"Pentagon Command Shuffle Rekindles Equity Debate"

Pentagon Command Shuffle Rekindles Equity Debate. Lexington Institute.
http://lexingtoninstitute.org/1046.shtml

Pentagon Command Shuffle Rekindles Equity Debate
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Issue Brief
Jan 24, 2007

[The Joint Chiefs of Staff stated on January 23 that "Admiral
Giambastiani has absolutely no plans to retire" and serves at the
pleasure of the President. The brief acknowledges that some of the
rumors it recounts may be inaccurate; however, it is based on multiple,
credible sources, and the main thrust of the brief remains valid.]

The Pentagon is commencing one of its periodic reshuffles of senior
military personnel, giving defense secretary Robert Gates an
opportunity to review biases built into the current distribution of
senior billets. According to military insiders, Vice Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Edmund Giambastiani will retire in early
spring, and he will be succeeded by current Chief of Naval Operations
Adm. Mike Mullen. Mullen is favored for the job by deputy defense
secretary Gordon England, who needs help managing a senior working
group that he chairs. England deeply respects Mullen's grasp of
budgetary and programmatic detail, an appreciation he developed while
serving two tours as Navy secretary.

Sources also report that Mullen will be succeeded as Chief of Naval
Operations by Northern Command head Adm. Timothy Keating, while the
current Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Robert Willard, will
become head of the U.S. Pacific Command. Since Adm. Mullen's shift
into the Vice Chairman's slot is at best a lateral move (and some would
say a subtle demotion), there is speculation that the widely-liked
Mullen is actually being groomed to replace Gen. Peter Pace when he
departs as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the fall. Pace's
early departure is said to be related more to the triggering of certain
retirement benefits than his close association with the discredited
Donald Rumsfeld.

Some of these rumors may turn out to be wrong, but let's say for the
sake of argument that they come true. What's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong is that all the officers involved hail from the Department
of the Navy. Before Donald Rumsfeld became defense secretary, there
was an unspoken rule that top jobs in the joint command structure would
be distributed more or less equally among the three military
departments comprising the defense establishment. But Rumsfeld showed
up already having a disdain for the Army, and he developed a similar
dislike for the Air Force after it repeatedly rebuffed his advisors'
harebrained transformation schemes. The Navy didn't care for those
schemes any more than the Air Force did, but it had the good sense not
to push back, so it gradually became Rumsfeld's favorite service.

O.K., let's concede the point that the Navy may have a stronger
intellectual tradition than the other services. So maybe as a group
the uniform leaders of the Navy Department looked more appealing than
those of the Air Force and the Army during a time of military ferment.
But was the situation really so lopsided that Navy department alumni
should end up with the Chairmanship and Vice Chairmanship of the Joint
Chiefs and leadership of Northern Command, Southern Command, Pacific
Command, Central Command and Strategic Command -- while the Air Force
gets the lead slot on only two combatant commands? Neither of the Air
Force joint slots has a regional focus and one of them, Joint Forces
Command, looks like an orphan as Rumsfeld's transformation movement is
scaled back.

Of course, it wasn't Rumsfeld's fault that an Air Force nominee to head
the Pacific Command, Gen. Gregory Martin, ran afoul of the Senate Armed
Service Committee during his confirmation hearings. Martin would have
broken a long tradition of Navy dominance at Pacific Command, so
Rumsfeld didn't always favor the sea services. Nonetheless, there was
a discernible bias on his watch against the Army and Air Force that
remains in place today, as anyone who tries to find a senior Air Force
officer on the Joint Staff will quickly discover. Maybe, just maybe, a
lack of expertise at the highest levels of military leadership
concerning what air power, space and cyberspace can bring to the joint
war-fighting effort has something to do with where the military finds
itself today.