TAMPA, Fla. - At a time when the Army’s soldiers are doing most of the fighting and dying
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the service’s influence in key decision-making positions is waning. Of the
U.S. military’s nine combat commands, only two are run by Army generals, and that number will
be cut in half when Bryan Brown retires next month as the senior officer at U.S. Special Operations Command.
Inside the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is relying on officers from the maritime services
to be his top advisers. He picked the current chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Mullen, to replace
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Marine Gen. James Cartwright will
be Mullen’s deputy.
The lack of green-suited four-stars in top jobs is seen partly as an extension of an attitude brought to the
Pentagon six years ago by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It’s also a sign, however, of the
successful culmination of a two decade effort to promote the concept of “jointness” within the military. The
premise is that properly schooled officers should be able to lead troops regardless of service affiliation.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, former head of the Army War College who holds a Ph.D. in history
from Duke University, said he could find no prior period when the Army was so engaged overseas and so
underrepresented at top levels. “It’s absolutely extraordinary,” he said. “I just can’t believe the numbers.
It’s cultural, it’s political, and it’s deeply ingrained. I’ve never seen it to the degree it exists today.”
Besides Special Operations Command, which is located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, there are
eight other “combatant commands.” These are the structures responsible for unique wartime functions,
such as transportation, or for managing troops in a particular region of the world, such as Europe or the Middle East.
Combatant commanders have short lines of authority; they report to the defense secretary and the president.
