The Joint Staff, managed by the director of the Joint Staff and consisting of military personnel from all the services, assists the chairman in fulfilling his duties to the president and secretary of defense, and functions as a conduit and collector of information between the chairman and the combatant commanders. The National Military Command Center (NMCC) is part of the Joint Staff operations directorate (J-3).
Although the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is considered very important and highly prestigious, neither the chairman, the vice chairman, nor the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a body has any command authority over combatant forces. The Goldwater–Nichols Act places the operational chain of command from the president to the secretary of defense directly to the commanders of the unified combatant commands.[6] However the service chiefs do have authority over personnel assignments and oversight over resources and personnel allocated to the combatant commands within their respective services (derived from the service secretaries).
The chairman may also transmit communications to the combatant commanders from the president and secretary of defense[7] as well as allocate additional funding to the combatant commanders if necessary.[8] The chairman also performs all other functions prescribed under 10 U.S.C.§ 153 or allocates those duties and responsibilities to other officers in the joint staff.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is assisted by the Joint Staff, led by the director of the Joint Staff, a three-star general or admiral. The Joint Staff is an organization composed of approximately equal numbers of officers contributed by the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force who have been assigned to assist the chairman with the unified strategic direction, operation, and integration of the combatant land, naval, air, and space forces. The National Military Command Center (NMCC) is part of the Joint Staff operations directorate (J-3).
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Act of 1942, which was signed into law on July 1, 1942. This act formalized the advisory body consisting of the senior military leaders of the Army, Navy, and later the Air Force, to assist the president and the secretary of war (later the secretary of defense) with coordinating military strategy during World War II.[9]
Before the establishment of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), military leadership was more decentralized, with the service chiefs coordinating independently. The JCS existed as a body of senior military leaders, but no single officer held the position of chairman. Instead, leadership was shared, and the group advised the president and the secretary of defense on military matters.
Fleet AdmiralWilliam D. Leahy served as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy from July 20, 1942, to March 21, 1949. In this role, he presided over meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,[10] helping to unify military strategy during World War II. Leahy's office is considered a precursor to the position of CJCS, as it began to centralize military leadership and coordination.
The position of CJCS was formally established by an August 10, 1949 amendment[11] to the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C.§ 44),[12] which restructured the U.S. military after World War II. The first individual to hold the title of Chairman was General Omar Bradley, who was appointed in 1949.
Appointment and rank
General Omar Bradley is sworn in as the 1st chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson on August 16, 1949.Admiral Michael Mullen is sworn in as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by his predecessor, General Peter Pace on October 1, 2007.
The chairman is nominated by the president for appointment from any of the regular components of the armed forces, and must be confirmed via majority vote by the Senate.[2] The chairman and vice chairman may not be members of the same armed force service branch.[13] However, the president may waive that restriction for a limited period of time in order to provide for the orderly transition of officers appointed to serve in those positions.[13] The chairman serves a single four-year term of office[2][14]at the pleasure of the president,[2] with reappointment to additional terms only possible during times of war or national emergency.[2]
Although the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Omar Bradley, was eventually awarded a fifth star, the CJCS does not receive one by right, and Bradley's award was so that his subordinate, General of the ArmyDouglas MacArthur, would not outrank him.[15][16] In the 1990s, there were proposals in Department of Defense academic circles to bestow on the chairman a five-star rank.[17][18][19]
Previously, during the presidencies of Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff position was rotated in accordance with the incumbent chairman's armed force service branch. As such, the incoming chairman would be from a different service branch. For example, in 1957, following the retirement of Admiral Arthur Radford as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Eisenhower nominated Air Force general Nathan Twining as Radford's successor. When General Twining retired, Eisenhower nominated Army general Lyman Lemnitzer to succeed Twining as chairman.[20]
In October 1962, President Kennedy appointed Army General Maxwell Taylor to succeed General Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This decision — replacing an Army general with another Army general — broke the longstanding tradition of rotating the position between the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army. Tradition would have dictated that Kennedy appoint either Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George Anderson Jr., or Commandant of the Marine Corps General David Shoup to the position. Following Maxwell's appointment, the tradition of rotating the chairmanship was discontinued.[21][22][20]
Pay
Effective January 1, 2025, according to the Monthly Rates of Basic Pay for commissioned officers, basic pay is limited to the rate of basic pay for level II of the Executive Schedule in effect during calendar year 2025, which is $18,808.20 per month for officers at pay grades O-7 through O-10.[23] This includes officers serving as chairman or vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chief of staff of the Army, chief of naval operations, chief of staff of the Air Force, commandant of the Marine Corps, chief of space operations, commandant of the Coast Guard, chief of the National Guard Bureau, or the commanders of the unified combatant commands.[23] In addition, according to 37 U.S.C.§ 414, the CJCS receives an additional $4,000 a year to cover expenses related to performing official duties.[24]
List of chairmen
Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief (historical predecessor office)
^ abPublic Law 114–328 - The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 increased the term length Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from two years to four years.
^Abrams, Jim (22 March 1991). "Higher rank not in the stars for nation's top generals". Associated Press. Bradley received his fifth star in 1950 when he became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff so he would not be outranked by MacArthur.
^Tillman, Barrett (2004). Brassey's D-Day encyclopedia: the Normandy invasion A-Z. Brassey's. p. 48. ISBN978-1-57488-760-0. Retrieved 22 February 2011. MacArthur, having been army chief of staff before World War II, was senior to everyone on the Joint Chiefs, and some observers felt that Bradley was given his fifth star in order to deal with the vainglorious field commander on an equal footing.
^Jones, Logan (February 2000). Toward the Valued Idea of Jointness: The Need for Unity of Command in U.S. Armed Forces(PDF). Defense Technical Information Center (Report). Naval War College. p. 2. ADA378445. Archived from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2011. Promoting the Chairman to the five-star rank and ceding to him operational and administrative control of all U.S. Armed Forces would enable him to provide a unifying vision...
^Owsley, Robert Clark (June 1997). Goldwater-Nichols Almost Got It Right: A Fifth Star for the Chairman(PDF) (Report). Naval War College. p. 14. ADA328220. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2011. ...Chairman's title be changed to Commander of the Armed Forces and commensurate with the title and authority he be assigned the grade of five stars.
^ abRearden, Steven L. (30 July 2012). Council of War: A History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1942-1991. Military Bookshop. ISBN978-1780398877.
^McMaster, Herbert Raymond (8 May 1998). Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. Harper Perennial. p. 22. ISBN978-0060929084.
^Perry, Mark (1 March 1989). Four-Stars: The Inside Story of The Forty-Year Battle Between The Joint Chiefs of Staff and America's Civilian Leaders. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN978-0395429235.
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