tion throughout the services hold true, this goal is attainable. This efficiency, though almost impossible to fully achieve, was seen during Desert Storm. During the Desert Storm campaign, General Schwarztkopf was Commander and Chief of US Central Command (USCINCCENT). His first order of business was to name component commanders. All four services were represented and all four wore three stars (Lieutenant Generals and a Vice Admiral, respectively) so that one service didn’t have to fight through ranks to be heard and/or taken seriously. Because of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, unified and specified commanders possessed the full range of authority needed to meet their responsibilities and consequently gained collective strength utilizing “unity of command.” The fact that the clear channels of communication remained open and that one theater commander (Gen. Schwartzkopf) retained confidence from the President, Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Schwartzkopf was allowed to conduct the operation with a smoothness not seen in recent conflicts. Conversely, the idea of Joint Warfare has its weaknesses. Although Joint Warfare seems almost perfect on paper, it’s realistically imperfect. Take for example, the Desert One operation to free the hostages in Iran. On paper, it looked like everything should come together despite the various forces not training together and not 100% familiar with the equipment they were to use during the mission. It seemed logical to high-ranking officials in Washington D.C. that Navy pilots should be able to fly over land and that marine pilots (which ultimately replaced most of the Navy pilots) could fly the Navy version of the H-53 without any difficulty, regardless of the mission. Unfortunately for those involved, the logic hammered-out by the high-ranking officials in the Pentagon proved to be wrong. The problem of one branch of service tak...
