An independent U.S. Cyber Command, a longer term for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the end of the Quadrennial Defense Review were just some of the Goldwater-Nichols style organizational changes suggested in the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) chairman’s mark of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The overhauls proposed by HASC Chairman Rep. Mac. Thornberry (R-Texas) correspond with some of the same broad areas that the Pentagon focused on in its own reform effort, including the role of the joint staff and the makeup of the combatant commands. However, Thornberry’s proposals push far past the modest ones suggested by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter earlier this month.

523a2574b56bf-pentagon1Still, HASC staffers with knowledge of the chairman’s mark—which will be released to the public on Monday—said Thornberry wants to ensure Congress clearly understands the organizational problems of the department before pushing forward with more aggressive reforms (Defense Daily, April 5).

Combatant Commands

One of the biggest changes the NDAA makes to the structure of the Defense Department is to establish Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) as an independent unified command and require the department to study whether it should separate from the National Security Agency, a HASC staffer said. Currently, NSA and CYBERCOM are collocated and have the same director.

Carter previously said the Pentagon was assessing whether to make CYBERCOM separate from its parent command, U.S. Strategic Command, but no decision had been reached when he rolled out the department’s organizational reform proposals. In the past, however, the defense secretary has said he believes NSA and CYBERCOM should continue to be collocated for the time being (Defense Daily, Feb. 25).

Thornberry, a former chairman of HASC’s emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee that is charged with Defense Department-related cyber oversight, was concerned that CYBERCOM was too tied to NSA and STRATCOM, with not enough department focus on the importance of cyber as a separate domain.

“Part of the thinking is that as we move forward, let’s look at what it takes to separate it out from the intelligence side so that it’s truly warfighting focused,” the staffer said. It also makes sense to make CYBERCOM an independent command because “it is a different kind of strategic capability than a nuclear capability.”

To further cut headquarters staff, the mark requires that all service and functional component commanders be at the three-star level or below. The department will decide how it wants to implement this directive and submit a report to Congress.

“A four star brings a certain magnitude of staff with them,” the staffer said. “It will have ripple effects throughout the [combatant commands] but also through the services as well because you are now going to direct basically a reduction in number of flag officers and general officers.”

Strategy Development

Another huge change is the elimination of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) of emerging threats and department priorities that is mandated by law. Critics have charged that the QDR has been transformed from a viable strategy document to a Pentagon-wide consensus building exercise, the creation of which contributes to overhead. By killing off the review, Congress wants to send a message that the department will not be allowed to retain “standing armies” whose only job is to craft QDR documents, a staff member said.

Instead, the mark would create several new strategic documents and compel the Defense Department to turn over several existing guidance documents to Congress. It establishes an independent commission on national defense strategy: a group of seven senior statesmen who would be appointed by the congressional armed service committees to make recommendations on how to best build strategy while taking into account the current threat environment and future trends. The hope is that this commission would provide strategic guidance to the next president and build bipartisan consensus for any future changes.

The bill also calls for the establishment of a “defense strategic guidance” and the overhaul of the current national military strategy document. The defense strategic guidance will be released by the defense secretary to the force that will center on the security environment, shape and size of the force, resources and the department’s priorities. The national security strategy, which currently is very similar to the QDR and is released every four years, would be restructured to provide the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a venue to connect the department’s high-level objective with the individual plans of the services and combatant commands. It would also become a two-year strategy document.

The mark also mandates that Congress receives the department’s annual defense planning guidance, which gives instructions for programming and budget. HASC also wants to see the operational planning document developed by the Pentagon every two years to guide the operational plans and assumptions of combatant commands.

Role of the Joint Staff

The bill increases the tenure of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from two years to four years, with each term staggered with presidential elections to provide continuity as political administrations change, the HASC staffer said.

The mark also clarifies the role of the chairman, something that Carter had advocated for in his own Pentagon reform proposals. The mark codifies into law that the chairman has the ability to advise the president and the secretary on ongoing operations and to advise the secretary on allocation and transfer of forces across combatant commands.

The legislation ensures that a chairman has the ability to provide advice concerning threats that expand across multiple regions and domains, a committee staffer said. “He largely does that today, but it’s not specified [in law].”

Finally, the mark expands the number and kind of jobs that qualify for joint credit, and shortens the minimum length for joint tours from three to two years.