Principles for Organization of Joint and Combined Staffs

<p>Current U.S. military doctrine for organization of joint and combined staffs evolved from World War II. This paper examines military history and the modern business world to derive principles for organization of today's joint and combined staffs add then compares those principles with the current doctrine. Following a cursory review of military staff functions and staff evolution selected Allied Joint and Combined Staffs of World War II are analyzed in detail to identify the significant factors that contributed to their success. An overriding allied concern during the war was unity of effort. Both American and British leaders strongly emphasized unity and structured and restructured their military organizations to maximize their combined efforts. This paper lists the major factors the allies considered in striving for their unity of effort. The modern business community is faced with many problems similar to those of large joint and/or combined military headquarters and are therefore a good source of managerial and organizational ideas applicable to the military. Organizational lessons learned from the most successful corporations are extracted for subsequent comparison with those from military history. The product of the comparison is six principles fro organization of joint and/or combined staffs. The paper concludes with a discussion of current joint doctrine juxtaposed with the six derived principles for staff organization. While today's doctrine is basically sound it fails to adequately address several of the principles established in this paper. Recommendations for modifications of existing doctrine are provided to correct the shortcomings.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>