Why do we need a Secretary of Defense when we have a Secretary over each of our Military Branches of Service?

"One Secretary to rule them all, one Secretary to find them, one Secretary to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

"In the Pentagon, where the Shadows lie."

(With apologies to J.R.R. Tolkein, but not necessarily Donald Rumsfeld)

In the profession of arms it speaks we work for the American government. This government is civilians. We advise those powers that be to do our job. Do I think we need one. Not necessarily but when we have a good one things got done.

Someone needs to be in charge to pull the branches together. It''s a matter of command structure.

To me it would be similar to asking why we should have a battalion commander since we already have commanders over each company. After all, they already lead their companies.

MAJ David Vermillion - C'mon Major. You ever see political appointees agree on a budget? Gotta have a chief to run that tribe!

It really doesn't matter if we think we need one or not. IAW the Defense Authorization Act of 1947 the Dept of War (army) and Dept of Navy are combined with a cabinet secretary over the new DoD. This also created the USAF and allowed the Marines to be a seperate branch. So it's not our call.

The Secretary of Defense like the Secretary of war many years ago was the intermediary between the POTUS and Congress for anything that involved two or more Military Services MAJ David Vermillion. The Service Secretaries routinely testify before the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and SASC for issues pertaining to their own Services. The Secretary of Defense and CJCS testify on multi-service and Joint-Service issues.

Just like we have Chiefs of Staff for each branch and a Chairman. Funnel effect to help (in theory) pull everything together.

All part of the bureaucratic fun. The SecDef is there to pull everything together from the entire DOD for the President.

The Constitution accounts for civilian control of the Military. In fact a General Officer cannot assume this cabinet position within ( I believe) 7 years of retirement from active duty. It is all part of checks and balances as a whole.

Have you read the National Security Act of 1947 - HINT, there might be a clue in there somewhere. smh