Supporting the Warfighter of Today and Tomorrow

30 years ago, Congress passed Goldwater-Nichols in response to serious concerns about the effectiveness of our military. The failure of the Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980 and poor coordination between the services during the invasion of Grenada in 1983 were clear signs that something was wrong. Congress and others concluded that these failures were driven by a number of factors, including the absence of unity of command and an inability to operate jointly. Just 5 years after the passage of Goldwater-Nichols, America's rapid and stunning victory in the 1991 Gulf War seemed to suggest that these reforms had worked. However, more recent experience on the battlefield has led to renewed concern about the respective roles and responsibilities of the service chiefs and the combatant commanders as conceived in Goldwater-Nichols. A decade and a half of war in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that the Department of Defense is not optimally organized for protracted conflicts. Our Nation confronts the most diverse and complex array of crises since the end of World War II, from ISIL and Al Qaeda, to North Korea and Iran, to Russia and China.