Defense, Department of

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DEFENSE, DEPARTMENT OF

DEFENSE, DEPARTMENT OF (DOD), established by the National Security Act (1947), was initially named the National Military Establishment (NME). Including cabinet departments of the army, navy, and air force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and several other defense agencies, the NME replaced the War and Navy departments. President Harry S. Truman, understanding the need for interservice coordination and the security threats posed by the Soviet Union, had urged creation of the new national security system, which included the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.

James V. Forrestal, the first secretary of defense (1947–1949), had a difficult task—molding a workable organization, dealing with squabbling among the services over roles and missions, and developing a viable defense budget. In addition, he had to deal with the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade and airlift, and the Sinai War between Arabs and Israelis. Creation of the Marshall Plan (1948) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, 1949) also challenged the DOD. In 1949, based on Forrestal's proposals, the NME became the Department of Defense; the army, navy, and air force became departments without cabinet status; and the secretary of defense's control over these departments was broadened.

Forrestal's successor, Louis A. Johnson (1949–1950), took some of the blame for initial U.S. military reverses in the Korean War, which began in June 1950. He also had trouble with the services over roles and missions and military funding. In September 1950, General George C. Marshall replaced him as secretary. By this time, the United States had begun to carry out NSC-68, a document emphasizing Soviet aggressiveness and urging increased production of atomic weapons, enlargement of the military budget, expansion of the services, and broadened military and economic assistance to allies. War costs caused the defense budget to increase from $13.5 billion to $48 billion for the fiscal year (which then began in July) 1951. Marshall supported Truman's 1951 decision to dismiss General Douglas MacArthur, the Far East commander who challenged the president's policy against expanding the Korean military action into Communist China. His successor, Robert A. Lovett (1951–1953), carried on his policies.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) gave personal attention to defense, and three men served as secretary of defense under him—Charles E. Wilson (1953–1957), Neil H. McElroy (1957–1959), and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. (1959–1961). Eisenhower's New Look policy assumed that any major war would be nuclear, with weapons to be delivered by strategic air forces (massive retaliation), expanded continental defense, modernization of reserve units, and thereby smaller conventional forces. This approach, Eisenhower believed, would make possible defense budget cuts. Secretary Wilson carried out this policy in the face of severe criticism from within the army and the public. To some observers, the New Look ruled out limited or nonnuclear war. McElroy and Gates promoted deployment in Europe of intermediate-range ballistic missiles to offset the intercontinental-range missiles (ICBMs) deployed by the Soviet Union. The United States began development of the Minuteman ICBM in under-ground silos in the United States as a deterrent and for use after an attack. Charges against Eisenhower that the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in missile development played a role in the 1960 presidential campaign but turned out to be unfounded.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Robert S. McNamara, president of the Ford Motor Company and an advocate of systems analysis in defense decision making, as secretary of defense in 1961. McNamara's civilian "whiz kids" played an important role in his controversial decisions on weapon systems by which he cancelled the B-70 bomber but carried forward the F-111 aircraft. McNamara supported Kennedy's flexible response policy, including maintaining strategic arms to deter nuclear attacks against the United States. Kennedy disavowed massive retaliation, which he thought narrowed U.S. choices to "inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation." Conventional forces again became important, and this, along with the military buildup necessitated by involvement in Vietnam after 1964, led to a significant force expansion. McNamara's relations with the services gradually deteriorated, both because of this effort to centralize authority in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and decisions the services considered detrimental to their interests. In addition to two crises involving Cuba—the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) and the missile crisis (1962)—there was the war in Vietnam, McNamara's biggest problem. The secretary supported President Lyndon B. Johnson's increased military personnel in Vietnam (from 17,000 in 1963 to 550,000 in 1968). Gradually, however, McNamara changed his mind, as the dollar and human cost of the conflict rose. When he and his department became targets of a massive antiwar movement, the disillusioned secretary resigned in February 1968. His successor, Clark M. Clifford (1968–1969), persuaded Johnson to halt troop increases and stop the bombing in North Vietnam. By the time Johnson left office in January 1969, the United States had begun to negotiate with North Vietnam.

Melvin R. Laird (1969–1973), President Richard M. Nixon's first secretary of defense, developed the policy of Vietnamization, shifting the military burden to South Vietnam. U.S. forces in Vietnam declined from a peak of 543,400 under Johnson to 24,200 at the end of 1972. Secret negotiations by Nixon and Henry Kissinger led to a belated settlement of the Vietnam War in January 1973. In September 1971, Laird also ended the controversial military draft. He retired in January 1973. His successor, Elliot L. Richardson, served only four months before becoming attorney general. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger (1973–1975) believed it necessary to maintain a strategic nuclear capacity essentially equivalent to that of the Soviet Union. He adopted a partial counterforce policy—attack only military targets and avoid cities in the hope that the Soviet Union would follow suit. Schlesinger vociferously argued for larger defense budgets, and President Gerald R. Ford disagreed and dismissed him in late 1975, but his successor, Donald H. Rumsfeld (1975–1977, and again for President George W. Bush, 2001–), continued Schlesinger's policies, including advocacy of increased budgets.

The Democrats, the party of President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), argued for decreased defense spending, and Carter did cut the defense budget for fiscal year 1978. Heavy criticism from Republicans, combined with crises in Afghanistan (the Soviet invasion in 1979) and Iran (the fall of the shah and the taking of American hostages in 1979), caused Carter to begin a defense buildup. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown (1977–1981) pursued a policy of essential equivalence in nuclear capacity with the Soviet Union. He worked to upgrade the strategic triad of long-range bombers, ICBMs, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). He pushed members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to increase defense spending and emphasized arms control, which moved ahead with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty of 1979 (SALT II).

Under President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger (1981–1987), the DOD's budget increased to $300 billion, strengthening the U.S. strategic position, which Reagan believed had fallen behind the Soviet Union. Strategic bomber modernization (B-1B bombers), production of the MX ICBM, and development of a new SLBM (Trident II) and a stealth (radar-evading) aircraft were central to Reagan's defense program. Weinberger obtained large budget increases, but gradually Congress became less willing to approve increases. Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci (1987–1989) was less pressing on the budget but carried on the Reagan policies. The president used force to achieve U.S. objectives—he expelled a Marxist dictator from Grenada (1983) and arranged for the bombing of Libya (1986), suspected of international terrorism. He also warmed to arms control, however, agreeing to the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union and talks on limiting longer-range weapons.

Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, and his secretary of defense, Richard B. Cheney (1989–1993), also used force. The United States invaded Panama in 1989 to oust a leader hostile to the United States, and after Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, invaded neighboring Kuwait in August 1990, Bush sent 500,000 troops to Saudi Arabia. In the Gulf War of 1991, the United States and its United Nations allies drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Meanwhile, pressure increased to cut defense spending, stimulated in part by a serious national budget deficit, the end of the Cold War, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Bush and his successor, President Bill Clinton, had to devise a new policy to respond to the collapse of the nation's main adversary. The DOD decided to close many military bases, slow or cancel production of some weapon systems, and reduce troops stationed overseas, especially in Europe. The military services began to decline from a total of more than two million service personnel in the 1980s to a stated goal of about 1.4 million in the late 1990s. President Clinton pledged a military force large enough to protect the nation's interests. He and Secretaries of Defense Les Aspin (1993–1994), William J. Perry (1994–1997), and William S. Cohen (1997–2001) proceeded with a process of downsizing the military services and their budgets. By 2001, the active duty forces of the U.S. had been reduced to 1.37 million, with 1.28 million ready on stand-by reserve, and about 670,000 civilian employees.

Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense for Ronald Reagan, returned to the office in 2001 with the administration of George W. Bush. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and subsequent military campaign against terrorist forces in Afganistan completed the DOD's break from Cold War approaches to national security. In the early 2000s, the DOD focused on creating a smaller, more mobile and technologically advanced army, one capable of countering "asymmetical threats"—that is, opponents employing nontraditional strategies, such as guerilla warfare or terrorism, to gain an advantage against conventional military power—at short notice in the remotest corners of the globe.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blechman, Barry M., et al. The American Military in the Twenty-First Century. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.

Cole, Alice C., et al., eds. The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, 1944–1978. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office, 1978.

Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Hammond, Paul Y. Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961.

Preston, Thomas. The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Affairs. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Rearden, Steven L. History Of the Office of the Secretary Of Defense, Vol. 1: The Formative Years, 1947–1950. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office, 1984.

Trask, Roger R. The Department of Defense, 1947–1997: Organization and Leaders. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office, 1997.

Roger R.Trask/a. r.