The Joint Chiefs’ Power Surge
As a new chairman takes over, the military’s outgoing top officer has ‘transformed’ the way the Joint Chiefs influence top leaders’ decisions.
By Paul D. Shinkman
Sept. 30, 2019, at 11:37 a.m.
U.S. News & World Report
Civilians at the Pentagon who specialize in military decision-making warned earlier this spring about the optics of a plan to deploy 1,500 U.S. troops to the Middle East following intelligence assessments that Iran posed new, dangerous threats to Americans and their allies in the region.
Despite subsequent assurances from the Pentagon that the surge would serve only to protect U.S. forces in the Middle East – and did not represent some sort of buildup ahead of a preemptive attack against the Islamic Republic – members of the civilian policy staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, known as OSD, expressed deep concern that the high-profile deployment of uniformed troops at a particularly volatile time posed an unnecessary risk of escalation.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-09-30/how-joe-dunford-quietly-changed-the-joint-chiefs-role-in-preparing-for-war
