Roles and Functions

Assessment of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Report Gao ID: NSIAD-93-200 July 15, 1993

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is required to review the roles and functions of the military services at least every 3 years and issue a report recommending changes needed to sustain the maximum effectiveness of the armed forces. In this review of the Chairman's February 1993 report on the roles, missions, and functions of the armed forces, GAO assesses the methodology used to prepare the report and identifies opportunities for eliminations, reductions, consolidations, and realignments beyond those cited in the report. GAO also discusses obstacles that make reductions in overlapping military capabilities hard to achieve. Although the Chairman's report cited some important opportunities for change and went beyond the first study completed in 1989, it did not recommend significant reductions in overlapping functions. Attempts to reduce unnecessary overlaps will require aggressive leadership and in-depth analysis, particularly because such efforts are likely to encounter strong opposition from the losing military service and its supporters.

GAO found that: (1) the Chairman's report did not sufficiently analyze and identify whether the services' aggregate capabilities exceed post-cold war requirements, recommend significant reductions in overlapping functions, or identify the potential for further changes involving air interdiction capabilities, peacekeeping, and disaster relief; (2) although the report's methodology and focus were limited due to a lack of adequate information and short evaluation period, most of the recommendations were sound; (3) reducing unnecessary overlaps in the military services' roles and functions will require aggressive leadership and in-depth analysis because of the services' broadly defined combat functions; and (4) additional opportunities exist to address overlapping capabilities and improve efficiency including reexamining air capability requirements, reducing intelligence operations, and developing a joint review of command, control, communications, and computer systems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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