OSD. In the view of many observers, the services simply do not accept the statements of the Secretary of Defense as final, and management throughout OSD does not believe the Secretary of Defense has effective authority over the services. The purpose here is not to evaluate whether these perceptions are valid, but to point out that they exist. It is also clear that perceptions influence actions. To the extent that OSD management perceives the authority of the Secretary to be less than it really is, that perception may constitute a de facto limitation on its ability to make effective management decisions. Certainly the analyses of this OSD Task Force could be interpreted to lend support to the ability of the services, sometimes abetted by Congress, to thwart logical cost savings that would derive from consolidation, centralization or better management. See, for example, the following issues: Further, a review of the actions of the services after creation of DOD lends credence to the perception of service dominance. The organization structures of the services have not changed much to accommodate to the existence of OSD, except to add interfacing staff positions. The services each seem to have attempted to remain stand-alone units which could undertake full defense responsibility, even if OSD and the other services were to disappear tomorrow. The services often object to any move that would transfer functions to an OSD entity, even where it has been demonstrated clearly that an OSD agency is more efficient and more reliable. For example, in 1981 the Surveys and Investigation Staff of the House Appropriations Committee came to a conclusion similar to that reached by the OSD Task Force in OSD 3. In its report the Surveys and Investigations Staff said, in part, "The services can interminably rebut, or disagree with any economic analysis performed by any organization regardless of qualifications. It is virtually impossible to perform the finite analysis the services will continue to insist on. The Investigative Staff feels that there is sufficient data and evidence upon which to make a decision on this matter. The services' arguments against the proposal are parochial, and at times even emotional. The time has come to 'fish or cut bait.'" Still, the services continue to oppose this issue. In the judgment of the OSD Task Force, the primary impediment to the adoption of at least one-third of the 40 recommendations submitted in this report will be the objection of the services to losing exclusive control over that part of the activity which they have historically managed, irrespective of the potential cost savings to the Nation. In 1958 President Eisenhower attempted to strengthen unification by encouraging transfers of top officers between services, saying, "It is my belief that before officers are advanced beyond the two-star level, they must have demonstrated, among other qualities, the capacity for dealing objectively without extreme service partisanship -- with matters of the broadest significance to our national security. Not many feel that this lofty ideal has been achieved. While this Task Force was uniformly impressed by the caliber, intelligence, vision and breadth of the senior military officers that we interviewed, we were nonetheless struck by the strong dominance of their background in their particular service. We were frequently told of the turf battles among the services, as well as among the factions within each service. T Years of tradition, doctrine and behavior created the culture in which service dominance exists. But there appears to be one thing above all that intensifies and perpetuates service dominance: the services never relinquish control of their people, even when they send them to activities such as the Joint Staff, OSD assignments, or to Unified Commands. Their career opportunities continue to rest with their service. Individuals know that if they are to have a future when they return to their service, they must "vote service" whenever presented with the opportunity. In the period following World War II, President Truman, with the support of General Marshall and General Eisenhower, pushed hard for the unification of the services, but he failed. Later, as President, Eisenhower attempted unsuccessfully to press toward the same end. Today, those we interviewed felt that the need for integration and coordination of the services is growing increasingly stronger. DOD must find a way to get not only good coordination and priority setting among the services, but also their support for sensible proposals that set aside the individual service bias that each senior officer carries. The recommendations that follow throughout this report are intended to be sensible proposals. They frequently call for OSD, a defense agency, or civilian contractors to perform nonmilitary tasks, not only because they can be done more efficiently there, but also because it frees up talented military people to perform their military role. Finally, throughout our interviews we found a wide body of opinion to the effect that the staffs of the Service Secretaries are really anachronisms in light of the respective responsibilities of OSD and the Service Chiefs' staffs. We heard this view expressed by managers positioned throughout the organization, including former managers in the Service Secretariats. Many feel that these staffs are redundant, and that the Service Secretaries should rely on the Service Chiefs' staffs and OSD for that support which cannot be eliminated. Analysis of OSD Organization Structure We found organization structure a very difficult issue to explore. When we probed into this area, nearly every manager queried had the same response, "We really don't have any organization structure problems. What we need is better people." The record indicates that this simply is not so. It would be hard to prove that top managers in DOD have been anything less than exceptional people people who had performed well in previous positions and who performed well after they left DOD. The fact is that DOD does not perform as well as it might, and we believe there are some structural problems which contribute. Further, we believe that more good people will not necessarily make a significant difference unless the organization is designed to operate efficiently and economically. The most telling comment we heard often in proof of this was, "The minute we have a crisis, we cut through all the bureaucracy, and things get done." The obvious question then is why not design for everyday operation the organizational structure that works when it must. One reason is that the DOD organization does not feel it has the freedom to organize itself to do its job most effectively. In fact it cannot, as the historical analysis above clearly demonstrated. In the years since its creation, DOD has been faced with constantly changing demands on its organization: gearing down from World War II; rearming for the Korean conflict, then later cutting back to normal peacetime operation; building up to fight the Vietnam action in the face of tremendous opposition from the people, the press and influential members of Congress; then once again scaling down during the 1970s, only to begin a dramatic push for rearmament under the Reagan Administration. Entwined with these needs to expand and contract have been pressures to consolidate and centralize at times, and to decentralize at other times. In a number of DOD units, duplicated or overlapping functions have been consolidated into single organizations. We find that OSD has taken on the role of managing several consolidated functional groups, such as the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), the Defense Communications Agency (DCA), and others. This has resulted in some very strange organizational combinations: DLA, the major procurement and supply agency for the consumables used by the services, employs nearly 50,000 people and spends $20 billion per year. It is generally agreed that DLA is a successful consolidation of functions formerly duplicated among the services. This consolidated line organization reports to Affairs and Logistics. Though logistics has been DMA, also considered to be a successful consolidation, employs 9,000 people and makes maps to support military operations throughout the world. This line organization works in direct support of the Commands under the Chairman of the JCS, but reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. DCA, the organization through which the Chairman of the JCS communicates with the Commands, also reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. These are organization patterns which would simply be ignored in the event of crisis. In fact, they are often ignored in the normal course of business. This mixture of line and staff functions in an organization creates many problems in setting priorities. Typically, in the private sector, such "two-hatted" managers give their attention to their line units, so the staff work and long-term planning suffer. Experience has shown that operating line units should report to line management and that staff units should report to staff management. In addition, private sector experience certainly supports decentralization of functions, responsibility and authority as an effective way to bring focus and identity to the product or service outputs of an organization. These hybrid organizations are among the many causes of what we saw as another problem throughout DOD: overly large spans of control. We found many managers with anywhere from 15 to 30 people or organizations reporting to them. When we probed this we were told, "Well, that really doesn't happen. He doesn't see him that often, etc." Common private sector practice normally limits spans of control to six to eight, perhaps ten in unusual situations. A span of 20 or more simply cannot work. Another factor encouraging these enormous spans of control was the civilian personnel system. It appears that under this system, supervisory positions are often evaluated |