Forget Interservice Strife, Military Now Stresses ‘Jointness’ : Military: Speaking out of turn, Gen. Dugan broke several rules of command--and over-emphasizing the Air Force role did not help.

About once every 40 years, the U.S. public is titillated by the spectacle of a military chief being fired by his civilian superiors. The last time was part of the “Fancy Dan” period of the Revolt of the Admirals and a final limit to Gen. Omar Bradley’s tolerance--when Adm. Louis E. Denfeld was fired in 1949. And now it has happened again. Poor Michael J. Dugan left his post as Air Force chief of staff before he had time to move into quarters. When he was dismissed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Monday for displaying poor judgment, Dugan had been on the job fewer than three months.

Some say: “What he said about launching a massive air strike against Saddam Hussein made sense, and the general scheme was not denied”--and that may be true. But privates can say things generals cannot. And generals in the field may--with a little more professional hazard--say things that chiefs of staff cannot. It is also true that Dugan had been exhorting his troops to be more open with the press, and that philosophy may have contributed to his outspoken talk--so outspoken, according to one account, that the interviewer asked him whether he really should be saying those things.

One is reminded of the famous document in the aftermath of World War II that purported to be an interview with the famous ace, Lt. Roger Rudder. The three persons involved in this fictitious paper are the interviewer, Rudder and the poor public information officer. He desperately tried to salvage the interview, beginning each comment with “What the lieutenant really meant to say was . . .” (SAMPLE: “Lieutenant, what do you think of your equipment?” “If I ever catch the SOB who welded his lunch bucket onto my tail section, I am going to break his butt!” “What the lieutenant meant to say was that he is filled with admiration for the superb workmanship of our dedicated work force.”)

But there is more to this affair than the natural enthusiasm of a new leader. First there is the real problem of continuing to have Arab forces arrayed on the U.N. side against the forces of Saddam Hussein. Any split in the Moslem world is delicate and needs to be nurtured. And Arabs are not Jeffersonian Democrats who speak another language; they spring from a wholly different culture. Thus the last thing needed in this build-up stage is some direct reminder that the United States also has ties to Israel. Just as U.S. strategy against Iraq needs to be coordinated at the highest level, so do any gratuitous comments about a role for Israel.

The second factor has to do with targeting the person and family of Hussein--including his mistress. Washington may well wish him gone from this earth, and that departure might be a blessing. But there is an executive order on that subject, prohibiting the slaying of a head of state. That also presents certain anomalies for the soldier on the ground. (“Son, I want you to go into that building and capture that Saddam feller. I know there is shooting going on, but for God’s sake do not kill him. If you do, I have to send you to the slammer for 40 years.”)

A third factor lies in the role of a chief of service. In the simpler days of World War II, the law specified certain duties for the chief of service. In the aftermath of the creation of the Defense Department, Title 10 of the U.S. Code was changed in the late 1950s. From that point on, the law can be summarized as saying that the secretary of a service does what the secretary of defense tells him to and a uniformed chief of that service does what his secretary tells him to do.

However, part of the person of a chief of service is a piece of that corporate entity, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I was once privileged to hear that saintly man, Gen. Harold K. Johnson, inform a civilian official of exactly that fact. He said the secretary (in this case Army) had no authority to direct what he, as a piece of the JCS, would say in that body. Now the law has been tightened again, to provide further authority for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to speak for that body. There is little evidence that Gen. Colin L. Powell, head of the joint chiefs, knew of or approved Dugan’s remarks.

As a fourth point, with the changes in the law, general strategy is the province of the joint chiefs--and the service chiefs defer to their chairman for public expressions of such strategy. Detailed strategy and operational matters are the province of the commanders appointed by the authorities--not the service chiefs.

So one must be very careful in a time of dwindling budgets not to accept the protestations of those folk, usually retired, who claim that one service can do everything. For some time it has been national policy that combat forces be put together out of building blocks provided by those services whose forces and equipment are best able to play that role. While there must be some redundancy in war, there are very practical limits to such redundancy.

The Army is the most keenly aware of that fact--for it must rely on others to get it there, by sea or air. Yet the mundane logistics tasks are often given a secondary role to play when competing for scarce resources against the glamorous facets of war--fighting. For some time we have been putting together forces for particular missions. Army helicopters have been flying in the Navy Task Forces in the gulf; they are trained and equipped to do what Navy or Marine helicopters cannot.

Spare Army tanks are stocked in unit sets in Germany to make it easy for the air transport of troops to use them on the central front of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While that front is changing, some of those tanks may become more generally available later--Marine tanks floating near Diego Garcia could be called for early arrival in Saudi Arabia together with troopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. This is the way the system works: Task forces are put together from those pieces best suited to the mission and best available in distance.

While this has been true for some time, the press makes it difficult when it reports such operations as evidence that everyone is being given a piece of the action because of service rivalry. It is the way things are organized now.

There was an element in Dugan’s reported comments that indicated the Air Force can do it all by itself. The Air Force may well play a primary role if it comes to combat in these circumstances--but no one service will do it all. That is not the way the cookie crumbles in today’s world. We need to remember this every time some retired Marine general says the Marines can do it all by themselves. Or some retired admiral says only the Navy is needed. Or some active-duty general says only the Air Force.

There is one final facet of this problem that engenders sympathy for Dugan. Any military leader must be a cheerleader. He has to express unlimited confidence that his team will win, and he has to express this where his troops will see or hear it. It is difficult for a naturally enthusiastic individual to keep in mind that the cheerleader side must be modified by the realities of other parts of his job.

For some years now there has been a course at the National Defense University to train new generals and admirals in the basics of joint and allied operations--a course in “jointness.” As a result of congressional interest, almost all new flag officers go through this course. It is held four times a year. As these officers work their way up the chain, we can expect to see fewer public protestations that any one service can do everything itself--and fewer mishaps of this sort.