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Chapter 8 - The Cold War


Two superpowers emerged from the unparalleled destruction of World War
II, the United States and the Soviet Union. All the other great
powers, whether on the victorious or vanquished side in 1945, had lost
much of their strength in that conflict. The superpowers' wartime
cooperation was, however, soon aborted by their conflicting interests,
and a long period of intense antagonism, known as the Cold War,
followed.

To preserve its worldwide interests and to protect threatened peoples
and nations against possible absorption into the Soviet bloc, the
United States resolved to pursue a foreign policy of active and
sustained involvement in world politics. By 1947, this involvement had
assumed the form of "containment." This term denoted measures to
prevent further enlargement of the Soviet bloc, which, the United
States feared, might gain hegemony and pose the gravest dangers to
other nations not only in Eurasia but in the Americas if allowed to
grow unchecked. President Harry S. Truman said in March 1947: "I
believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside pressures."

The policy of containment required a new strategic design. In the hope
of avoiding nuclear conflict, the United States at length decided upon
"deterrence." This strategy relied on an arsenal of nuclear weapons as
well as powerful conventional forces. The strategy of deterrence was
to ensure effective containment without resort to war. All parties
recognized that the world could not afford the unimaginable costs of
nuclear warfare. General Omar Bradley described this strategy in
simple terms: "Patience and determination without provoking world war,
while we improve our military power."

The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, and the burden of containment
and deterrence, precluded the United States from following its normal
postwar pattern of almost completely demobilizing its armed forces.
Although the United States underwent a vast demobilization from 1945
to 1950 (the Army, for example, dropped from more than eight million
to less than 600,000), the military had grown substantially again by
the end of the Korean conflict in 1953. For the next four decades, the
nation was forced to maintain powerful military capabilities,
including a massive nuclear arsenal. Despite some modifications,
containment and deterrence remained the guiding principles of U.S.
Cold War policy.

Part of the effort to maintain powerful military forces in peacetime
entailed the building of a reserve system. The U.S. Army and Naval
Reserves date back to the early years of this century. In the postwar
period, the purpose of the reserve system has been to provide trained
people and operational equipment to augment active-duty forces in
wartime. The reserves are especially prominent in manning support
units, such as mobile army surgical hospitals and field kitchens,
which are necessary only in time of war. Other reserves provide unit
and individual replacements for casualties sustained in the early
weeks of war. Reserve units are less expensive to maintain than
active-duty forces. More important, they reinforce the ideal of the
citizen-soldier, because reservists are virtually full-time civilians,
who, outside of a brief training period every year, put on the uniform
only in case of a national emergency.

Once it became obvious that the United States would have to maintain
large standing land, sea and air forces in time of peace for an
indefinite period, many observers expressed concern that this novel
situation might compromise the traditional principle of civilian
control. Noted political scientist Harold Lasswell argued that
extensive security concerns might well lead to the creation of a
"garrison state," or "a world in which the specialists on violence are
the most powerful group in society." The result might be large-scale
suppression of civil liberties in the name of national security. In
1964 another prominent political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington,
wondered whether the nation could adjust the traditional relations
between the civil authority and the military establishment
sufficiently to mount a credible deterrent. He speculated that the
"conservative realism" characteristic of the military might clash with
the "liberal idealism" of the public, creating serious conflicts and
perhaps compromising security. In 1961 President Dwight D. Eisenhower
warned against the rise of a "military-industrial complex" that might
gain undue political influence and subvert traditional democratic
values: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by
the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise
of misplaced power exists and will persist."

One constraint on any such development was the varied and often
contentious nature of the interests that constituted the complex.
There was never any indication of unified purpose and organization
among them that might have coalesced into a disciplined political
movement. Also of great importance in precluding any such movement was
the emergence of what has been called a "knowledge-opinion complex,"
which maintained a close watch on national security policy and warned
against the undue accumulation of power by interest groups that stood
to gain from high levels of military expenditure. The
knowledge-opinion complex encompassed representatives of the mass
media, academic institutes devoted to the independent study of
national security affairs, and the so-called "think tanks" that
emphasize research and development. Constant public discussion of
defense issues ensured that all points of view received consideration
as the president and the Congress reached decisions on national
security matters.

Although the Cold War lasted until internal unrest in the Soviet Union
and in Eastern Europe finally ended it more than 40 years later, the
fears of Lasswell, Huntington and Eisenhower came to nothing. Despite
occasional challenges, some of them severe, the principle of civilian
control remained firmly imbedded in the consciousness of the American
people, both in the civilian and military sectors. Nothing appeared
that approximated a repressive garrison state; ideological conflict
between civilian and military outlooks did not materialize; and the
"military-industrial complex" did not attain uncontrolled power.
     
Certain continuities in American behavior explain the
preservation of civilian control during the Cold War:

* The United States accepted the burdens of the Cold War because the
majority of American people were convinced that nothing less would
preserve their democratic way of life. The sacrifices of the Cold War
years did not undermine democracy; they may have strengthened it.
Recognizing that civilian control was an essential element of
democratic government, the public opposed developments that they
thought might lead to undue military influence. It wanted to assure
itself of both security and freedom.

* The military profession also retained its strong commitment to
civilian leadership. In 1948 General Dwight D. Eisenhower, while
discouraging efforts of supporters to nominate him for the presidency,
summarized the dominant views of the professional military. He
insisted that "the necessary and wise subordination of the military to
civil power will be best sustained, and our people will have greater
confidence that it is so sustained, when lifelong professional
soldiers, in the absence of some obvious and overriding reasons,
abstain from seeking high political office." Eisenhower's views were
typical of the members of the officer corps--respect for civilian
control continued to be consciously and systematically instilled at
every level of military education.