Drawdown: The American Way of Postwar

316 Pages·2016·1.732 MB·English

by  Jason W. Warren

Drawdown
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Drawdown: The American Way of Postwar
Edited by Jason W. Warren
Drawdown
The American Way of Postwar
Edited by Jason W. Warren
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2016 by New York University
All rights reserved
The views herein reflect those of the authors and not the Department of Defense or U.S.
Army War College.
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Warren, Jason W., 1977– editor.
Title: Drawdown : the American way of postwar / edited by Jason W. Warren.
Other titles: American way of postwar
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016020572| ISBN 978-1-4798-2840-1 (hbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 978-1-4798-7557-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: United States. Army—Demobilization. | United States. Army—
Reorganization—History. | United States—Armed Forces—Demobilization. |
United States—History, Military—Case studies.
Classification: LCC UA917.U5 D73 2016 | DDC 355.2/90973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020572
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Contents
Foreword ix
Peter Mansoor
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: The American Way of Postwar:
The Liberty Dilemma 1
Michael E. Lynch
Part I. Building the American Military Ideal
1. The Art of War: Early Anglo- American Translation, 1607–1 643 27
Kevin McBride with Ashley Bissonnette
2. Liberty Paradox: The Failure of the Military System in
Mid-S eventeenth- Century New England 52
Jason W. Warren
3. Surprisingly Professional: Trajectories in Army Officer Corps
Drawdowns, 1783–1 848 73
Samuel Watson
Part II. Managing Industrial-E ra Warfare
4. Challenged Competency: U.S. Cavalry before, during, and after
the U.S. Civil War 109
John A. Bonin
5. The Elusive Lesson: U.S. Army Unpreparedness from
1898 to 1938 137
Edward A. Gutiérrez with Michael S. Neiberg
6. When the Smoke Clears: The Interwar Years as an
Unlikely Success Story 155
Michael R. Matheny
vii
viii | Contents
Part III. Conceptualizing Cold War Framework
7. Searching for the Greatest Generation’s Army in 1950 175
Scott Bertinetti and John A. Bonin
8. The Post– Korean War Drawdown under the
Eisenhower Administration 190
Raymond Millen
9. Once Again with the High and Mighty: “New Look” Austerity,
“Flexible Response” Buildup, and the U.S. Army in Vietnam,
1954– 1970 208
Martin G. Clemis
Part IV. Searching for a New Paradigm
10. Post-V ietnam Drawdown: The Myth of the Abrams Doctrine 241
Conrad C. Crane
11. The “Good” Drawdown: The Post- Vietnam Alignment
of Resources 253
Antulio J. Echevarria II
12. Preaching after the Devil’s Death: U.S. Post– Cold
War Drawdown 267
Richard A. Lacquement Jr.
Epilogue 291
Kevin W. Farrell
About the Contributors 295
Index 299
Foreword
Peter Mansoor
The United States is currently undergoing a drawdown of its military estab-
lishment after nearly a decade and a half of war. The shrinking of the armed
forces is not just an economic necessity but a historical inevitability. The
essays in this volume explore the past experiences of the American military
establishment during periods of contraction from the colonial period to
the present. They detail the considerations that policy makers confront in
determining how much capability and what types of it are required to keep
America safe from harm against immediate threats, while providing the latent
capacity to expand the military when national security demands such action.
The trade-o ffs involved in “right-s izing” the defense establishment, underlain
by an uncertain security environment and beset by inter-s ervice rivalries, are
not always easily reconciled. The need to get these decisions right makes the
study of previous drawdowns imperative.
Americans have historically felt ambivalent about their military institu-
tions. They view them as a necessary burden on society, but one that should
be kept as light as possible both for reasons of economy and to prevent the
standing military establishment from endangering civil liberties. Americans
for the most part embrace the tradition of the citizen soldier as embodied
by the militia and the National Guard. For much of the nation’s history, the
Regular Army was relegated to remote frontier posts and coastal fortifica-
tions, its structure massively supplemented by volunteers to fight the War
of 1812, the war with Mexico, the U.S. Civil War, and the Spanish-A merican
War. The Navy, which was not nearly as much of a danger to civil liberties and
which had a functional role in protecting commerce, traditionally enjoyed
more support during times of peace.
The three great world wars waged by the United States in the twentieth
century and the technological changes wrought to fight them changed this
dynamic. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans that once served as moats to protect
the nation could in the modern era act as highways in the service of great
powers possessing modern navies. The advent of the airpower age left the
United States potentially vulnerable to attack by intercontinental bombers
ix
x | Peter Mansoor
and ballistic missiles. America’s acquisition of an empire also left its overseas
possessions vulnerable, a point emphatically made by the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. These realities confirmed in the minds of
many policy makers and military officers the need to maintain robust military
capabilities even in times of peace. Although the large military establishments
created to fight World War I and World War II were quickly dismantled upon
victory, the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the strategy of containment
crafted to hem in Communist power meant for the first time in the nation’s
history the maintenance of a large peacetime military establishment. There
were drawdowns following the Korean and Vietnam wars, but they were lim-
ited in comparison with the wholesale gutting of the military establishment
after previous conflicts.
The advent of the all- volunteer force following the end of American par-
ticipation in the Vietnam War reduced the societal burden of military ser-
vice, but concomitantly made military forces more expensive. Thus the nation
could afford fewer active- duty forces for a given expenditure, which in the
post-V ietnam era has hovered between 4 and 6 percent of gross domestic
product. Military leaders opted for the retention of combat capabilities at the
expense of combat- service and combat- service- support organizations and
robust headquarters, with significant damaging impact on the ability of the
military to conduct the numerous contingency operations of the 1990s and
beyond.
The end of the Cold War augured a reversion to the small military estab-
lishments that existed for much of the nation’s history. However, American
policy makers had by then embraced America’s role as the global hegemon,
the unipolar hyperpower that could keep the peace, protect the global com-
mons, and make the world safe for the liberal capitalist order. A peaceful
world bolstered by American power appeared to be good for the spread of
democracy and the growth of American business. To be sure, the Clinton
administration exacted a peace dividend, with defense budgets dipping below
4 percent of GDP in the latter half of the 1990s, but the defense establishment
(and defense spending) remained much more robust than in previous eras
following the end of major conflicts.
In any case, the peace dividend came to an end with the terrorist attacks
on the United States on September 11, 2001. The Bush administration ramped
up military spending to fight the global war on terror, with the U.S. Army
and Marine Corps enjoying the largest increases. But after a decade of war,
Americans grew weary of continued overseas commitments, leading the
Obama administration to end American participation in the Iraq War and
to reduce sharply its commitment to support the Afghan government. The