Chain of Command in the Honorverse

Here we have the Prime Minister presiding over the Cabinet at the top.

Then the Minister of Defence (who is a full senior member of cabinet) presides over all military matters.

Then the Secretary (senior civilian public/civil servant) and the Chief of Defence (military usually rotated between services) have what is called a diarchy. This means equal but different with same levels of responsibility but across different aspects. Those two must get along and communicate well together.

Below that we have a plethora of positions, Head of Army, Head of Navy, Head of Air Force (all military); along with Head of Support (civilian or military).
Next are others like Land Commander, and Vice Chiefs, plus senior civilians.

A white board plot of the chain of command along with direct responsibility, responsive to lines, and a myriad of other connections could cause an aneurysm if looked at too long. Of course these are the official links not the informal ones that actually make things work.

I'd imagine that most military hierarchies are somewhat similar, just with different titles.

saber964 wrote:In the United States the SecNav is a lower ranking member of the cabinet IIRC the top members of the cabinet are SecState, SecDef, SecTres, AttGen. Also the pecking order of the service secretaries are SecArmy, SecNav and SecAF

Since that seems to be just about the only reference to a Minister of War, perhaps we should simply read that original quote from OBS as:
"They'd wanted the military ministry, and Duke Allen had been forced to buy them off by naming Sir Edward Janacek First Lord of the Admiralty, the civilian head of Honor's own service acting as the Minister of War"

This is just my impressions, understand.
Manticore has a war ministry, it exists in a strictly bureaucratic sense, there is a joint chiefs of staff esque body, but the post of minister of war is currently held by the first lord of admiralty, in fact, it would not suprise me to discover this is the standard state of affairs.
In the early years manticore had the navy, a tiny handful of marines, the planetary guards and the monarch's own.
At some point the system defense commander is made the admiral of the fleet, probably when they institued the space lords. There was that dance with the army forming, absorbing the marines, but for most of manticore's history the navy has been the only significant military service.

HungryKing wrote:This is just my impressions, understand.
Manticore has a war ministry, it exists in a strictly bureaucratic sense, there is a joint chiefs of staff esque body, but the post of minister of war is currently held by the first lord of admiralty, in fact, it would not suprise me to discover this is the standard state of affairs.
In the early years manticore had the navy, a tiny handful of marines, the planetary guards and the monarch's own.
At some point the system defense commander is made the admiral of the fleet, probably when they institued the space lords. There was that dance with the army forming, absorbing the marines, but for most of manticore's history the navy has been the only significant military service.

That's a reasonable hypothesis, but doesn't resolve the problem posed in the original post. On Basilisk Station pretty clearly states that Janacek is not the Minister of War and instead works for the Minister of War. In all later books, that is clearly not the case, and it appears that the OBS reference is in error. That is the problem people were trying to figure out.

SWM wrote:

HungryKing wrote:This is just my impressions, understand.
Manticore has a war ministry, it exists in a strictly bureaucratic sense, there is a joint chiefs of staff esque body, but the post of minister of war is currently held by the first lord of admiralty, in fact, it would not suprise me to discover this is the standard state of affairs.
In the early years manticore had the navy, a tiny handful of marines, the planetary guards and the monarch's own.
At some point the system defense commander is made the admiral of the fleet, probably when they institued the space lords. There was that dance with the army forming, absorbing the marines, but for most of manticore's history the navy has been the only significant military service.

That's a reasonable hypothesis, but doesn't resolve the problem posed in the original post. On Basilisk Station pretty clearly states that Janacek is not the Minister of War and instead works for the Minister of War. In all later books, that is clearly not the case, and it appears that the OBS reference is in error. That is the problem people were trying to figure out.

This seems to be a case for DW

Hornblower wrote:

SWM wrote: That's a reasonable hypothesis, but doesn't resolve the problem posed in the original post. On Basilisk Station pretty clearly states that Janacek is not the Minister of War and instead works for the Minister of War. In all later books, that is clearly not the case, and it appears that the OBS reference is in error. That is the problem people were trying to figure out.

This seems to be a case for DW

Who will probably apply the Foraker Defense.

Oops.

But seriously, OBS was written 21 years ago, and not even the MWW could have plotted everything at that time.

Ye Gods, we here can sometimes act like Talmudic scholars poring over every word and phrase....

Hutch wrote:Ye Gods, we here can sometimes act like Talmudic scholars poring over every word and phrase....

"Sometimes"?
You're suggesting there are times we don't do that?

Jonathan_S wrote:"Sometimes"?
You're suggesting there are times we don't do that?

We have to sleep eventually.

drothgery wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:"Sometimes"?
You're suggesting there are times we don't do that?

We have to sleep eventually.

That's why we work in shifts.

I think you are confusing two different chains of command.

1) Star Empire cabinet ministries -- loosely patterned after British Ministry organization

2) Talbot Quadrant cabinet ministries -- similar pattern but Kreitzman's War / Defense Ministry overseas all Quadrant defense because outside of 10th Fleet, the Quadrant does not have a significant naval presence.

The Quadrant's governmental organization has to be a stand-alone proposition in the Star Empire's federalized configuration, much as Canada, Australia, New Zealand India and South Africa became self-governing prior to WWI because distance made that imperative.

-- Stewart