The Soldier and the State

by Samuel P Huntington

  Officers were still conscious of the problem of applying military command to citizen-soldiers, but instead of trying to develop a single theory applicable to both citizen-soldier and regular, they now recognized that the former required a different sort of treatment from the latter. The American civilian was a “sovereign, jealous of his royal prerogative,” and the Declaration of Independence was his “personal and daily credo.” Consequently, while the traditional type of military discipline was applicable in the regular force, a different type, capitalizing upon enthusiasm and patriotism, was necessary for the large armies called to the colors in emergencies.28

  The prewar feeling of the moral superiority of the military life reappeared in modified form. While previously the values of the military had been contrasted with the values of a commercial civilization, now the values of the military were contrasted with the lack of any values in the America of the late twenties and thirties. The United States was viewed as a country abandoning its moral anchor and venturing out into a chaotic sea of pragmatism and relativism. The age was an “age of youth, defiance, self-expression, skepticism — an era of new and greater freedom.” America was being swept by “insidious doctrines,” loose living, “sensuous publicity,” crime and rackets, all resulting from carrying to an extreme the ideas of equality and democracy. Pacifism was only a natural by-product of “political uplift, loose thinking, and free speech.” The gloomy military perspective on the modern scene was well expressed by the officer who moaned in 1939 that modern man was the product of a “brutal age” and a “materialistic culture” which had its roots in “scientific pragmatism which sees man only as a fairly high-type animal and little else.” There was too much hedonism, too little idealism and religion. The horrors of modern war were the result of science, which produced its “lethal tools,” and of philosophy, which produced the ideologies that set man against man.29

  The changing military interpretation of their relation to society was well expressed in their altered attitude toward education. In the early 1920’s they had warned that a small group of Bolsheviks and other radicals were infiltrating American schools and colleges. Now they saw the danger as much deeper and more pervasive. American education was dominated by the philosophy of “scholastic liberalism” which emphasized only scientific analysis and research and which rejected the old faiths and ideals. The student was engulfed by naturalism and realism. Deprived of moral values, the college freshman “plunges desperately into a godless philosophy, a behavioristic psychology, a history of sensuous Gladstones and drunken Washingtons, and a literature flavored with risqué Helens and rollicking Galahads.” The “inadequate” and “worthless” philosophy of John Dewey and his followers, it was warned, was overwhelming the public schools and producing “a different American.” The schoolmasters were generally without brains or distinction and were themselves in need of guidance. The difference between civilian colleges and the military academies was the difference between “institutions of opportunity” and “institutions of obligation.” The conservatism of Annapolis was favorably contrasted with the “radicalism and fads” at civilian schools. Military students had no use for isms, it was approvingly stated, and only a very few ever read Nietzsche, Mencken, Russell, or Spengler.30

  The final summing up of the alienation of the military man from both the business liberalism of the 1920’s and the reform liberalism of the 1930’s was brilliantly and bitterly expressed by the editor of the Infantry Journal in a posthumous essay on “The American Professional Soldier,” published just as America moved toward involvement in World War II.31 In one sense this article was simply an eloquent restatement of the professional military view that human nature does not change; that devices do not prevent wars and soldiers do not make wars; that strength is the only source of security. But it went beyond this to reveal sharply the antagonism between the modern soldier and the modern intellectual. The intellectual associated the military with war and hated them because war was a sorry reflection on the strength of the human intellect. The great virtues of the soldier — Honesty, Duty, Faith, — disqualified “him utterly from ever being a modern intellectual.” The world of scholars, writers, and liberals had nothing but scorn for the professional military man:

  So these workers in words, ideas, and thoughts, the articulate part of the American folk, were mainly alike in their aversion — to use a mild term — to the Army. Strange, wasn’t it, how this heterogeneous list of writers, speakers, idealists, scientists, religionists, philosophers, pseudo-philosophers — practically all the vocal parts of our population — had one powerful emotion in common? They disliked the professional soldier.

  Major Burns poured out the bitterness of his profession against the “so-called scientific civilization” which had no use for it, against the sociologists which ignored it, against the intelligentsia which ridiculed it, and against the “fine minds” of the Nation and New Republic which attacked it. Three-quarters of a century of accumulated resentment and frustration spewed forth in this article. It was a fitting epitaph for the old system of civil-military relations which World War II was to end forever.

  * Similarly, the reformers viewed war in terms of its contribution to domestic or international reform. They initially opposed American entrance into World War I because it would end reform at home and put business in the saddle. They eventually justified participation when they saw the exhilarating prospects for international reform in the Fourteen Points. The postwar return to power politics, colonialism, and armaments races then soured them on war as an instrument of international reform, and they proclaimed their error in ever supporting American entry. At the same time, however, the reformers became nostalgic for the domestic collectivism of the war years which in retrospect seemed to suggest parallels and techniques applicable to their efforts for social reform at home.

  * The most important new professional societies and journals were those founded immediately after the war for the Army Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Engineering Corps, the Military Review started by the Leavenworth schools in 1922, and the Infantry School Quarterly established in 1925. Between 1925 and 1940 few new military periodicals appeared. The most important new educational institution was the Army Industrial College created in 1924 to train officers in procurement and economic mobilization. In 1932 the Chief of Staff could claim with some degree of truth that the United States Army’s “school system is unsurpassed in excellence anywhere in the world.” Advanced naval education also expanded, and in 1927 the general line course was established at the Annapolis Postgraduate School. Ann. Rept. of the Secy, of War, 1932, p. 73; Ann. Repts. of the Secy, of the Navy, 1925, pp. 24–25, 1927, pp. 157ff.

  * The deviation of practice from theory was explained by Assistant Secretary Crowell as follows:

  “Since the reorganization had to keep within the law, the central business office of the Department, the Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic, had to be given a military status . . .

  “This necessity gave to the General Staff . . . an appearance of power which it did not actually possess. In the chart the General Staff itself, through its Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic, has apparently become the great procuring agency of the War Department, in addition to its purely military functions. This, however, was only an arrangement pro forma to give authenticity to the acts of the Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic. Actually, a different arrangement was in effect . . . The Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic was . . . plotted as the agency through which the Assistant Secretary . . . could gain control of the industry. Thereafter the Assistant Secretary of War was the industrial head of the War Department. But since this arrangement was one of agreement rather than of law, the executive decisions of the Assistant Secretary went down to the Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic as from the Secretary of War, through the technically legal channel of the General Staff. In spite of appearance, therefore, the General Staff remained a purely military body. The Chief of Staff was t
he Secretary of War’s military adviser: the Assistant Secretary was the Secretary of War’s industrial adviser.” Benedict Crowell and Robert F. Wilson, The Armies of Industry (New Haven, 2 vols., 1921), I, lOff. I have been greatly aided on this point by an unpublished paper by Paul Y. Hammond on “The Civilian Role in the Administration of the Army Supply Program in World War I.”

  * The exception was Admiral W. V. Pratt, CNO, 1930–1933, who wanted a coordinate organization. Satisfied with the existing bureau system, Pratt and his followers argued that the distinction between command and administration required the CNO to have direct access to the President. Toward the end of the 1930’s, the personal ineffectiveness of the Secretary of the Navy, the increasing international tension, and the President’s interest in naval affairs combined to introduce elements of the coordinate pattern in the form of frequent contacts between the Chief Executive and the CNO. See U.S. Navy Dept., Naval Administration: Selected Documents on Navy Department Organization, 1915–1940, pp.V-13-V-14, VI-28-VI-31; U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, LVIII (1932), 806, 1502–1503, LIII (1927), 275–277; Adm. William D. Leahy, I Was There (New York, 1950), p. 3.

  * At the beginning of World War II, naval organization was altered by Admiral King’s combining the two posts of Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief United States Fleet and by the creation of the Office of Procurement and Material. The former change redistributed authority and functions within the military side of the Navy; the latter did the same on the supply side. Neither change, however, altered the basic pattern of civil-military relations among the professional leadership, the supply organizations, and the political direction of the Department.

  * The Infantry School recommended reading list in the early twenties suggested four “classical works,” all of the German school: On War; von Caemmerer’s The Development of Strategical Science During the Nineteenth Century; and von der Goltz’s Conduct of War and Nation in Arms.

  PART III

  THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS, 1940–1955

  12

  World War II: The Alchemy of Power

  CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN TOTAL WAR

  World War II began a new era in American civil-military relations. The space of a few years saw a remarkable revolution in the power and the attitudes of the military. The new pattern was carried to an extreme during the war. But its fundamental elements, distinguishing it from the pattern which had prevailed since the 1870’s, persisted after 1945. The problem then became the construction of a new balance of civilian control and military professionalism to replace the old system irreparably shattered by American participation in the fight against the Axis.

  The three key aspects of American civil-military relations in World War II may be stated baldly with only minor oversimplification.

  First. So far as the major decisions in policy and strategy were concerned, the military ran the war.

  Second. In this area of policy and strategy, the military ran the war just the way the American people and American statesmen wanted it run.

  Third. On the domestic front, control over economic mobilization was shared between military and civilian agencies.

  The power of the professional military leaders reached unprecedented heights in World War II. But they scaled these summits only by sacrificing their military outlook and accepting the national values. The military leaders blended with the liberal environment; they lost their alien and aloof character and emerged as the supreme embodiment of the national purpose. The subtle alchemy of power worked an amazing transformation in their perspectives and policies. This, however, was true only with respect to external policy and grand strategy, where the military easily moved in to fill a governmental vacuum. On the domestic front, on the other hand, the original decision was for civilian control of economic mobilization, and powerful civilian interest groups rivaled the military. Although the military carved out a broad sphere of influence, they were never able to establish the same supremacy that they did on the international side. Accordingly, they did not develop the catholic outlook on economic mobilization which they did on foreign policy. They remained more narrowly the spokesmen for military interests and the military viewpoint. The result was that an astounding harmony of purpose and policy prevailed on the international front, as the military adopted civilian goals. The domestic front, on the other hand, was the scene of continuous conflict, acrimony, and bureaucratic infighting as civilian and military agencies clashed in the forwarding of their opposing interests. In grand strategy the military exercised their new power in a broadly responsible manner. On the domestic scene, however, they demanded and fought for military control of the economy, since they were reasonably secure in the knowledge that they would never get it. The difference between Hull and Nelson explained much of the difference between Marshall and Somervell.

  American civil-military relations in World War II paralleled in some respects those of Germany in World War I. Like the German officer corps before 1913, the American officer corps before 1939 was highly professionalized, although it was also much smaller and more removed from the center of national life. Correspondingly, however, the institutional mechanisms of civilian control were much weaker. When war came, the American military did not reach out after power — Marshall was no Ludendorff. Instead, power was unavoidably thrust upon them. They were given no choice but to accept it, and, with it, the implicit conditions upon which it was granted. They became the agents of American liberalism, just as the German General Staff became the agent of German nationalism. Domestically, however, their control never approximated that of Hindenberg, Ludendorff, and Gröner. The breakdown of civilian control and the weakening of military professionalism in Germany contributed to her losing the war. The parallel developments in the United States contributed to her losing the peace. In both countries the immediate postwar period was marked by only partially successful attempts to reëstablish a viable balance of civil-military relations.

  MILITARY AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE IN GRAND STRATEGY

  THE BASIS OF MILITARY POWER. The wartime power of the military leaders was rooted in the American liberal attitude toward war and the military. War was sharply differentiated from peace. When the nation went to war, it went wholeheartedly, turning the direction of the conflict over to those who made that their business. The national aim of total victory superseded all else. The military became the executors of the national will, the technicians called in to implement the basic policy decision. In the American view, their function was not to provide for the military security of the country in war and peace, but simply to achieve victory in war. The American people and the American statesmen were unanimous in adhering to the Ludendorff philosophy. “I have washed my hands of it,” Hull told Stimson a few days before Pearl Harbor, “and it is now in the hands of you and Knox — the Army and the Navy.” His words were symbolic of the civilian abdication. Stimson himself declared that his wartime duty was “to support, protect, and defend his generals.” A not unrepresentative Representative expressed congressional acquiescence when he said:

  I am taking the word of the General Staff of the War Department, the people who are running this show. If they tell me this is what they need for the successful prosecution of this war and for ultimate victory, I am for it. Whether it staggers me according to its proportions or not, I am still for it.1

  The center of wartime military leadership was the corporate organization of the senior military chiefs. Prior to February 1942 this was the Joint Board composed of four high-ranking officers from each of the services. The Board had been established in 1903 but during most of its history its duties had been minor. From 1939 on, however, it played an increasingly significant role in the preparation of the joint Army-Navy Rainbow war plans. Its influence and functions quickly expanded. At the first British-American meeting after Pearl Harbor, the Arcadia conference of December 1941-January 1942, it was obvious that military exigencies required the creation of a unified theater com
mand for American, British, Dutch, and Australian forces in southeast Asia. The theater commander had to report to someone. Accordingly, the conference established in Washington the Combined Chiefs of Staff, consisting of the American chiefs and representatives of the British Chiefs of Staff Committee. In order to coordinate the American viewpoint and present some sort of unified front to the frequently single-voiced British representatives, the American chiefs organized themselves as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This body superseded the old Joint Board. It consisted of the Army Chief of Staff, the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, the Chief of Naval Operations, and, after June 1942, Admiral Leahy as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. Its members had the dual function of participating as the American component in the Combined Chiefs of Staff and serving as the collective organ of command and planning for the overseas operations of the American armed forces.

  Both the expansion of the Joint Board in 1939 and the establishment of the JCS in 1942 reflected purely military necessities: the need for joint and combined planning and command. Theoretically, the Board and the Joint Chiefs should have been the highest organs of professional military advice to the government and professional direction of the armed services. Although created in response to functional military imperatives, however, both organs were drawn by organizational and political pulls into operating as political as well as military bodies. The Joint Chiefs of Staff became, next to the President, the single most important force in the overall conduct of the war, the level and the scope of their activities far transcending those of a purely professional body. As a result, the Joint Chiefs ended the war with no experience in functioning simply as a military organization. Four years of war had given them a political tradition and role.