Eliot: Our armed forces (1946)

[NormanStewart]

The Evening Star (April 9, 1946)

Eliot: Our armed forces

By George Fielding Eliot

This is the first of a series of articles dealing with the armed forces of the United States – their strength, organization, missions and their relation to national and world security.

The present period of transition from victorious war to established peace is one of special trial and difficulty for the armed forces of the United States.

They are beset on every hand by elements of novelty and of uncertainty. They face tasks which are altogether new. Never before has the United States been compelled to assumed the tremendous responsibilities of world leadership, of being at one and the same time the most powerful military nation in the world and the principal pillar of a world-wide organization for the maintenance of world peace and security.

Yet at the very moment that these responsibilities must be shouldered, the armed forces must also face the task of recasting their whole organization, their plans and their thinking, to meet the exigencies imposed upon them by the new weapons which the war has brought into existence, weapons which drastically affect the making of war in the future and the maintenance of security against war.

These responsibilities are heavy. They cannot be borne by the armed forces alone. They must be shared by all of us. There are certain fundamental principles which every citizen should understand. if we are ever to have the secure, peaceful world for which we fought this war and made so many sacrifices.

First, we should forget the word “defense.” There is no longer any such thing as national defense. The only defense, as Gen. Marshall has said, is in the power of attack. For the present, at least, the basic contribution which military power can make to our security and to the security of the world is offensive power so great that no one will dare to challenge it.

Second, the primary element in that offensive power must be air power. It can hit first, it can reach farther and it can strike heavier blows than any other form of power. Time, reach and destructive potential are of vital importance – not only in the winning of a future war which we hope will never be fought, but in the consideration of others who may at some future time weigh the chances of peace or war.

Third, for the present the maintenance of an unchallengeable air power requires (1) the command of the sea, in order to have access to outlying bases and strategic mobility to move our air power wherever we may need to send it; (2) sufficient ground forces to protect the bases and communications of our air power from any form of land attack.

These principles are generally accepted. There are differences of view as to the strength, type and equipment of the forces necessary to implement them, but these differences really lie within comparatively narrow areas, and relate to immediate needs rather than to future objectives.

Many of these differences arise from the extremely difficult conditions of the postwar period, in which the armed forces are carrying out a tremendous demobilization program, including not only the return of millions of young Americans to their homes, but the disposal of billions of dollars’ worth of surplus property, at the same time that they are trying to establish the firm foundations of the permanent military establishments of the future.

It should be clear that they must, for the present, be allowed a considerable degree of latitude in this respect. In the fighting of a war, the objective is clear. You know what you are trying to do. You can form a reasonable estimate of what you need to accomplish your objective. But in facing the problems of maintaining peace in a chaotic, uncertain world, with new weapons and new political conditions, there can be far less certainty.

But, put it this way. If we now spend more on our armed forces than future events prove that we need have spent, we shall have wasted money. But if we do not spend enough, we may bring about the collapse of the world’s hopes for peace by not being strong enough to support those hopes, and we may in the end bring about the destruction or enslavement of this nation.

Our armed forces must continue to be the servants of our people. No man in high place within them has any other desire. But military advice and military considerations must be given a far more prominent and assured place in the formulation of national policies than ever before.

The penalty for failure or carelessness in this respect has heretofore been heavy, but we have been able to pay because we have always had time to rectify our errors. This will never be the case again. Our next mistake in this field may well be our last.

During this period of political, military and scientific uncertainty our first military consideration must be to have enough power. Later on, as the outlines of the future become more sharply defined, and as the confusions of the postwar period subside, we can make suitable reductions and rearrangements. But unless we are to throw away this victory as we threw away the last one, we dare not mortgage the future now – either in the name of a false economy or a bad guess.

[NormanStewart]

The Evening Star (April 11, 1946)

Eliot: Our armed forces

By George Fielding Eliot

This is the second of a series of articles dealing with the armed forces of the United States – their strength, organization, missions and their relation to national and world security.

The basis of military strength is trained and available manpower.

It is fair to say that no immediate danger threatens the United States as we pass through what Gen. Eisenhower called this period “of world readjustment and reconversion.” No nation is ready for war or desires war – today. Congressmen tend to calculate in terms of next November. They say to themselves: Nothing very serious can happen before election day. Meanwhile the extension of the draft and universal training are unpopular. Or anyway, they’re unpopular with some people, they can lose us votes, but we can’t lose any votes by letting them slide because nothing’s going to happen between now and November that we will need an army for.

Which is an excellent example of the ultimate responsibility of the citizen for the security of his country. As long as congressmen are not called to account for this short-term political juggling, just so long they will keep it up; the only remedy is for the people to start thinking of the long-term needs and policies of the country. When they do, automatically their public servants will be compelled to do likewise.

Vast numbers of men who were inducted for the period of the war are passing back to civilian life. This process will be completed by the middle of this year. Meanwhile, the new “regular” forces are taking shape. They are composed partly of volunteers, and partly of men called up under selective service since the end of the war, who are serving (under present arrangements) for a period of two years. The Navy and the Marine Corps are receiving very few recruits from selective service. Their personnel officers are convinced that they can obtain their full requirements through volunteering, at least for the present; but these officers add that they do not know whether this would continue to be the case if the incentive to voluntary enlistment provided by the continued existence of the draft law were to be removed.

The immediate manpower problem to be dealt with is that of the Army (including, of course, the Army Air Force). There are at present about 650,000 volunteers in the Army. The bulk of these (about 55 percent) are serving three-year enlistments. The others are serving one year or one and a half-year enlistments. The “target” strength for the end of the fiscal year 1947 (that is, for June 30, 1947) is 1,070,000 officers and men. Can the Army attain that strength by that time through voluntary enlistments alone?

Nobody knows. It is a matter of making the best guess possible, with very little to go upon. If the draft law is repealed, or rendered inoperative as of May 15 (its present date of expiration): What effect will this have on voluntary enlistments? It’s certain that a good many of the short-term volunteers have enlisted to avoid being drafted for two years. As to the three-year enlistments, it’s also certain that a great many of these are high-grade noncommissioned officers or former Regular Army men who enlisted to protect their ratings or their seniority. Has the cream of this source of manpower been skimmed off already?

But why must we do these things now, when no immediate danger threatens? Because it is now that we should begin laying the foundations for the future. Because others are watching us – those who may wish to know whether they can depend on our strength in the world of tomorrow, those who may wish to calculate whether they can challenge it. No one can say what the state of the world will be on June 30, 1947. The proposed “target” strength for the Army on that date is the minimum which will enable the Army to discharge its obligations in the matter of armies of occupation, forces earmarked for U.N. use, and training, and still have a small reserve in hand with which to meet emergencies.

We dare not reduce the Army to a lower point than this until we have had a chance to see how our hopes work out. There is grave doubt that the number of men required can be obtained by voluntary enlistment if the draft law is permitted to expire, or is rendered inoperative by any legislative device, on May 15 next. The Army asks only that it be extended for nine months – which will carry its operation past the period when the next Congress will convene, with a fresh mandate from the voters and with an opportunity to re-examine the situation as of that time, both in terms of the operation of the voluntary system in the meanwhile and in terms of world conditions. The duty of the present Congress is clear – to take no risks that can so easily be avoided. Congressmen who fail in that duty have little claim to the further confidence of their constituents.

[NormanStewart]

The Evening Star (April 13, 1946)

Eliot: Our armed forces

By George Fielding Eliot

This is the third of a series of articles dealing with the armed forces of the United States – their strength, organization, missions and their relation to national and world security.

There is one very important distinction which the citizen must keep in mind in thinking about his armed forces: The distinction between the police job and the strategic job. The police job is concerned with keeping the peace of the world so that the strategic job may never have to be done at all; but the recognized and unchallengeable ability to perform the strategic job is essential to the performance of the police job.

It is like the irresistible power of the State and Nation which stand behind the single policeman who walks up and arrests a criminal. In the vast majority of cases (in this country) the policeman is not resisted. Why? Because through generations of organized government the citizens of the United States have learned to accept the fact that behind the single policeman there are more policemen, riot squads with machine guns and tear gas if necessary; behind these are the State police and the National Guard; behind these the full power of the Federal Government, with the Regular Army. Very rarely indeed are these latter agencies called on to aid the civil power in enforcing the law. But if they did not exist the law could not be enforced at all.

So now as we face the task of being the major pillar of law enforcement in the world, we shall need police forces which we shall place at the disposal of the Security Council of the United Nations, and we shall need police forces to do jobs which do not fall within the scope of U.N., such as the continued occupation of Germany and Japan and the enforcement of peace treaties or armistice provisions.

These jobs will call for limited forces, usually, and will depend more on having a small force immediately available than on a large potential force which can act only after considerable delay. They will depend on forces of great mobility – airborne and amphibious units which can be moved quickly to any needed point.

But behind the policeman must always be the irresistible power which can be called to his aid in case of need. Otherwise he will not be able to function; he will be challenged, resisted – or ignored. We must recognize that the United Nations is not a world government. The power which lies behind its police force is the power of its member states.

The measure of the authority of the United States in all world affairs will be the measure of its military power: Not only its ability to carry on police duties, but its ability to maintain its own security against any challenge. The responsibility of the armed forces of the United States in this field is of a different character than their task in the work of actual police. It is here, and not in the police job, that we must think in terms of new weapons such as atomic bombs, guided missiles and long-range rockets.

From these considerations are beginning to emerge certain conclusions as to the function and missions of the various branches of our armed forces.

These conclusions are by no means hard and fast as yet. There are disagreements and disputes. Each of the three major services: Navy, Army (ground forces) and Air, is groping forward, seeking to peer behind the veil of the future, desperately anxious to have enough of everything it needs to meet future contingencies whose shape it cannot exactly foresee. Tentatively, the lines of division fall about as follows – the Navy and the Marine Corps will do much of the actual policing, with Army ground forces to back them up when needed and air force support and transportation when needed. The air force supplies the major strategic striking power, whether with piloted airplanes or airborne missiles; but it will need the support of the Navy to supply its outlying bases and to move its units to new base areas if necessary.

The Army ground forces will make secure the bases of the Navy and air force against land attack, provide major occupation forces for Germany and Japan and a reserve of ground striking power in the United States to take and hold new bases or support existing ones as may be required. Obviously there is much overlapping, much intermingling of colors in this picture: The wonder is not that there are differences of opinion as to organization and function, the wonder is that the actual areas of disagreement between the services are so small.

These areas of disagreement will be discussed in the next article of this series.

[NormanStewart]

The Evening Star (April 16, 1946)

Eliot: Our armed forces

By George Fielding Eliot

This is the fourth and last of a series of articles on the armed forces of the United States – their size, organization, missions and their relation to national and world security.

Nothing is more discouraging to the citizen who realizes his need for sound military advice than evidence that his chosen military advisers do not agree, or cannot make up their minds. If they are uncertain, says the citizen, what about me? What about my future? How can I ever feel secure?

Yet the future is never certain for any of us; and as I have tried to show in the preceding articles of this series, the present is a period of particular uncertainty for the military man. Though his job is inextricably intertwined with political considerations, the political future of the world, of the United Nations, and of the position of the United States in relation to other countries, is just about as uncertain as it could be. And though we have just been through a long and victorious war, the process of fighting brought into existence weapons and methods which may make drastic changes in military organization and in the very elementals of strategy.

It is inevitable that the military man should desire first of all a broad frame of reference from his civilian superiors. He wants enough of everything that he may require to discharge a mission whose future needs he cannot foresee. But he knows that there is an overall limit on the amount of money and the number of men that will be available for the armed forces in time of peace.

He knows all too well how after every war we have ever fought, the sound plans that have been made at the close of the war for our military establishments have been successively whittled away, year by year, by the congressional paring-knife.

These considerations lie behind the existing disagreements among the services as to the organization and functions of the armed forces. They would all be swept away – they would vanish overnight, like mists before a freshening breeze – if there existed in this country a strong and lively public understanding of military requirements.

Look at the actual areas of disagreement, aside from the question of whether there shall or shall not be a single department of the armed forces. There are three such areas as far as function and mission are concerned: (1) Whether the Navy shall or shall not have land-based aircraft; (2) the size and functions of the Marine Corps; (3) the new weapons – guided missiles, rockets, and so on, and who shall develop and control them.

The Navy says it needs a certain number of land-based aircraft for offshore reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrol. The air forces say this is an invasion of their proper function and will result in the setting up of two strategic air forces under different commands.

The Navy says it needs a fleet marine force including two full divisions and supporting air units in order to carry out its police functions and keep up an adequate spearhead for major amphibious operations. The Army says that this is an invasion of its proper sphere and that appropriations for these purposes should go to the Army ground forces.

The air forces say that the guided missile, etc., program is their particular baby and is so closely tied in with strategic bombing as part of the long-range offensive power of the United States that they should have full control of it. The Navy says that they must be free to develop any weapon they need for the discharge of their mission of controlling the seas.

The one basis on which such difficulties can be satisfactorily resolved, and on which there can be harmonious co-operation among all the services toward the single objective of the common defense, is a rising tide of determination among the people of this country that there shall in future be no gambling with the national security.

It is the citizen, and not the general or the admiral, who must make the first decision. He must make up his mind that the first requirement he makes of his government is a secure and peaceful world, and that to have such a world America must have military power to a degree never before contemplated in time of peace – at least for the present. He must face the fact that to have such power, he must pay for it.