Answer: the Combatant Commanders
The operational chain of command runs directly from the President to the Secretary of Defense and then to ____.
The President of the United States is according to the Constitution the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and Chief Executive of the Federal Government. The Secretary of Defense is the "Principal Assistant to the President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense" and is vested with statutory authority (10 U.S.C. § 113) to lead the Department and all of its component agencies including military command authority second only to the President.
Structure of the United States Armed Forces - Wikipedia
Joint Chiefs of Staff - Wikipedia
Organizational structure of the United States Department ...
Organizational structure of the United States Department ...
During military operations the chain of command runs from the president to the secretary of defense to the combatant commanders of the Combatant Commands. As of 2019 …
During military operations the chain of command runs from the president to the secretary of defense to the combatant commanders of the Combatant Commands. As of 2019 the United States has eleven Combatant Commands organized either on a …
The Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of October 4 1986 Pub.L. 99–433 (signed by President Ronald Reagan) made the most sweeping changes to the United States Department of Defense since the department was established in the National Security Act of 1947 by reworking the command st...

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