The evolution of joint warfare - Joint Warfighting

Joint Force Quarterly, Summer, 2002 by Williamson Murray

The Key West Agreements, which were the result of interservice bickering, determined the course of joint operations until the Goldwater Nichols Act. They represented a weak compromise between the Army belief in a strong joint community and the Navy and Marine Corps desire for service communities. But to a certain extent the Army undermined its own position by attempting to eliminate the Marine Corps from the equation. Moreover, the establishment of the Air Force, with a corporate culture that denigrated all roles and missions except strategic bombing, a concept which was reinforced by nuclear weapons, did little to advance cooperation.

Jointness after Key West was unimpressive. The Air Force resisted supporting land forces throughout the Korean War. The Army and Marine Corps cooperated when necessary, but hardly waged what could be termed joint operations on the ground. Part of this predicament can be traced to the nature of the conflict during its final two years, as Washington was willing to accept stalemate. Nevertheless, the services very often put American lives at risk in pursuit of parochial goals.

Vietnam was no better. A key factor in the mistaken assumptions which the United States entertained in summer 1965 were service perspectives that prevented the Joint Chiefs of Staff from speaking coherently or giving joint strategic and operational advice. Two tactical air forces waged independent campaigns. Air Force fighter bombers, flying mostly from Thailand, attacked in and around Hanoi. Naval aircraft from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin limited themselves to targets near Haiphong and the North Vietnamese coast. But there was minimal joint cooperation, which resulted in mounting losses in an air campaign which had minimal focus.

Jointness in the ground war was also problematic. The nominal theater commander, General William Westmoreland, deployed Marine units in central Vietnam instead of using them in the Delta where amphibious capabilities would have been more effective. The Air Force dropped tons of ordnance across South Vietnam but paid relatively little attention to the requirements, of land forces. While close air support often proved crucial to soldiers and marines, the Air Force considered it in terms of what was most convenient to a mechanistic view of war and measures of effectiveness rather than what would be most helpful to land forces under attack.

When the war ended in early 1973, the U.S. military was in shambles. Poorly disciplined, riven by racial strife, disheartened by defeat, and reviled by civilian society, each service had to put its own house in order during a period of downsizing, fiscal constraints, and changing missions. It is not surprising that redressing weaknesses in jointness was not a high priority, especially in light of other problems. In spring 1980 the United States launched a raid to rescue embassy personnel held hostage in Iran. Luckily for most of the participants, the raid failed before it really began with the disaster at Desert One. But whatever the outcome, the planning and execution of the operation underscored a lack of cooperation among the services, weak command that was anything but joint, and a service focus that was inexcusable to most Americans.