Republicans in Congress ensured the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in the face of opposition from the president.

In today’s partisan debate over whether to implement major reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans would do well to remember the precedent of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the Department of Defense. These streamlined military command and control strengthened the advisory role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as the regional commanders at places like Central Command, and paved the way for much greater collaboration between the military services.

Then, as now, a powerful Republican president and much of his administration took proposed reforms as an affront to their track record and a challenge to their power. But then, as now, change made sense. It ultimately served the administration and the relevant government department. Republicans in Congress should think about the issue less in terms of partisan politics and more as a proper exertion of independent action by the legislative branch of government, as specified in Article I of the US Constitution.

By the mid-1980s, defense officials and military leaders in the Reagan administration were beginning to feel confident about the overall direction of the American armed forces—and rightly so. Big boosts in budgets were starting to pay off. Recruiting and retention of personnel were strong. Training standards were up; accident rates were down. Equipment was being modernized and more effectively maintained. Soon, with Mikhail Gorbachev in power in Moscow, the Cold War would begin to wind down on terms highly favorable to the Western world.

But beneath the surface, not all was well, as key experts on the American military clearly understood. The Vietnam War, a colossal failure, revealed deep flaws in how military advice was provided to, and received by, civilian leadership. The failed Iran hostage rescue mission of 1980 demonstrated how poorly the different military services worked together in some types of operations. The tragic 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon was a case study in confused leadership, rules of engagement, and command and control. 

That same fall, the invasion of Grenada went much better, but, infamously, required members of different military services on the island to communicate by pay phones because their radios could not communicate with one another.  Even if military units of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force were becoming better trained and equipped, what guarantee of future success could that provide if they could not work together under a sound strategy and crisp, efficient command?

White House officials understood some of these problems but did not favor major reforms. Civilians such as Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of the Navy John Lehman prioritized ongoing budget and force buildups and sought to avoid distractions from that important agenda. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, such as Chairman John Vessey and Marine Corps Commandant PX Kelley, did not want to sacrifice the traditions and prerogatives of the (often competitive) individual military services. The White House sought to politically champion President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup, rather than open a new debate about major problems within the Department of Defense that could jeopardize the case for a larger defense budget.

Others felt differently. Retired Joint Chiefs Chairman David Jones and retired Army Chief General Edward “Shy” Meyer had witnessed firsthand the debacles of recent years and knew the US military could do better, and said so publicly. Brilliant Hill staff, including Jim Locher, Arch Barrett, and Arnie Punaro, had worked hard not only to understand the problems at the DOD but also to develop concrete solutions and elicit support among experts. A young Sam Nunn, a Democrat from Georgia, and an experienced Bill Nichols, a Democrat from Alabama, did much to galvanize support in the Senate and the House, respectively.

But arguably the greatest hero was soon-to-retire Barry Goldwater, a Republican senator from Arizona. Goldwater, of course, was a stalwart conservative who had previously been the GOP’s standard-bearer in the 1964 presidential election, which he lost to Lyndon Johnson, but then remained in public service through all the national security setbacks noted above (and then some, like the ill-fated and badly coordinated Mayaguez incident in Southeast Asia in 1975). He knew we could do better by our men and women in uniform and decided to conclude his career by giving his all to military reform, regardless of what his fellow Republicans in the executive branch, as well as most top military leadership, thought of the idea.

As brilliantly recounted in books by James Kitfield and Jim Locher, Goldwater and his Democratic as well as Republican allies then used persuasion, cajoling, and the fierce tactics of bureaucratic warfare to fashion a major proposal for military reform, obtain majority support in both houses, and attach it to the annual defense budget authorization bill to lower the chances of presidential veto.

We now regard Goldwater-Nichols as a central element of 1980s defense policy that solidified Reagan’s national security legacy and helped win the Cold War. Goldwater did Reagan and the nation a significant favor despite ardent executive-branch opposition at the time.

About the Author: Michael O’Hanlon

Michael O’Hanlon is the inaugural holder of the Philip H. Knight chair in Defense and Strategy and director of research in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in US defense strategy and budgets, the use of military force, and American national security policy. He is a senior fellow and directs the Strobe Talbott Center on Security, Strategy, and Technology. He also co-directs the Africa Security Initiative. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and Columbia University and served on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board from 2021 to 2025; he was also a member of the Central Intelligence Agency’s external advisory board from 2011 to 2012. His latest book, timed to coincide with the nation’s 250th birthday, is To Dare Mighty Things: US Defense Strategy Since the Revolution (Yale Press, 2026).

The post Why the Goldwater-Nichols Act Matters appeared first on The National Interest.