Six major themes place United States military history within the broad context of American history. First, rational military considerations alone have rarely shaped military policies and programs. The political system and societal values have imposed constraints on defense affairs. A preoccupation with private gain, a reluctance to pay taxes, a distaste for military service, and a fear of large standing forces have at various times imposed severe limitations on the availability of monetary and manpower resources.
Second, American defense policy has traditionally been built upon pluralistic military institutions, most noticeably a mixed force of professionals and citizen-soldiers. These pluralistic institutions reflect the diverse attitudes of professional soldiers, citizen-soldiers, and antimilitary and pacifistic citizens about the role of state-sponsored force in the nation’s life.
Third, despite the popular belief that the United States has generally been unprepared for war, policymakers have done remarkably well in preserving the nation’s security. For most of American history, especially from the nineteenth century onward, policymakers realized that geographic distance from dangerous adversaries, the European balance of power, and growing material and manpower mobilization potential were powerful assets. When gauging America’s strength against potential enemies, policymakers realized that the nation could devote its energies and financial resources to internal development rather than to maintaining a large and expensive peacetime military establishment. However, mobilizing simultaneously with a war’s outbreak has extracted high costs in terms of speed and ease with each new mobilization.
Fourth, the nation’s firm commitment to civilian control of military policy requires careful attention to civil-military relations. The commitment to civilian control makes military policy a paramount function of the federal government, where the executive branch and Congress share the power to shape policy. The Constitution makes the president commander in chief (Article II, Section 2) and gives Congress the responsibility of organizing and funding the armed forces it creates, as well as passing laws about what forces do and how they are managed (Article I, Section 8). The Congress has the power to declare war, and it can influence any military activity through the legislative and appropriations process, should it choose to do so. The two branches are supposed to work in concert for “the common defense.”
Although the influence of the federal system on military policy faded by the end of the twentieth century, national-state-local relations have defined much of defense policy for the preceding three centuries. While the Constitution defines what the national government can do, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) tells the national government what it cannot do, and one prohibition is that the national government cannot monopolize military power. The Second Amendment permits other levels of government, like a state or county, to form military forces to meet local emergencies. In 1789 these crises might have included an invasion from Canada or Florida, piracy, Native American raids, slave revolts, urban or rural uprisings, political protests and election disruption, and ethnic and family feuds. It was an era in which civilian policing was notoriously ineffective in the hands of county sheriffs and urban constables. Depending on the threat and the powers of “calling forth” authority, citizens were supposed to arm themselves and be available for emergency service as an obligation of citizenship. There are, of course, other more novel interpretations of the Second Amendment.
Fifth, the armed forces have become progressively more nationalized and professionalized. Beginning with the American Revolution, the services have increasingly been raised and supported by the federal government and used for purposes defined by the federal government. Although civilians ultimately control military policy, the professionalization of officership, a trend that has progressed rapidly since the early nineteenth century, has had important consequences for the conduct of military affairs, since career officers in the national service (as opposed to officers appointed only in wartime) have progressively monopolized high command positions and advisory positions.
Finally, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, but especially during the twentieth century, industrialization has shaped the way the nation has fought. In particular, the United States has used increasingly sophisticated technology to overcome logistical limitations, primarily in transportation, and to match enemy numbers with firepower. This dependence upon industry and technology in executing military policy has placed enormous burdens on career military officers and the defense industry, and it is very costly.
Military history requires some attention to definitions. Policy is the sum of the assumptions, plans, programs, and actions taken by the citizens of the United States, principally through governmental action, to ensure the physical security of their lives, property, and way of life from external military attack and domestic insurrection. Although military force has been used in both domestic and foreign crises that did not involve national survival, the definition of policy remains rooted to the prevention or termination of a military threat faced collectively by the American people. War is a less elusive concept, since it enjoys centuries of political and judicial definition. It is the application of state violence in the name of policy. It involves killing and wounding people and destroying property until the survivors abandon their military resistance or the belligerents come to a negotiated agreement. War aims are the purposes for which wars are fought. Strategy, the general concepts for the use of military force, is derived from war aims. In wartime, strategy is normally expressed in terms of missions, geographic areas of operations, the timing of operations, and the allocation of forces.
Each element of the armed forces has an operational doctrine, which is an institutional concept for planning and conducting operations. Taking into account such factors as their mission, the enemy situation, the terrain, and the combat and logistical capabilities of the available forces, service leaders develop their organizations’ capabilities. For example, the U.S. Army Air Forces of World War II expressed a strategic theory when arguing that Nazi Germany could be bombed into submission. But when the USAAF chose to conduct the bombing with massed bomber formations in daylight raids against industrial targets, it defined an operational doctrine. Tactics is the actual conduct of battle, the application of fire and maneuver by fighting units in order to destroy the physical ability and will of the enemy’s armed forces. To continue the example of the bombing campaign against Germany, the USAAF bombers grouped themselves in combat “boxes” to create overlapping arcs of machine-gun fire against German fighters; their fighter escorts—when they had them—attacked the German fighters before they reached the bomber formations. In addition, the bombers varied their altitude and direction to confuse antiaircraft artillery fire. They also dropped tons of metallic chaff to foil enemy radar. These techniques were tactical, since their goal was the immediate destruction or demoralization of a specific enemy force.
Americans have had a peculiar ambivalence toward war. They have traditionally and sincerely viewed themselves as a peaceful, unmilitaristic people, and yet they have hardly been unwarlike. Statistics alone testify to the pervasive presence of war in the nation’s history, for tens of millions of Americans have served in wartime and more than a million have died in uniform. Understanding both this paradoxical love-hate attitude toward war and the relationship among military institutions, war, and society is essential in comprehending America’s past, its present, and its future.
Of the authors of The Federalist Papers, James Madison could claim the least familiarity with military affairs, for unlike Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, he had known neither the sting of battle nor the tension of international diplomacy during the American Revolution. In contrast to Hamilton, who had conducted an inquiry on post-Revolution defense policy, or Jay, who had directed the perilous diplomacy of the new nation under the Articles of Confederation, Madison had made his postwar reputation as a cerebral congressional surrogate for his famous Virginia colleague Thomas Jefferson. During
the Constitutional Convention, however, Madison emerged as one of the architects of the Constitution with which its framers hoped to reorganize the newly independent states. Thus when the fight for ratification came to the crucial state of New York, Madison was a natural choice to be one of the three authors of “Publius” essays, advocating a stronger central government. Surprisingly, Madison contributed an essay on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, applying his analytical skill to No. 41 of The Federalist Papers. The issue was empowering the government to conduct the nation’s defense.
To Madison, the Constitution’s provisions for the central control of military policy seemed self-evident. “Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union. The powers requisite for attaining it must be effectually confided to the federal councils.” It was unthinkable to him that defense would not be the domain of the national government. “Is the power of raising armies and equipping fleets necessary?” Madison could imagine no constitutional limits upon the government because there would be no limits upon the nation’s potential enemies. “How could the readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit in like manner the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?” Perhaps he remembered George Washington’s quip that the Constitution would not limit the size of other nations’ armies even if it set a ceiling on America’s standing forces. “The means of security can only be regulated by the means and danger of attack. They will, in fact, be ever determined by these rules and no other. It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain. . . . If one nation maintains constantly a disciplined army, ready for service of ambition or revenge, it obliges the most pacific nations who may be within the reach of its enterprises to take corresponding precautions.”
Many seasons have passed and years have rolled by since Madison argued that the Constitution provided the best hope for the common defense, but his rationale stands intact. Although he could have foreseen neither the global reach of American interests nor the intricacies of dividing the responsibility for the common defense between the executive and legislative branches, Madison would not have been surprised to see the contentiousness with which the nation makes its decisions to spend the lives and treasure of its citizens. Thus it has been since the first shots on Lexington Green and at Concord Bridge. Madison understood that the cost of defense would always compete with the individual and collective “pursuit of happiness.” He could only hope that the innate wisdom of the American citizenry would correctly evaluate the degree of shared danger, the measure of ever-present risk, and allocate resources accordingly.
The dominant leaders of Madison’s generation understood that moral suasion alone could not guard the Republic. The question of national survival is no less compelling now than it was in the nation’s infant years. Whether or not the United States will rightly judge the delicate balance between its internal development and its influence upon world affairs, still shaped by the exercise of military power, remains a question that history can only partially answer. Yet the history of American military policy suggests that the dangers will not disappear. Neither will the political responsibility to face them, for they will not evaporate with wishful thinking. When the olive branches wilt, the arrows must be sturdy. Only another history can answer whether the people of the United States in the twenty-first century understand that constant vigilance is the price of liberty.
Allan R. Millett
New Orleans, 2012
Chapter Bibliographies and General Bibliography
for the Third Edition
can be accessed online at
the Free Press author pages:
http://www.SimonandSchuster.com
and
Professor Feis’s webpage at Buena Vista University:
http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/feis/ftcd/FTCD_Bib.html
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ONE
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A Dangerous New World, 1607–1689
Crossing the Atlantic during the seventeenth century was a perilous voyage, entailing weeks or months of cramped quarters, inadequate food, and unsanitary conditions. Yet in the late 1500s Englishmen had begun to hazard the venture, and in 1607 they planted their first permanent settlement on the North American continent at Jamestown. By the early 1730s, thirteen separate colonies hugged the seaboard. Although great diversity prevailed among the colonies, most colonists shared a common English heritage and clung to it tenaciously. Their religious attitudes, economic views, political thoughts, and military ideals and institutions were all grounded in English history. In no aspect of colonial life was this heritage more important than in regard to military matters. The colonists’ most revered military institution (the militia) and their most cherished military tradition (fear of a standing army) both came from England.
The English Inheritance
The earliest English settlers arrived in a dangerous New World. The initial colonies represented little more than amphibious landings on a hostile coastline followed by the consolidation of small, insecure beachheads. The settlers did not take possession of an uninhabited land, but settled in regions controlled by various Native American tribes. Fortunately for the colonists, they unwittingly landed in areas that had recently experienced precipitous population losses among the Indians. Europeans made periodic contact with the natives long before they established permanent colonies. These transient visitors left a devastating legacy of smallpox, measles, and other European diseases, for which the natives had no built-in immunities. But the colonists soon learned that the Indians, even in their weakened state, were a formidable adversary. Nor were Indians the only military threat. The English settled in lands also claimed by their European rivals, and the memory of the raids conducted by the Spanish, French, and English against each other’s outposts in the Caribbean and along the Florida coast undoubtedly haunted many colonists. The fear of pillaging buccaneers and pirates who infested coastal waterways compounded the potential problem posed by European enemies.
Colonists faced these threats alone. Although the English monarch authorized their expeditions and granted extensive lands for settlement, the Crown expected the colonists to defend themselves. With few illusions about their precarious position, colonists came to the New World armed and, anticipating conflict, gave prompt attention to defense. Professional soldiers accompanied the expeditions to Jamestown, Plymouth, and succeeding colonies. Indeed, the first heroes in American history were far from ordinary settlers. The profit-seeking Virginia Company hired Captain John Smith, a veteran of Europe’s religious wars, to teach military skills to the settlers at Jamestown in 1607. Other experienced soldiers, such as Lord De La Warr, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir Thomas Dale, soon followed him. The pious Pilgrims wisely did not rely on God’s favor alone for protection, but employed Captain Myles Standish, a veteran of the Dutch wars for independence, to ensure Plymouth’s success. Although Smith and Standish are the most famous of the soldier-settlers, practically all the other colonies had similar veterans who provided military leadership during the founding period. The importance placed on military preparations could be seen in the attention given to fortifications. Less than a month after their arrival, the settlers at Jamestown had constructed a primitive, triangular fort, and by 1622 the Pilgrims had erected a 2,700-foot-long defensive perimeter guarding their fledgling plantation.
The most important response to the dangerous military realities was the creation of a militia system in each colony. The British military heritage, the all-pervasive sense of military insecurity, and the inability of the economically poor colonies to maintain an expensive professional army all combined to guarantee that the Elizabethan militia would be transplanted to the North American wilderness. No colonial institution was more complex than the militia. In many respects it was static and homogenous, varying little from colony to colony and from generation to gene
ration. Yet the militia was also evolutionary and heterogeneous, as diverse as the thirteen colonies and ever changing within individual colonies.
At the heart of the militia was the principle of universal military obligation for all able-bodied males. Colonial laws regularly declared that all able-bodied men between certain ages automatically belonged to the militia. Yet within the context of this immutable principle, variations abounded. While the normal age limits were from sixteen to sixty, this was not universal practice. Connecticut, for example, began with an upper age limit of sixty but gradually reduced it to forty-five. Sometimes the lower age limit was eighteen or even twenty-one. Each colony also established occupational exemptions from militia training. Invariably the exemption list began small but grew to become a seemingly endless list that reduced the militia’s theoretical strength.
If a man was in the militia, he participated in periodic musters, or training days, with the other members of his unit. Attendance at musters was compulsory; militia laws levied fines for nonattendance. During the initial years of settlement, when dangers seemed particularly acute, musters were frequent. However, as the Indian threat receded, the trend was toward fewer muster days, and by the early 1700s most colonies had decided that four peacetime musters per year were sufficient. Whether few or many, muster days helped forge a link between religious duty and military service, particularly in New England. An integral part of each training day (and of all military expeditions) was a sermon, which invariably fostered an aggressive militancy by emphasizing that the Bible sanctioned martial activity and that warfare was a true Christian’s sacred duty. “Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a Souldier,” Chaplain Samuel Nowell preached to Massachusetts militiamen in 1678, because being a soldier was “a Credit, a praise and a glory.” When the colonists unsheathed their swords, they did so in God’s name, serene in the belief that the Lord was on their side against their heathen and Papist enemies and that whatever happened was God’s will.
For the Common Defense Page 2
