Standing Up the Standing Force:

Transforming the American Military, 1941 to 1991

Anthony D. Atwood

Florida International University

  Growth and the transformation from its militia home guard origins into a professional standing force deployed overseas as the agent of U.S. foreign policy has been the pattern of modern American military history.  In 1941, on the eve of its entry into World War II, the United States military, under the presidential condition of Unlimited National Emergency, initiated the following important actions fundamental to its future military history:

1. The Reserve component of the U.S. Military had been called to active duty, mobilized and deployed.
2. Conscription was implemented.
3. A rudimentary command structure of Joint Chiefs of Staff had begun operating.  The ABC (American-British-Canadian) Talks starting in January 1941 began formation of a system of international alliances. 
4. The stimulus of Lend-Lease was priming the U.S. manufacturing industries in retooling for war production on a massive scale.
5. The two-ocean global strategy of Rainbow Five was adopted.[1]

World War II put 16 million Americans in uniform, of a population of 132 millions.  The number approaches 1 in 8. By considering the family connections linking these humans, the number of directly involved persons was much larger.  When the two parents of each uniformed participant are counted, the figure of direct human connection to the event involved was 48 millions.  Adding other direct relations, such as wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, and children brings involvement in the event that much higher in terms of numbers.  Many millions more participated in industrial, agricultural, health and scientific war work.  Government support by law enforcement, merchant marine, para-military coast watchers, WASP (Women’s Air Service Pilot) Corps, and draft boards, as well as a wide variety of voluntary support ranging from Red Cross to USO troupes further swell the number of people involved.  It could be easily argued that more than half the population was directly involved in the event.  This rare spike of military activity, approximated previously only by the American Revolution and the American Civil War in U.S. history, reshaped the country profoundly.  The experience has not been replicated on any similar scale since. 

The combat operations of the U.S. military in World War II amounted to the largest projection of force around the globe that the world has ever seen, or perhaps ever will see again.  “The Arsenal of Democracy” operated from the comparative safety of North America.  The U.S. produced over 34,000 bombers.  A navy of 2,000 combatant ships and fleets of 3,300 Liberty and Victory supply ships went to sea.[2]  Strategically, the United States concentrated on Germany first, shoring up the British on their home islands and subsidizing the Eastern Front, where the Soviet defense bled off much Axis combat activity. 

The people of the U.S. worked overtime to assemble the forces for a counteroffensive in the West, while trading space for time in the Pacific, the Aleutians, and the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of war.  A victory at Midway, June 4-7, 1942, blunted the enemy offensive in the Pacific.  Equally propitious to the Allies was the inability of the Axis powers to cooperate with each other.  Unlike the close cooperation of the Anglo-Americans, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan seldom communicated closely, or operated jointly. 

Of inestimable value to the Allies was the direction the enemy forces took halfway through the conflict.  The German troops in the Caucasus, and the Imperial Japanese forces operating in the Bay of Bengal missed the opportunity to join forces.  Had the Germans moved through the Middle East, while the Japanese overran the Indian sub-continent, they could have joined hands across the Indus.  India neutralized, the Middle East occupied, China cut off, and the Axis’ own lines linked and shortened might have made all the difference.  Instead, the Germans turned back into the Russian steppe, while the Imperial Japanese about-faced to roam the Pacific.

In time the U.S. Military was fully mobilized and able to bring a vast army to bear in a series of invasions of North Africa, Sicily, the Italian peninsula, western and southern France, and finally Germany itself.  Working in tandem with the Russian offensive from the East, the Allies crushed the Nazi state between them.  In mainland Asia there was passive defense of the CBI periphery, while in the Pacific an amphibious campaign of island-hopping bypassed many enemy strong points.  Those places selected for occupation were geographically complimentary towards the objective of projecting reach against the Japanese home islands.  The objectives targeted were seized by naval and aerial bombardment and assault.  In time the U.S. forces in the Pacific, beginning to be augmented by freed-up U.S. European forces, poised for a November 1945 invasion of Kyushu.  The dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted the Japanese emperor to command his forces to lay down their arms.  The necessity to conquer the Japanese home islands was obviated by the surrender of September 1945.

U.S. military policy during the war was characterized by a practical and inspired approach.  U.S. forces were encouraged to expend as much ordnance as possible, and wherever possible every machine and tool available was applied to solving the problem of destroying the enemy.  American industry was pulled out of the Great Depression by the war.  The identification of Nazi Germany as the primary threat was astute.  The early abandonment of the Pacific in order to meet the primary threat first was necessary, despite its acceptance of a punishing defeat in the Philippines.  The U.S. war policy of reliance on machinery and firepower first, rather than on manpower to overcome the enemy stoked U.S. industry to the point that production achieved a dynamo effect.  This practical war policy was also inspired in that the human commitment of the nation and of its forces was such that whenever and wherever no other sacrifice but blood itself would tip the scale, which was often enough, the U.S. people showed themselves fully capable of making that sacrifice.  Almost a half-million troops died in the war.

The U.S. armed forces of the time were essentially a citizen-soldier militia raised up for the expressed purpose of meeting and defeating the threat at hand.  In this they followed the martial traditions of the frontier fort and the Continental Congress, of Mr. Lincoln in the 1860s, and of the Doughboys of the Great War, in responding to the call.  Its large literate population allowed the U.S. to field overpowering numbers of fighters and workers.  The protection lent by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans allowed for the time to assemble the host.  The destructiveness of the war meanwhile reduced the other combatants, allied and enemy, to ruins or penury.                           

At the end of World War II, the United States possessed a gargantuan military establishment with the following components:

1. A full-service headquarters (the Pentagon “Puzzle Palace”).
2. A smoothly running system of conscription to meet manpower needs, together with a cultural endorsement of military service validated by the victory of WWII, and endowed with a formidable laurel of social empowerment in the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill).
3. Military bases worldwide, including massive forward bases in occupied Western Europe and on the Pacific rim of Asia. NATO and a network of world-wide military alliances were implemented simultaneously.
4. 16 millions of veterans.
5. Nuclear weapons.
6. An industry sector that was devoted to research, development and manufacture of weaponry.
7. An emergent potential enemy in the Soviet Union and the worldwide Communist ideological movement.

 The National Security Act and Defense Reorganization of 1947 codified the new organization.[3]  The most critical aspect to the transformation was the end of the War Department and the creation of the Department of Defense (DOD) in its place.  The Romans of antiquity kept their Temple of Mars locked shut in peacetime.  To a good extent the pre-WWII U.S. War Department had functioned similarly.  In time of peace U.S. foreign policy was the arena and mission of the Department of State.  The establishment of the new Defense Department, a world-wide, “24-7” establishment, was a watershed change for the U.S. military.  The strategy of the DOD has since been that of homeland defense through overseas positioning.  As originally envisioned under the Reorganization, the U.S. military was to be constituted so as to be able to fight (and win) two wars simultaneously.  Among the most important changes to the armed forces realized over the next few years of reorganization were:

1.  Designation of three executive Departments, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the new Department of the Air Force, drawn from the Army as a independent entity, with a specified command having cognizance over nuclear weapon systems, the Strategic Air Command (SAC).

2.  The start of research and development in rocket jet propulsion leading to Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM).  The existing land-based bomber fleet, together with the deployment of the ICBM in 1958, and the parallel development of the nuclear ballistic submarine from within the Navy would lead to the Triad Nuclear Defense.[4]  Ultimately U.S. nuclear policy would solidify in the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.

3.   The creation of the National Security Council, and the formalization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the military chiefs of the services, as principal advisors to the President.

4.  The retention of the WWII Office of Strategic Services as the Central Intelligence Agency, folding itself together with the rest of the intelligence agencies under the Department of Defense.

5.  The adoption of the helicopter by the Army, giving it air-mobile capability.

6.  The standardization of all branches of military personnel matters, pay scales, rank structure, advancements, awards, recruitment, and discipline under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, unifying the whole as different shades of the same uniform, topped with the compelling reward of retirement (recallable) immediately payable upon 20 years of full-time active duty.

7.  Allowance for a large formalized National Guard and Reserve, manned by personnel serving part-time in lieu of compulsory full-time service, and operating on active bases using Army/Navy surplus, as a second, “shadow” military force.

8.  Organization of the Veterans Administration by Omar Bradley, especially as a backup health care system for casualties in the event of another Total War.[5]

9.  The decision to permanently base the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Seventh Fleet in the Far East.

10.  Retention of a peacetime draft to maintain manpower levels.

11.  The incorporation of dependents (spouses, children and special-need relatives) of uniformed service members as a formal ID-carrying part of the DOD force structure with codified rights, responsibilities and entitlements, as with retirees.

11.  Creation of a vast civilian component of DOD workers as disparate as benefit clerks, pipe fitters, police and mail service, including an overseas school system, to enable this establishment.

These changes enabled the U.S. to keep standing an armed force of vast proportions that is entire unto itself and hardwired to the national government’s executive branch.  Henceforth, the history of the U.S. military has been international.  Many of these reorganizations were broached over hands of poker with the JCS at President Truman’s card table at the Little White House in Naval Station Key West.  Within this new closed-circuit organization a series of internal transformation has since created the American warrior caste of today, a distinct class of American society.   

The first and most important of the internal social changes was the desegregation of the armed forces by the fiat of the Commander-in-Chief.  At the end of the Truman Administration practically all aspects of the military, from force structure to benefits was integrated racially.[6]  A great source of strength and success of the U.S. Military has been its straight-up integration.  Today it is the most racially integrated institution in America.[7]  Service members of all races, together with their dependants, and DOD workers, form a separate, seamless, whole societal unit.

Between World War II and the end of the Cold War 1990-1991, while maintaining a capability to fight a Total War against the Soviet Union, the military has been committed by the presidency to three small wars, in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm.  Small wars being those waged without engaging the general population, mobilizing the nation, or committing the civilian government of the U.S.  Korea and Vietnam were wars waged as occupational jobs of the DOD, rather than as national undertakings.  The first of these, the Korean War, June 1950-July 1953, was fought in response to the North Korean invasion of the Republic of South Korea, a U.S. ally.  The U.S. was at the zenith of its post-WWII might, and two advantageous pre-conditions obtained.  First, this war was fought against a similarly constituted mirror-image military force.  Second, the battlefield was a peninsula, the most favorable terrain for limited defensive wars of containment.  The one tangible military objective was to retain half of the Korean peninsula, and in that the U.S. Military was successful by the means of building a wall (Demilitarized Zone) across the peninsula. 

The introduction of U.S. military into South Vietnam ten years later was prompted by the less tangible ideological objective of preventing the spread of Communism.  It was much less successful.  The assassination of the U.S. Commander-in-Chief, John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963, altered forever whatever direction the leadership of the Southeast Asian adventure may have initially envisioned.  In the event, WWII-trained field commanders, William C. Westmoreland and later Creighton W. Abrams Jr., fought a conventional limited war against an asymmetric guerilla opponent.[8]  Limits on provoking the sponsors of the enemy, the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, allowed sanctuaries to the enemy for safety, rest, supply, and maneuver, ceding them the initiative.  The enemy refusal to “stand and fight” conventionally undercut the U.S. advantages.  This second small war was ambiguous and lacked victorious symbolism or public identification.   

Home front public opinion was formed by watching the new medium of television.  Protracted inconclusive war proved to be spectacularly untelegenic.  While U.S. forces were clearly victorious in the field, and while the underlying policy raison d’etat that without U.S. armed intervention South Vietnam would be conquered by North Vietnam was later proven true in the aftermath, those considerations did not outweigh widespread domestic unpopularity with the war.  The U.S. military was withdrawn in defeat by the end of 1972. 

Without the external threat and obvious need for manpower that was widely recognized and accepted in WWII, the conscription system then in place fell apart.  The times had changed, and the people had changed.  The Vietnam War was waged by the unpopular conscription of either the children of the ruling G.I. Generation, or over-reliance on marginalized and minority sub-populations of the U.S. under a Selective Service System that had been tinkered with over the years into one of dubious fairness and impartiality. Compulsory military service was abolished in 1973.         

The All-Volunteer Force was then created and into that mold the U.S. military reinvented itself.  Manpower needs since 1973 have been met by substantial increases in pay to parity with civilian employment, and by the recruitment of females.[9]  Throughout the transformation female participation has grown steadily, from about 11 percent in 1991, to 15 percent today.[10]  Internally, the retention of personnel within the organization became a priority facilitated by the means of the emphatic DOD adoption of the military family. 

In a radical departure from what was once the exclusive domain of single males, the U.S. Military transformed itself into an organization with extremely strong family ties that bind it to itself.  Under the command of President Ronald Reagan the force was re-infused with esprit as a special organization, as well as rewarded with the wherewithal to make family life possible, and even comfortable.[11]  Service members are now overwhelmingly married and parents.  The strong official encouragement for and support of the military family unit has served to reinforce both the insularity and group cohesion of the armed forces as distinct from the mainstream population.

As a result of reconstituting itself as an All-Volunteer Force, the DOD initially eschewed foreign adventures.  The U.S. Military concentrated on creating and retaining a professional force motivated by cultivating a warrior class ethos through programs such as Ombudsman, Project Warrior, Zero Tolerance, and Total Quality Leadership; by liberal subsidies, and by a preference for keeping the peace.  Joint operations between the branches of service became widespread starting with prodding legislation of 1986.[12]  The result has advanced the homogenization of the branches of service, leading to a closer knit and much more standardized military.[13]  The doctrine of Jointness is more deeply embedded than most casual observers realize, they being still attuned to the cosmetic visual differences of differing branch uniforms celebrated by WWII material culture.  U.S. military incursions of the invasion of Grenada in 1983, and the 1989 invasion of Panama deposing strongman Manuel Noriega, renewed the confidence of the force.[14]

Militarily it should be noted that President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. reinstated draft registration for U.S. males between the ages of 18-27 in 1980 as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and protracted Iran hostage crisis, November 1979-January 1981.  This registration has been a quiet success, with a steady rate of about 95% compliance.  To be sure, registration is not a draft and it is unlikely that politicians would risk the possible unpopularity of reinstating conscription except under the most threatening circumstances.  Nor has the well-paid and well-ordered All-Volunteer Force leadership been in any way keen to consider a return to compulsory service.[15] 

However, should Total War conditions against similarly constituted state adversaries arise, the retooled Selective Service System has at present over 12 million registrants, giving the DOD the pool for a potentially large armed force.  A non-traditional draft for part time “home guard” duties, or a national service draft to face unconventional challenges of a biological health care threat, or even situations of natural disaster are also measures that may be taken into account.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 left the U.S. then as the sole existing superpower.  Some disingenuous scrambling by Federal, State and local entities to capitalize on this led to a Reduction-In-Force (RIF) labeled the “Peace Dividend.”  This RIF of the standing force was accompanied by a more injurious hollowing-out of the DOD real estate assets, under a program known as the Base Re-Alignment Commission (BRAC).  While the manpower to fight may readily present itself in the event of another Total War, depending upon the threat to the nation and how it is perceived, the availability of base assets at WWII prices can hardly be expected and presents a challenge to defense planning and logistics.       

In the recovery from the Vietnam defeat, the military promulgated the Weinberger (later Powell) Doctrine of never engaging again in war without clear-cut objectives and the using of overwhelming force to attain those objectives.[16]  An adjunct to this called the Total Force Policy assigned to the Reserve Force missions essential to the waging of Total War.  For example, every water-desalination unit in the Army was a reserve unit, all Navy construction battalions and cargo handlers (stevedores), and all Air Force Transport Wings became reserve units.  The rationale for this was that since the military Reserve Force was in essence still a component of the general population, mobilizing the Reserve Force for war would require engaging the commitment of the general public, widely believed to be a requisite for achieving modern military victory.[17]  The practical result was that the Reserve Force was armed and integrated intrinsically into the total force structure as a ready force multiplier. 

Following the law of unintended consequences, this use for the Reserve Force became the superseding doctrine after the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in August 1990.  The U.S. Military then reasserted itself as an offensive force.  In five months a half million U.S. military personnel were air-bridged to the Middle East (flexing the recumbent military asset of the U.S. civilian aviation fleet) to form Desert Shield in response to the takeover of Kuwait.[18]  Their equipment was sea lifted to meet them.  Not only was this logistics feat accomplished by mobilized reservists, but about 1 in 5 of the American personnel deployed in theater was a mobilized reservist.  Since that time the Reserve component has been incorporated as a full time part-time force-multiplier; contract warriors.

The All-Volunteer Force applied Total War measures to gain a quick crushing victory over the enemy forces in this third small war, Desert Storm, January 16-March 3, 1991.  With the achievement of battle success and the attainment of the clearly articulated limited goal of freeing Kuwait, hostilities were suspended by armistice and victory was declared.  The American military doctrine of waging Total War was validated in this conflict.  The following tangible orientations of the U.S. military to the Middle East were the result:

1. The establishment of the Fifth Fleet based at Bahrain, having cognizance over the Indian Ocean.
2. Land base rights in Kuwait and Djibouti.
3. Virtual annexation of Diego Garcia as a permanent possession.
4. Pre-positioning of a USNS[19] cargo fleet of arms and material about the region.

These measures gave the U.S. military the ability to project immediate force to this region in the same way it has retained such ability in the Far East and in Europe since World War II.[20]  The close of 1991 left the U.S. military in a position of unquestioned global hegemony, completing its transformation. 

Postscript

  Changes within the global village since then have brought challenges to this hegemony of an economic, social and religious nature, as differentiated from nation-state challenge and opposition.  Resurgent Islamic Radicalism, fueled by youthful vigor and belligerence, privations, and petrodollars, has shown the necessity for the U.S. military to adapt to asymmetric war fighting, while it retains the capacity to prosecute Total War.  A step in this direction has been the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.  This response to global conditions is a tacit recognition that the WWII defense model is no longer valid.  It is an admission that threats to the U.S. today are less a challenge in the conventional military sense, than a matter of restless criminality and extremism.

  The “Achilles Heel” of the U.S. military revealed by recent events since 9/11 is a shortage of manpower to face the increasing obligations of, and threats to the U.S.  The present force, magnificent in its bravery, professionalism and élan, is nonetheless tiny stacked up against the missions and adversaries it faces and may well face.  Arguments for democratization of the Force, for burden-sharing, and the apprehension at un-debated foreign adventures have renewed considerations over the size and composition of the U.S. military.  Wisdom and the lesson of history teach us that there is strength in numbers.

  For the world in general the times at hand are simply the predictable approach of the natural conclusion of the order of this world that was set in place by the G.I.s at the end of World War II.  These considerations are current and beyond the scope of this paper.

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