In August 1990, Iraq's brutal army invaded Kuwait, and threatened to de-stabilize the entire Persian Gulf region, the source of the industrial countries' major supply of oil to run their economies. To deter further Iraqi aggression, the United States Central Command deployed to Saudi Arabia along with Third Army, Central Command's army component command and theater army. Unlike other U.S. theater armies in Western Europe and Korea, Third Army was assigned both logistical duties in the communications zone and control of operations in the combat zone. This is interesting to note since war in the Middle East requires extensive logistical support with its scanty infrastructure as compared to the regions of Korea and Western Europe. The purpose of this monograph is to study and compare two alternatives from the perspective of the unified commander-in-chief. One alternative suggests structuring the army component into one dual purpose headquarters, a theater army headquarters, that controls both combat operations in the combat zone and logistical activities in the communications zone. The other alternative suggests forming two separate command and control headquarters, an operational headquarters to control combat operations in the combat zone and a logistical headquarters to control logistics in the communications zone. This monograph examines the writings of both classical and modern theorists regarding span of control of logistical activities in the communications zone and combat operations in the combat zone. In addition, the monograph investigates three sources of doctrine: U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and, the recently emerging, Joint doctrine. Furthermore, the monograph investigates cogent historical examples from the World Wars. The analysis reveals that the alternative calling for separation of responsibilities between logistics in the communications zone and combat operations in the combat zone better serves the unified commander-in-chief. This alternative enables the theater army to focus on logistical support in the communications zone. Likewise, the operational headquarters devotes itself to combat operations in the combat zone. Regarding this conclusion, the monograph recommends that the Army form two headquarters: a contingency theater army for logistics and a contingency field army for operations when the number of corps exceeds the CINC's span of control.

ADA 240304 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.)