A Confusing Mess, The DoD in the post T2K period

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) consists of the Chairman, Vice Chairman, and the military chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. All are four-star officers (general or admiral).

The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1968, reduced the role of the members of the JCS, but increased the authority of the Chairman as the senior U.S. military officer. The Chairman of the JCS became the principal military adviser to the president and the Secretary of Defense heads the Joint Staff. Significantly, under the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Chairman of the JCS is in the chain of command between the President and the Secretary of Defense and the unified commanders.
The Joint Staff consists of seven directorates that perform military staff functions for the Joint Chiefs and to some extent, for the unified commands. These are:

1) J-1 Manpower and Personnel
2) J-2 Intelligence
3) J-3 Operations
4) J-4 Logistics
5) J-5 Strategic Plans and Policy
6) J-6 Command, Control, Communications, and Computer Systems
7) J-7 Operational Plans and Interoperability
8) J-8 Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment

The directors of the JCS staff directorates are three-star officers (lieutenant general and vice admirals). Their staffs are comprised mostly of military officers from all services. There are approximately 1,200 military personal and 185 civilians assigned to the Joint Staff.

The J-2 does not have a major staff as the other directorates, rather, the DoD/JCS intelligence function is carried out by the DIA.

Unlike the Former Soviet General Staff and the senior military staffs of other nations, the officers assigned to the Joint Staff are not professional staff officers, but are assigned for 2-3 year assignments from their service, often without any prior staff experience or education.

Historical
At their meeting in Washington D.C. during December 1941-January 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to create the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff. The British component already existed as the Chiefs of Staff Committee; there was no comparable U.S. body of senior military officers.

Lacking any specific executive action of congressional legislation, the senior U.S. military officers met as a bod for the first time with their British counterparts on 23 January 1942, to organize the Combined Chiefs of Staff. At the time, the term “Joint Chiefs of Staff” was used for the Americans, although some members were not the chiefs of their services. Initially, the JCS consisted of the Chief of Naval Operations; Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet; Army Chief of Staff; and Chief of the Army Air Forces. The position of Chief of Naval Operations was combined with that of Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet in March 1942, giving the JCS three members. In July 1942, retried Admiral William D. Leahy was recalled to active duty as the Chief of Staff to the President and became the de facto Chairman of the JCS. The JCS membership remained with these four men for the remainder of the war.

The JCS served as both the U.S. component of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the executive body for the direction of U.S. military forces during the war.

The JCS was formally established by the National Security Act of 1947, but the position of chairman was not authorized until the 1949 amendments. At this point, the position of chairman rotated in no specific order between the Army, Navy and Air Force. Some of the chairmen were former chiefs of their branch of service.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps, initially only attended JCS meeting only when specifically invited to discuss Marine issues and had no formal vote. In 1952, the Commandant was authorized to sit with the JCS and to vote on those issues of direct interest to the Marine Corps, in 1979, the Commandant was finally made a full member of the JCS.

The position of Vice Chairman was established in 1987 by the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Previously, this position was filled by the members of the JCS by rotation. Upon the formal creation of the position in 1987, the Vice Chairman became the stand-in for the Chairman as well as chairing the powerful Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), which controls the acquisition of weapon systems for the military services.