Early in the morning of 25 October 1983, Operation URGENT FURY began with assaults on airstrips at Point Salines and Pearls on the tiny island nation of Grenada. Over the next nine days US troops would rescue American citizens, restore a popular native government, and eliminate a perceived threat to the stability of the Caribbean and American strategic interests there. Memories of the Iranian hostage crisis and the aborted rescue attempt at Desert One were fresh. Anxious to avoid a similar experience, policymakers mounted URGENT FURY in haste in response to a threat to American medical students on Grenada. The operation succeeded, but flaws in its execution revealed weaknesses in joint operations. Together with the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that same month, the experience of Operation URGENT FURY added impetus to efforts to reform the joint system which were already under way. Since 1979, when Maurice Bishop took power in Grenada, concern in the US State Department had grown as the country moved closer to Cuba and the Soviet Union. In late 1983 events in Grenada led to President Reagan's decision to conduct a military operation there. Cuba had built a runway on Grenada suitable for aircraft capable of interdicting US air and sea routes to Europe and the Middle East. Bishop's overthrow in October by militantly anti-US Marxists appeared to pose an immediate threat to the nearly six hundred American students and four hundred other foreigners living in Grenada. The success of Operation URGENT FURY was marred by the consequences of inadequate time for planning, lack of tactical intelligence, and problems with joint command and control. Despite faults in execution, Operation URGENT FURY accomplished all of its objectives. The eight thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines rescued nearly 600 Americans and 120 foreigners, restored popular government to Grenada, and eliminated the potential strategic threat to US lines of communication in the area. URGENT FURY reinforced awareness of weaknesses in the joint system and helped prod Congress to undertake the fundamental reforms embodied in the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986. Written several years after the end of Operation URGENT FURY, this study focuses specifically on the involvement of the Chairman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Joint Staff in planning and directing operations in Grenada in 1983. The monograph begins with a discussion of contingency planning for noncombatant evacuation which started after the 12 October 1983 coup that removed Grenada's Marxist leader, Maurice Bishop, and ends with the conclusion of the combat phase of URGENT FURY on 2 November 1983. The author, Dr. Ronald H. Cole, relied primarily on Joint Staff files and interviews as sources of information.

This is a reissue of a study first published in 1995. Written shortly after the completion of Operation JUST CAUSE, this monograph traces the involvement of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff in planning and directing combat operations in Panama. The study begins with the initial development of contingency plans in February l988 and concludes with General Manuel Noriega's surrender to U.S. officials on 3 January l990. Relying primarily upon Joint Staff files and interviews with key participants, the author, Dr. Ronald Cole, provides an account of the parts played by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, and the Commander in Chief of U.S. Southern Command in planning for operations in Panama and their roles in the combat operations that followed.

In the summer and fall of 1989, while American attention focused on events in Eastern Europe which heralded the end of the Cold War, developments in Panama raised the possibility of combat much closer to home. Operations in Panama would test the changes to the U.S. military command system brought about by the Goldwater- Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Panama would also try the team at the head of that system-President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney, and the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), General Colin L. Powell, U.S. Army. Strengthened by personal relationships formed during earlier administrations, this team would, in a large measure, determine the operational success of the Goldwater-Nichols reforms. Widely viewed as the most significant defense legislation since the National Security Act of 1947, Goldwater-Nichols sought to streamline the command and control of U.S. military forces engaged in contingency operations. In 1988, as relations with Panama deteriorated, the commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), General Frederick F. Woerner, Jr., U.S. Army, had developed a strategy which gradually increased the strength of U.S. forces in Panama to deter the dictator, General Manuel Noriega, from attacking U.S. citizens or interfering with the Panama Canal. If deterrence failed, Woerner planned to bring in additional forces from the United States over a three-week period before taking action against Noriega. But after Noriega overturned the results of the Panamanian election of May l989, President Bush lost patience with General Woerner's approach and replaced him with General Maxwell R. Thurman, U.S. Army. Aggressive by nature, Thurman modified the BLUE SPOON plan to accommodate a major shift in the strategy for dealing with Noriega. Accelerating the buildup of U.S. forces in Panama, Thurman also shortened the timetable for the deployment of additional forces from the U.S. to three days. Hoping to take Noriega by surprise, General Thurman intended to overwhelm the dictator's forces before they could organize effective resistance or take U.S. citizens hostage. Thurman took advantage of the CINC's power under Goldwater-Nichols to select Lieutenant General Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, the Commander of the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, to command a joint task force of 22,000 soldiers, 3,400 airmen, 900 Marines, and 700 sailors. General Powell approved Thurman's action. The result was a force with unity of command and good interoperability which would rapidly achieve its operational objectives. In late l989 relations with Panama grew sharply worse. On 15 December l989, the National Assembly passed a resolution that a state of war existed with the United States, and Noriega named himself the Maximum Leader. Violence followed the next evening when a Panamanian soldier shot three American officers; one, First Lieutenant Robert Paz, U.S. Marine Corps, died of his wounds. Witnesses to the incident, a U.S. naval officer and his wife, were assaulted by Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) soldiers while in police custody. In the early hours of 20 December, conventional task forces seized additional key points and the land approaches to Panama City. The operational success of JUST CAUSE rewarded efforts by Congress and the Bush administration to avoid repeating the mistakes of Lebanon and Grenada. The determination of President Bush and the enhanced authority of the Chairman and CINC combined to provide specific, readily attainable objectives and responsive and effective command and control while giving the tactical commander considerable operational freedom. However, when shortcomings in prior planning and mistakes by local commanders embarrassed the administration, General Powell acted to ensure the political success of the operation.