This monograph examines whether or not the United States Armed Forces should be unified in order to ensure jointness. Unlike the unification compromise of 1947, this proposal eliminates the separateness of the services. The impetus for developing the monograph came from instances of apparent interservice rivalry, even after the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act in 1986. This act is supposed to significantly enhance jointness and increase the power of the commanders-in-chief of the unified and specified commands while decreasing the power of the service chiefs--the principal sources of service parochialism. The monograph's hypothesis is that perhaps Goldwater-Nichols did not go far enough; instead, perhaps the answer is to eliminate the autonomy of the separate services through unification. The significance of this monograph is that unlike DESERT STORM, future battlefields will probably require effective joint warfighting skills immediately upon deployment of the forces. The radical step of unification might be the only way to guarantee that on-call effectiveness.

ADA 240252 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)