Office of the Secretary of Defense
OSD is the Secretary of Defense’s principal civilian staff, responsible for policy development, resource allocation, and oversight across the whole department. Its under secretariats for research and engineering, acquisition and sustainment, policy, and the comptroller are where department-wide decisions about what gets built and what gets funded actually get made.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Civilian Leadership |
| Headquarters | The Pentagon, Arlington, VA |
Mission
Principal staff element of the Secretary of Defense for policy development, resource management, and oversight.
The controlling statutory basis is 10 U.S.C. § 131, which establishes the Office of the Secretary of Defense and names its statutory officials including the Deputy Secretary, the Under Secretaries and the Chief Information Officer, with the Assistant Secretaries of Defense created separately at 10 U.S.C. § 138; OSD is a staff that supervises under the Secretary’s authority, direction and control at 10 U.S.C. § 113(b) and holds no command, a distinction mapped at Title_10_Structure.
Key Subordinate Organizations
- USD(R&E)
- USD(A&S)
- USD(P)
- USD(C)/Comptroller
- USD(P&R)
- USD(I&S)
- CAPE
- DOT&E