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I. National Security in American Public Affairs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John D. Millett
John D. Millett
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

Traditionally, American public interest in national defense has been sporadic, alternating between short periods of intense concern and longer periods of general indifference. Except for World War II, the only sustained military effort since 1789 was provoked by internal strife. American manpower ended the stalemate of World War I, but our participation was neither lengthy nor economically intensive.

We often forget that one of the first purposes motivating the Founding Fathers was to “provide for the common defense.” Six of the eighteen clauses in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, defining the legislative authority of the new federal government, deal with military matters. It was no accident that in the early issues of the Federalist John Jay and Alexander Hamilton should have dwelt at length upon the defense requirements of the American states. Properly, Hamilton was concerned also to demonstrate that under the proposed constitution the military would be subject to the civilian authority.

Type
National Defense and Democratic Society: A Symposium
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , June 1949 , pp. 524 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1949

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References

* Planned and arranged by Fritz Morstein Marx, Washington, D. C.

1 See Nos. 2–9, 11, and 26–29.

2 No. 28.

3 See America's Munitions, 1917–1918, a report of Crowell, Benedict, Assistant Secretary of War and Director of Munitions (Washington, 1919)Google Scholar.

4 The Federalist, No. 28.

5 As one student has written, “It is to be hoped that in any future emergency the Services will not be hampered in even a few cases by men in key positions who have a blind spot where coöperation with civilian scientists in a civilian organization is concerned.” Stewart, Irvin, Organizing Scientific Research for War (Boston, 1948), p. 167Google Scholar.

6 Senate Rep. No. 949, 80th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1948).

7 These are the General Report of the Committee of European Economic Coöperation (1947)Google Scholar; the report of the President's Committee on Foreign Aid, European Recovery and American Aid (1947); National Resources and Foreign Aid, the report of the Secretary of the Interior (1947)Google Scholar; and the Impact of Foreign Aid upon the Domestic Economy, a report by the Council of Economic Advisers (1947)Google Scholar.

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