CHAIN OF COMMAND FOR COMBAT FORCES

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organizations were created to oversee particular activities of central importance to the Navy. Some of these organizations were intelligence, security, telecommunications, weather, oceanography, education and training, and Naval Reserves. Although it is larger and more complex, today’s Department of the Navy still retains one aspect of the 1798 organization. That aspect is the division of the operating forces from the Shore Establishment. The division between the operating forces and the Shore Establishment became sharper through the 1949 amendment to the 1947 National Security Act. The amendment placed the operating forces of the Navy and other services into unified and specified commands. Both commands are under an operational chain of command to the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and the President. NAVY RELATIONSHIP TO THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE With the establishing of the DOD, the unified and specified combatant commands began. These commands have broad continuing missions and consist of operating forces. Unified commands consist of operating forces of two or more services or components. An example of a unified command is the Pacific Command headed by the Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC). Component commands of CINCPAC are the Navy’s Pacific Fleet (PACFLT); area Army Command (USARPAC); area Air Force Command (PACAF); and Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPAC). Specified commands consist of operating forces from only one service. An example of a specified command is the Strategic Air Command. It consists only of forces from the U.S. Air Force. CHAIN OF COMMAND FOR COMBAT FORCES The Secretary of Defense exercises two lines of control over the combatant forces of the military departments: operational and adminis- trative (fig. 1-2). The operational chain of command extends from the President to the SECDEF through the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the commanders of the unified and specified commands and then to the operating forces. The administrative chain of command extends from the President to the SECDEF to the secretaries of the individual military departments. It then extends from the military departments through their respective service channels to the operating forces. The administrative chain oversees the training, readiness, administration, and support of the operating forces. The chiefs of individual services, such as the CNO, have no direct operational authority within Figure 1-2.-Organizational relationship of the Department of the Navy to the Department of Defense. 1-3

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