[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I don't thing inter service rivalry is the biggest problem with the U.S. military, and in some ways it is probably healthy. The split between the U.S. Army Air Force and the U.S. Army was result of experience during World War II, not theorizing and deep thinking. The general approach to training, discipline, relationships between enlisted and officers, and the culture in general is profoundly different between the AF and the Army. It would make more sense to merge the Marines and Army, and that wouldn't make any sense at all.

[xzins]

The issue is what makes sense when fighting wars.

The best answer, in my opinion, is a unified command with one chain of command. We could not call it either “army” or “air force”.

We could call it The Land Warfare Service or some other agreed upon name. We could call it the Air Force for all I care, so long as it’s one command.

[ansel12]

WWII seems to have decided everything forever, in WWII the Army ran an Air Force about 8 times larger than the current one, and had more ships than the Navy.

Today it runs a mass of aircraft, much of it an effort to replace what the Air force took away in military readiness.

WWII is also what largely took the Marines away from the Navy and turned them into another Army force.

A little fresh thinking after 70 years, is due.