An American General Staff: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

Abstract

The purpose of this monograph is to examine the adequacy of the current national military command and control structure, analyze examples of various European general staffs, and determine whether a general staff system would best suit America's future military requirements. The monograph first examines the history, of the European General Staff systems with an emphasis on the Prussian-German General Staff. The monograph then examines the effectiveness of these staffs, again with emphasis on the Prussian-German model, in the preparation for and the conduct of war. The monograph analyzes the current American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and examines the contemporary shortcomings that led to periodic revisions. The monograph determines that the Prussian- German system did a superlative job of preparing its officers for war, and when military interests were properly subordinated to political concerns, this system performed as designed. Joint staff, German general staff, Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, JCS, European staff systems, Military history, World war I/II.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 14, 1993
Accession Number
ADA274042

Entities

People

  • George W. Eisel Iv

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Command And Control
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Doctrine
  • Education
  • Governments
  • Law
  • Military History
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • Military Strategy
  • National Security
  • Students
  • United States
  • Ussr
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control