Pentagon chief seeks reforms, calls Russia ‘No. 1 strategic threat’

RT  – Seeking to make the US military more efficient and better coordinated in the face of “strategic threat” from Russia, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is looking for “practical updates” to the Pentagon’s organizational framework established in the 1970s.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, Carter said the reforms were necessary to make the US military more “agile” and able to address the five strategic challenges, which he named as“Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and terrorism.”

The current organization of the US military, from the territorial organization of Combatant Commands to the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff outside the chain of command, is a product of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, signed into law in October 1986.

While the 1986 reform was driven by the lessons of Vietnam and the botched ‘Desert One’ hostage rescue in Iran, Carter said the updates were not driven by failure.

“I am deeply proud of how our people operated in Iraq and Afghanistan over the 15 years,” he said.

The changes, proposed by the Pentagon’s Deputy Chief Management Officer Peter Levine and Joint Staff Lieutenant-General Thomas Waldhauser after a months-long review, seek to give the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) more authority to advise and coordinate between different services and commands, make the commands more efficient, and improve the acquisition process, among other things.

“Over the coming weeks, we will execute some of these decisions under our own existing authority,” said the Defense Secretary, adding that others may require legislative action.

The reforms envision expanding the authority of the CJCS to “help synchronize resources globally for daily operations around the world,”coordinating forces across the seams of combatant commands; provide military advice for current operations, not just future planning; and to advise the Secretary of Defense on military strategy and operational plans, taking into consideration possible “overlapping contingencies.”

Carter defended keeping the CJCS outside the chain of command, arguing this would ensure preserving his integrity as the principal military adviser to the civilian authorities.

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