Civilian Control, Good Advice, and Service Mangement

What are the effects of the Goldwater-Nichols
Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 on
U.S. civil-military relations? In a before and after
case study comparison, change in civil-military
relations as a result of the Goldwater-Nichols
legislation will be analyzed in three issue areas,
a) resource allocation, b) operations, and c)
personnel policy.

The results of the analysis show that there were
observable improvements in the three measures of
civil-military relations with the enactment of the
legislation. The enhancement of civil-military
relations was mitigated, however, by a number of
factors and was highly dependent on the type of
issue through which civilians and the military
interacted (whether personnel, operations or
resource allocation). The research was able to
isolate civil-military relations by issue type to
determine independent effects of the GNA legislation.

Autorentext
Kristina Handy received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2005. She is currently a Senior Scientist at Human Resources Research Organization in Alexandria, Virgina.