DOD: Historical Background
Congress established the War Department (1789) and the Navy Department (1798). These two departments administered the U.S. armed forces with their secretaries reporting directly to the president and were members of the president’s cabinet.
The 1947 National Security Act, created the National Military Establishment, the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Departments of the Army, Navy (and Marine Corps) and Air Force were established as cabinet-level departments, with the newly created Secretary of Defense acting as coordinator of these military departments.
Amendments to the National Security Act in 1949 established the Secretary of Defense as the principal assistant to the president in defense affairs and changed the National Military Establishment into the Department of Defense (DoD). These amendments also made the three military departments subordinate to DoD and removed their secretaries from cabinet level. Latter amendments have taken away many of the decision making prerogatives of the military departments and reassigned them to OSD and to various defense agencies.
The Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 established a new chain of command from the President and Secretary of Defense to the unified and specified commanders-in-chief, who were given full operational control over the forces assigned to them. However, the Secretary of Defense can delegate operational command over forces to the Joint Chiefs of Staff when deemed appropriate.
While there are five military services, there are seven reserve components: the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard Reserve organizations and the Army and Air National Guard. The National Guard organization are under state control during peacetime but can be called into federal service at the direction of the President.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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