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Chapter 6 - Into the 20th Century: Continuity in Civilian Control


The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, perhaps the shrewdest of those
Europeans who evaluated American democracy in the 19th century, wrote:
"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic
country."  The Civil War did not bear out de Tocqueville primarily
because it ended in a complete victory for the Union. The question of
what would happen if, sometime in the future, the United States
encountered significant long-term challenges to its vital interests
and aspirations remained unanswered.

Civilian control of military affairs was preserved during this period
in large measure because Congress maintained careful surveillance of
military activity, primarily through its control of the budget. During
the Civil War, Congress demonstrated considerable interest in
exercising its constitutional powers, setting up the Joint Committee
on the Conduct of the War, a group that constantly took issue with the
executive branch. After the war, the committees on military affairs in
the two houses of Congress examined requests for funds with
unremitting thoroughness, and Congress regularly authorized special
inquiries into alleged malpractices of the Army and Navy.

During the years from about 1880 to 1917, when the United States
entered into World War I, a group of reformers in the Army and Navy
agitated strongly for enlarged military services and considerable
improvements in warfighting capabilities. As a result, several
institutional innovations were undertaken that enhanced the
professional competence of the Army and Navy, among them the founding
of the Office of Naval Intelligence (1882); of the Army's Military
Information Division (1885); of the Naval War College (1884); and of
the Army War College (1903). The Navy set up its General Board in 1900
to improve planning. Beginning in 1903, the two services conducted
consultations through the Joint Board of the Army and Navy. The Army
first received a General Staff in 1903, and the Navy gained its Office
of the Chief of Naval Operations in 1915.

Yet, the most striking feature during this period was the continuity
in traditional defense policy. Despite the efforts of the reformers,
neither the Army nor the Navy could have challenged forces maintained
by the great powers of Europe--for example, the army of Wilhelmian
Germany or the navy of Edwardian Britain. By the end of the 19th
century, the United States had become recognized as one of the great
powers when using such measures of strength as industrial production,
national wealth and population, but its armed forces lagged far behind
those of its rivals. This circumstance reflected the continuing belief
that the nation, thanks to the protection afforded by the great oceans
and the polar regions, could avoid involvement in Eurasian warfare and
thus the costs of huge and highly professional warfighting armed
services comparable to those maintained by other great powers.