The military of the United States consists of five distinct branches: the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard. Neither the DOD

The military of the United States consists of five distinct branches: the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard. Neither the DOD nor the NSA actually belong as a subordinate of any of these individual branches. Indeed, the DOD's purpose is, in effect, to pull these disparate commands into a single point of control for civilian authority. The NSA is subordinate to the DOD as part of the DOD's directive as a component of national defense, but it is separate from the military and Obama's derived responsibility for their actions comes from his leadership as a civilian over other civilians, not from his leadership as a civilian over military personnel.