ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the salient characteristics of the relationship between the political and military leadership and explains the effectiveness of the system, with an identification of both its strengths and its weaknesses. The analysis of defense processes can therefore offer a significant case study of decisionmaking theory; to a greater extent, the study of the central organization of defense affords an excellent insight into the nature of the political system as a whole. The central organization of defense should have the means to unify and coordinate a very heterogeneous force and, at the same time, cope with both the multiplicity of environmental influences and factors as well as the constraints associated with the internal characteristics of the system itself. The evolution of the central organization of defense has undergone two principal phases. The central organization of defense in France would appear to be an effective one.
