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 current chairman is General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who assumed office on 1 October 2023, having been ceremonially sworn in on 29 September.[9]
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).
Fleet AdmiralWilliam D. Leahy, USN, served as the chief of staff to the commander in chief of the Army and Navy from 20 July 1942 to 21 March 1949. He presided over meetings of what was called the Joint Chiefs of Staff,[10] and Leahy's office was the precursor to the post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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.[11] 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.[11] The chairman serves a single four-year term of office[2][12]at the pleasure of the president,[2] with reappointment to additional terms only possible during times of war or national emergency.[2]
General George S. Brown is sworn in as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Department of Defense General Counsel Martin Hoffman in the Pentagon on July 1, 1974.
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.[13][14] In the 1990s, there were proposals in Department of Defense academic circles to bestow on the chairman a five-star rank.[15][16][17]
Previously during the presidency 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. In this rotation, 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[18]
In October 1962, when President Kennedy appointed Army general Maxwell Taylor as General Lemnitzer's successor, Kennedy eventually broke the traditional rotation for the position between the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army. Kennedy replaced a chairman who was from the Army with a general who was also from the Army. At that time, Kennedy should have appointed 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 succeed General Lemnitzer as the fifth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since that, the traditional rotation was abolished.[19][20][18]
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was an Army general for three consecutive terms from 1960 to 1970: General Lemnitzer served as chairman from 1960 until 1962. Lemnitzer was replaced by Army general Maxwell Taylor, who served from 1962 until 1964. Taylor was replaced by Army general Earle Wheeler, who served from 1964 until 1970.[20][21] The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was also an Army general for three consecutive terms from 1989 to 2001: Army general Colin Powell served as chairman from 1989 until 1993 and was succeeded by Army general John Shalikashvilli, who served from 1993 until 1997. When General Shalikashvilli retired in 1997, he was also succeeded by Army general Hugh Shelton, who served from 1997 until 2001.[22]
According to the Monthly Rates of Basic Pay for commissioned officers, effective January 1, 2023, basic pay is limited to the rate of basic pay for level II of the Executive Schedule in effect during calendar year 2023, which is $17,675.10 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]
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.
^ abPerry, 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.
^McMaster, Herbert Raymond (9 May 1998). Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. Harper Perennial. ISBN978-0060929084.
^Perry, Mark (24 October 2017). The Pentagon's Wars: The Military's Undeclared War Against America's Presidents. Basic Books. ISBN978-0465079711.
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