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A military staff, often referred to as General Staff, Army Staff, Navy Staff or Air Staff within the individual services, is a group of officers and enlisted personnel that provides a bi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer and subordinate military units. A staff also provides an executive function which filters information needed by the commander, or shunts unnecessary information to a more appropriate tasker, handling the matter which would be an unnecessary distraction for the Commanding Officer at a more appropriate level.
In a generic command staff, more seasoned and senior officers oversee staff sections of groups organized by the needs of the unit, Senior Enlisted Personnel task personnel in the maintenance of tactical equipment and vehicles. Senior Analysts are tasked with the finalizing of reports, and enlisted personnel participate in the acquisition of information from subordinate staffs and units. This hierarchy places decision making and reporting under the auspices of the most experienced personal and maximizes information flow into and pertinent information sent out of the command overall clarifying matters overall, and freeing up the most senior members of the command at each level for decision making and direction of further research or information gathering, perhaps requiring men to put their lives at risk to gather additional intelligence.
The general purpose of a military staff is mainly that of providing accurate, timely information (including contingency planning) on which command decisions are based. The key application is that of being able to suggest and make well informed decisions that effectively conserve and manage unit resources. While information flow toward the commander is a priority, information that is useful or contingent in nature is communicated to lower staffs and units or redirected to the command level which can best utilize the condition or information.
Operations staff officers also are tasked with battle planning both for offensive and defensive conditions, and of issuing contingency plans for such future situations such as might be anticipated during a foreseeable future.
| “ | For example, the Japanese Imperial Staff had a contingency plan in place for an invasion of their island fortresses on their Mariana Islands protectorate, and that plan, appropriately updated to current available force levels, lead directly to the decisive defeat of Japanese combined land-sea air forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea during the Mariana Islands campaign of WW-II. Their contingency planning was actually pretty good, but the U.S. contingency planning had anticipated both the movement of land based air craft around the Japanese base assets, but also the likely strength and approach timing of it's fleet elements and had prepared to mousetrap each element, then did so. By the time the Imperial Japanese Sea forces could achieve a tactical position, U.S. carriers had decimated the Japanese land based air— effectively eliminating the land based air power the Japanese Staff assumed would support their Sea forces and be in place to watch their backs.[1] |
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Prior to the late 18th century, there was generally no organizational support for staff functions such as military intelligence, logistics, planning or personnel. Unit commanders handled such functions for their units, with informal help from subordinates who were usually not trained for or assigned to a specific task.
The first modern use of a General Staff was in the French Revolutionary Wars, when General Louis Alexandre Berthier was assigned as Chief of Staff to the French Army of Italy in 1795. Berthier was able to establish a well organized staff support team. Napoleon Bonaparte took over the army the following year and rapidly came to appreciate Berthier's system, adopting it for his own headquarters, although Napoleon's usage was limited to his own command group.
Prussia also adopted a similar system in the following years. Initially, the Prussian Army assigned a limited number of technical expert officers to support field commanders. Before 1746, however, reforms had added management of intelligence and contingency planning to the staff's duties. Later, the practice was initiated of rotating officers from command to staff assignments and back to familiarize them with both aspects of military operations, a practice that, with the addition of enlisted personnel, continues to be used.
After 1806, Prussia's military academies trained mid-level officers in specialist staff skills. In 1814, Prussia formally established by law a central military command General Staff and a separate General Staff for each division and corps.
Despite some professional and political issues with the Prussian system, their General Staff concept has been adopted by many large armies in existence today.
An exception to this is the U.S. military. While the U.S. armed forces have adopted the staff organizational structure described below, the General Staff concept has been largely rejected. This is partly due to U.S. concern that the professional members of General Staffs have historically demonstrated a tendency to lose touch with the operational forces they direct, and have occasionally come regard their judgements as equal to, if not superior to, the civilian governments they nominally serve. The German General Staffs of both World Wars serve as examples of the down-side of the General Staff concept in implementation. The National Security Act of 1947 instead created a Joint Staff populated by military service members who, rather than becoming career staff officers on the German General Staff model, rotate into (and back out of) Joint Staff positions. Following the major revision of Title 10 of the United States Code by the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986, the Joint Staff of today works directly for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than the corporate Joint Chiefs of Staff, as they did from 1947-1986. Under this scheme, operational command and control of military forces are not the province of the Joint Staff, but that of Combatant Commanders, who report through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff unless otherwise directed, to the Secretary of Defense.
Most NATO countries have adopted the continental staff system (also known as the general staff system) in structuring their militaries' staff functions. In this system, which is based on one originally employed by the French Army in the 19th century, each staff position in a headquarters or unit is assigned a letter-prefix corresponding to the formation's element and one or more numbers specifying a role.
The staff numbers are assigned according to custom not hierarchy, traceable back to French practice; i.e., 1 is not "higher ranking" than 2. This list reflects the SHAPE structure[2]:
Since the original continental staff system only covered branches 1 through 6, it is not uncommon to see 7 though 9 omitted or having various meanings.[4] Common variation include merging of 3 and 5 to 3, Operations and Plans; omitting the training branch and utilizing 7 for engineering (as seen in US Military Sealift Command[5] and Multinational Forces-Iraq (MNF-I)[6]) and replacing 9 with a legal-branch (making CIMIC a part of another branch, i.e. 2 or 4) as seen with the UK Permanent Joint Headquarters.[7]
Derived from the Prussian Grosse Generalstab (Great General Staff), traditionally these staff functions were prefixed by the simple "G", which is retained in place for modern army usage. But the increasing complexity of modern armies, not to speak of the spread of the "Staff" concept to naval and other elements, has demanded the addition of new prefixes. These element prefixes are:
On some occasions the letter E can also be observed, though it is not an official term. In that case it is for element and it will be used to identify a small independent element, that is a part of a non-staff organization, i.e. an E3 is a operational element on a logistics site or a E4 is a logistics element on a forward medical support site.
Thus, the personnel officer of a naval headquarters would be referred to as N1. In reality, in large organizations each of these staff functions will require the support of its own large staff, so N1 refers both to the office and the officer in charge of it. The continental staff system can be carried down to the next level: J1.3 (or J13—sometimes the dot-separator is omitted) is thus the operations officer of the personnel office of a joint headquarters, but the exact definition of the roles at this level may vary. Below this, numbers can be attached following a hyphen, but these are usually only positional numbers assigned arbitrarily to identify individuals (G2.3-2 could be the budget officer in the operations section of the intelligence department; A1.1-1-1 might simply be a receptionist).
The personnel and administration officer supervises personnel and administration systems. This department functions as the essential administrative liaison between the subordinate units and the headquarters, handling personnel actions coming from the bottom up (such as a request for an award be given to a particular soldier) or from the top down (such as orders being received from the army level directing a particular soldier be reassigned to a new unit outside the command). In army units, this person is often called the Adjutant. S1 also works with the postal mailing office.
The intelligence section is responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence information about the enemy to determine what the enemy is doing, or might do, to prevent the accomplishment of the unit's mission. This office may also control maps and geographical information systems and data. At the unit level, the S2 is the unit's security officer, and the S2 section manages all security clearance issues for the unit's personnel.
The operations office, which may include plans and training. The operations office plans and coordinates operations, and all things necessary to enable the formation to operate and accomplish its mission. In most units, the operations office is the largest of the staff sections and considered the most important. All aspects of sustaining the unit's operations, planning future operations, and additionally planning and executing all unit training, fall under the responsibility of operations. The operations office is also tasked with keeping track of the weekly training schedules. In most military units (i.e. battalion, regiment, and brigade), the operations officer carries the same rank as the executive officer (XO), but would obviously rank third in the unit's chain of command.
The logistics office is responsible for managing logistical support and providing all manner of supplies and services such as ammunition, fuel, food, water, maintenance, materials, engineering, and transportation.
In U.S. military staff structure, all medical equipment, consumables, support equipment and vehicles, i.e., tents, ambulances, etc., are included in the Logistics office. All medical personnel are members of the Logistics team. The senior medical officer and/or senior medical enlisted member also report directly to the commanding officer. In other words, the medical support required by a unit is considered to be a logistics "function" and all that it takes to perform that functions are considered logistics "assets."
The plans office, responsible for military affairs or strategy. It is their job to ensure that all layouts and markers go according to schedule.
The communications office directs all communications and is the point of contact for the issue of communications instructions and protocol during operations as well as for communications troubleshooting, issue, and preventative maintenance. Communications at this level is paired with digital as well as voice (radio, computer, etc.). At the unit level, S6 is also usually responsible for all electronic systems within a unit to include computers, faxes, copy machines, and phone systems.
The training branch will organize and coordinate training activity conducted by a Headquarters and also supervise and support subordinate units.
The finance branch, not to be confused with Administration from which it has split, sets the finance policy for the operation. Operationally, the Administration and Finance may be interlinked, but have separate reporting chains.
Civil Military Co-operation or Civil Affairs are the activities that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between the military forces, the government or non-government civilian organisations and authorities, and the civilian populace in a friendly, neutral, or hostile area of operations in order to facilitate military operations and consolidate and achieve mission objectives. See Army FM 41-10.
Up until relatively recently the UK operated its own system, with three branches:
Positions were labelled as follows:
The positions may also be styled GSO I, GSO II, GSO III.
"The British did have staff officers as far back as the Crimean War working in these three cells but staff work was looked at with great disdain in the British Army and only became acceptable after the terrible hardships of the Crimean war, brought on by disorganization"[10] The General Staff in Britain was formed in 1905, and reoganized again in 1908.
Unlike the Prussian staff system, the British Army was thought too small to support separate staff and command career streams. Officers would typically alternate between staff and command.[11] Beevor, Inside the British Army, says instead that the terrible cleavages between staff and line units caused by the enormous losses during First World War trench warfare meant that British senior officers decided that from thenceforth all officers would rotate between staff and line responsibilities, preventing the development of a separate general staff corps.
In the British system, "staff" is outranked by "command" officers. The staff cannot in theory (and largely in practice) say "no" to a subordinate unit; only the Commander has that ability. In the British system the principal staff officers at any HQ were always outranked by the subordinate commanders, unlike in the US system:
This ensured a clear chain of command, and reinforced the idea that staff do not command, but exercise control on behalf of their commander.
By contrast, in the American system, commanders are frequently outranked by staff officers. For example, within a battalion the S3 is a major while company commanders are captains.
G branch (operations) plans and executes operations. The senior staff officer in Brigade HQ was a Brigade Major (BM, rank Major) who coordinated the HQ. While the BM was responsible for the entire HQ, he concetrated mainly on "G" operational matters. A deputy BM GSO III generally looked after non-operational matters. Under the BM were several GSO III (rank captain) officers:
A branch handled all personnel matters: awards, postings, promotions, medical, chaplains, military police and so forth. There were usually one or two GSO III officers in A branch.
Q Branch handled logistics, supply, transport, clothing, maintenance. There was usually one GSO III officer, with a learner Captain or Lieutenant, and several advisors, all Captains:
A and Q branches might be combined a DAA&QMG (Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General, rank Major).[11]
G Branch was under the Colonel GS (a Lieutenant-Colonel).
The A and Q staff were headed by a Colonel AQ was head of the combined "A" and "Q" staffs, and assisted by an AA&QMG (Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General, rank Lieutenant Colonel).
Members of the G staff:
G branch was headed by the Brigadier General Staff (BGS, rank Brigadier). The BGS was usually superior to the AAG and AQMG, despite all three being ranked the same.
A branch was headed by Assistant Adjutant General (AAG, rank Brigadier). He was assisted by the Deputy Assistant Adjutant General (DAAG, rank Lieutenant Colonel).
Q branch was headed by the Assistant Quartermaster General (AQMG rank Brigadier).
The G staff for a corps might appear as below: