Reorganizing defense - Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon - Book Review

Joint Force Quarterly, Autumn, 2002 by Russell Howard

Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon by James R. Locher III College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. 507 pp. $34.95 [ISBN: 1-58544-187-2]

A significant contribution to the literature on defense organization and bureaucratic politics, Victory on the Potomac offers a graphic account of the need for reform and the struggle to achieve it against the state of military readiness in the 1970s and 1980s. Writing as an insider, James Locher presents a fast-paced chronicle of the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986--the most important defense legislation since the National Security Act of 1947. The book is must reading for decisionmakers, planners, and others responsible for defense policy and military strategy. Academics will also find much of interest in what is probably the best study of bureaucratic politics in the Pentagon since Graham Allison dissected the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Like a war plan, Victory on the Potomac describes the prelude to conflict, the battles waged, and the road to victory. In the first part of the book ("The Fog of Defense Organization"), Locher explains the need for reorganization to get the services to work more closely together. According to the author, after World War II the Armed Forces achieved overwhelming influence that was out of proportion to their statutory and formal responsibilities. Service priorities were protecting turf rather than developing multi-service commands to wage modern war. The results were the Bay of Pigs, Desert One, and the terrorist attack on the Marine Barracks in Beirut.

In the next part ("Drawing the Battle Lines"), Locher focuses on the Beirut bombing as the greatest impetus for defense reorganization. In October 1983, a "lone terrorist drove a truck laden with explosives into the lobby of the Marine barracks, triggering one of the biggest nonnuclear detonations ever. ... The blast collapsed the four-story building into a smoldering heap of rubble no more than fifteen feet high and burned, crushed, or smothered to death 220 Marines, 18 sailors, 3 soldiers, a French paratrooper, and a Lebanese civilian." He stresses that interservice rivalry and a "bloated and paralyzed" command structure were just as responsible as the bomber.

As chairman of the Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Bill Nichols studied the disaster and became convinced of the need for reform. "No member who took part in that investigation will ever forget it; the magnitude of the tragedy ... seared our consciousness indelibly." It became his issue, "and he was committed to correcting the organizational defects that had contributed to 241 deaths in Beirut."

Senator Barry Goldwater was also interested in defense reform, especially after becoming the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1985. A retired major general in the Air Force Reserve, he was greatly disturbed by the debacle in Lebanon: "The fault was in the Pentagon command structure. The cumbersome chain of command imposed on the general [in charge] by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the services precluded effective control." The outrage that Goldwater voiced over the convoluted chain of command and its contribution to this horrible tragedy would motivate his quest for military reform in the years after the bombing.

But strong personal commitments on the part of Goldwater and Nichols were not sufficient to ensure defense reorganization. As the title of the third part of the book ("Marshalling Forces") indicates, Congress moved forward only after bitter political wrangling and bureaucratic infighting. Key to passing the Senate version of the bill was the close relationship between Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn. As the principal staffer working on this legislation, Locher gained unique insights into the character and motives of both men. Although they came from different sides of the aisle, both had strong conservative, pro-defense credentials that helped forge an unusual partnership.

Goldwater was bold, almost reckless. Nunn was cautious, almost too careful. Goldwater made up his mind quickly. Nunn decided slowly. Goldwater relied on instinct and feel. Nunn depended on hard work and superior information. Their opposite characteristics complicated the work of opponents. Nunn could outthink you. Goldwater could outshoot you. Nunn could remain cool while Goldwater flashed his temper. Their opponents had to prepare for both Nunn's proficient jabs and Goldwater's knockout punch.

Reorganization was opposed by most members of the Joint Chiefs who served during the Carter and Reagan years (with notable exceptions like General Edward Meyer, USA), the service secretaries, and the Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger. One particularly formidable enemy of reform was the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, who upheld the time-honored traditions of service autonomy. In implementing the National Security Act of 1947, James Forrestal, who was the Secretary of the Navy and subsequently the first Secretary of Defense, contested the efforts to reign in the services and achieve unification. Lehman also sought to stymie reorganization and had good reason to be optimistic: "In fourteen years in government, Lehman had never lost a big fight. His genius for bureaucratic politics enabled his extraordinary success." With that record, he took on Nichols in the House and Goldwater and Nunn in the Senate--and to his ultimate suprise lost.