At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing CSBA's Vice President for Studies Jim Thomas’ argued that new legislation is needed to ensure the DoD is effectively organized to address current and future security challenges.
Thomas recommended retooling the Regional Combatant Commands to beef up their warfighting focus; placing the Chairman in the chain of command and giving him directing authority over the Combatant Commands; and creating a true General Staff composed of the very best strategists and planners across the Services. Thomas opined, “Our current system is optimized for dealing with discrete military problems that can be addressed with temporally short, intense conventional operations confined to the area of responsibility of a single Regional Combatant Command. It is less suited to deal with protracted operations, unconventional warfare, and multiple threats that span the boundaries of the Unified Command Plan’s map.”