Reorganization
The Department of Defense was created in 1947 but came to life in the year 1949. The creation of the body as a result of the need to have a more unified system of command that took into consideration the whole army’s operations. The problems of the unity of command experienced during the previous world war necessitated this move. The legislation that created it aimed to unify and streamline the governance between the whole army while in turn maintaining the individuality of the various army units. This caused a lot of inter-service competition due to the issue of the budgeting concepts. The budget ceilings presented by Truman were rigid and therefore accelerated the competition for funds.
The reorganization of the department came in the Eisenhower administration. The loosely stated powers that were assigned to the Department’s various positions led to a weak structure with no real authority in some cases. The Korean War helped ease the budget qualms that existed in the era of Joint Chief chairman Andrew Johnson but did not kill the competitive spirit that existed. However, this led to the claims of mismanagement of funds within the military and necessitated the empowerment of the Joints Chief chairman to manage this spending. These were done in 1953.
In 1958 through the Defense Reorganization Act, the more severe reorganization was effected. This was caused by one chief reason, the Russian technology threat. The US humiliation after the launch of Sputnik and the threat that they were developing better missile capabilities worried the administration. In the background, the services were clamoring for the chance to develop and lead the missile research. Eisenhower argued that the time for segmentation of war into land air and sea was over and with this went of issue legislation that would in effect join the operations of the units without their overlapping in purpose (Hook and Spanier, 2004, 24-11) (Neuchterlein, 2000, pp. 32-59).
Strategy
The American policy after the Second World War changed to a preventive one. The aim was to prevent any harm to the American borders while using her influence and newfound financial strength to do so. With the financial ruin that the world had seen, the US took advantage to use this to prevent the rival philosophy of communism while combining it with creating allies and defense posts to check the Soviet gospel’s spread.
The Truman administration started by granting independence to the Philippines and signed the Rio Pact of 1947 to strategically prepare itself to defend its borders. These two acts allowed America to place defensive posts further away from its borders. America also, through the Marshall plan extended aid to Europe to aid both its military and financial plans. The IMF and World Bank bodies were set up to inject economic life into the world economy. The US was determined to establish itself both economically and militarily as the world leader. The cold war era saw the signing of many treaties, especially in Asia. The Asian bloc was under the threat of communism and America, having signed the Geneva peace accord, was not ready to give in again. The dismay at the loss of North Vietnam and the presence of China-made America establish a network of treaty states to check the spread of communism.
The prudence of the combined financial and military technique was seen in Cuban-American relations. The Bay of Pigs incident of 1961 followed closely by the Cuban Crisis a year later revealed the prudence of having allies, especially closer home (Hook and Spanier, 2004, 24-11) (Neuchterlein, 2000, pp. 32-59).
Missile crisis
The Cuban missile crisis happened in the Kennedy administration in 1962. The Russians were cunningly able to come up with a plan to build inter-range missile capability in Cuba to match America’s missile potential to hit out at Russia at will. This was coupled with the fact that Castro believed that the US would attack Cuba a second time, thus he welcomed the Russian’s plan. The response from the US was rapid and very deliberate.
The actions taken during the period bordered the two: defense and deterrence. The decision to impose quarantine on the high seas to prevent the completion of the missile launchers was a deterrent. The US Navy patrolled the seas inspecting every vessel headed into the communist country to cut off the necessary supplies for the missile launchers. This would lead to the eventual non-completion of the launchers preventing an attack due to lack of weaponry. The negotiations that also went on with the Russian President were also deterrent. The president issued a warning that any launch of the missile would be seen as an attack by the Russians and would result in retaliation. This caused the negotiations to take place. There was an agreement to remove the weaponry if the Americans promised not to attack Cuba.
On the other hand, the raising of the national security level was defensive. It was believed that the Russians might strike and thus the armed forces were put on high alert. In general, the response to the whole situation was in line with the policy to keep the enemy far away from being able to attack the borders, which was a defensive strategy (Hook and Spanier, 2004, 104-111) (Neuchterlein, 2000, pp. 32-59).
References
- Hook, Steven W., and Spanier, John. American Foreign Policy Since World War II. CQ Press, Chap 2,3,4, pages 24-111, 2006.
- Neuchterlein, Donald E. America Recommitted. University Press of Kentucky. Chap 2, pages 32-59. 2000.