How Weak Could the Post-World War II United States Military Get?

Delta Force

Banned
While looking at some 1940s military projects, I stumbled across Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson. He's perhaps most (in)famous for the Revolt of the Admirals, after he ordered construction to cease on the USS United States (CVA-58), the first supercarrier planned for the United States Navy. However, he also made some other decisions that weakened the strength of the United States military heading into the Korean War. They eerily parallel some of the defense decisions made by many European states in the 1930s on financial grounds.

Here's how Johnson responded to the test of the first Soviet atomic bomb. Keep in mind that the only part of the military receiving adequate funding during this period was Strategic Air Command, and even it wasn't receiving much. Atomic weapons production was drastically curtailed after World War II, and the B-36 wasn't procured in quantities in line with its vital role in United States military strategy.

In August 1949, earlier than U.S. intelligence analysts had anticipated, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic device. This event and the almost concurrent retreat of the Kuomintang regime from mainland China hastened debate within the administration as to whether the United States should develop a hydrogen bomb. Initially, Johnson suspected — despite confirming air samples — that the Soviets had not really tested an atomic device at all. He theorized that perhaps an accidental laboratory explosion had occurred, and that no reassessments of U.S. defense capabilities were needed.[23]

Concluding that the hydrogen bomb was now required as deterrent as well as an offensive weapon, on January 31, 1950, Truman decided to proceed with development; Johnson supported the president's decision. Truman at the same time directed the Secretaries of State and Defense to review and reassess U.S. national security policy in the light of the Soviet atomic explosion, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, and acquisition of the hydrogen bomb, and to produce a paper based on their new analysis. Johnson went about this task reluctantly, as he had promised Truman he would hold the line on increased defense spending. He was also upset that the State Department had first taken the lead on the policy assessment and had heavily influenced the contents of the resultant report NSC 68.

Truman was less than enthused about the large defense cost projections for NSC-68 and its implications for existing domestic budgetary spending priorities, and initially sent it back without comment to its authors for further analysis. Although Truman took no immediate formal action on NSC 68, the paper gained considerable support when the North Koreans attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950. Johnson's obstinate attitude toward the State Department role in the preparation of this paper adversely affected his relations with both Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Truman. Although Johnson publicly professed belief that "the advance guard in the campaign for peace that America wages today must be the State Department," his disagreements with Acheson and his restrictions on DoD contacts with the State Department persisted until the realities of the Korean War caused his fall from favor with the White House.
As you can imagine, things didn't go well in Korea with this level of preparedness:

By 1950, Johnson had established a policy of faithfully following President Truman's defense economization policy, and had aggressively attempted to implement it even in the face of steadily increasing external threats posed by the Soviet Union and its allied Communist regimes. He consequently received much of the blame for the initial setbacks in Korea and the widespread reports of ill-equipped and inadequately trained U.S. forces. Johnson's failure to adequately plan for U.S. conventional force commitments, to adequately train and equip current forces, or even to budget funds for storage of surplus Army and Navy war-fighting materiel for future use in the event of conflict would prove fateful after war broke out on the Korean Peninsula.[8]

In June 1950, the lightly armed South Korean Army and its U.S. advisors found themselves under attack from North Korean aircraft and waves of well-trained infantry equipped with Soviet tanks and artillery.[8] In an initial response, Truman called for a naval blockade of North Korea, and was shocked to learn that such a blockade could only be imposed 'on paper', since the U.S. Navy no longer had the warships with which to carry out his request.[8][24]

Ordered to intervene in Korea by the President, U.S. armed forces were short of both men and equipment. Army officials recovered Sherman tanks from World War II Pacific battlefields, reconditioning them for shipment to Korea.[8] Army Ordnance officials at Fort Knox pulled down M26 Pershing tanks from display pedestals around Fort Knox in order to equip the third company of the Army's hastily formed 70th Tank Battalion.[25] Without adequate numbers of tactical fighter-bomber aircraft, the Air Force took F-51 (P-51) propeller-driven aircraft out of storage or from existing Air National Guard squadrons, and rushed them into front-line service. A shortage of spare parts and qualified maintenance personnel resulted in improvised repairs and overhauls. A Navy helicopter pilot aboard an active-duty warship recalled fixing damaged rotor blades with masking tape in the absence of spares.[26]

Army infantry reservists and new inductees called to duty to fill out understrength infantry divisions found themselves short of nearly everything needed to repel the North Korean forces: artillery, ammunition, heavy tanks, ground-support aircraft, even effective anti-tank weapons such as the M20 3.5-inch (89 mm) Super Bazooka.[27] Some Army combat units sent to Korea were supplied with wornout, 'red-lined' M-1 rifles or carbines in immediate need of Ordnance overhaul or repair.[28][29] Unlike the U.S. Army, the Soviet Union had retained its large World War II surplus arms inventories and kept them in a state of combat readiness. With this abundance of military hardware, the Soviet Union had supplied the North Korean Army over a period of several years with heavy tanks, machine guns, mortars, combat aircraft, and artillery, together with instructors to train the North Korean Army.[8][18][20][21][22][23] As a consequence, initial combat encounters by the 24th Infantry division and other Army units at the Battle of Osan with North Korean armored spearheads proved disastrous. Ironically, only the U.S. Marine Corps, whose commanders had stored and maintained their World War II surplus inventories of equipment and weapons, proved ready for deployment, though they still were understrength[30] and in need of suitable landing craft to practice amphibious operations (Johnson had transferred most of the remaining craft to the Navy and reserved them for use in training Army units).[18][31] As U.S. and South Korean forces lacked sufficient armor and artillery to repel the North Korean forces, Army and Marine Corps ground troops were instead committed to a series of costly rearguard actions as the enemy steadily progressed down the Korean peninsula, eventually encircling Pusan.[32][33]

The impact of Korea on Johnson's defense planning was glaringly evident in the Defense Department's original and supplemental budgetary requests for FY 1951. For that fiscal year, Johnson had at first supported Truman's recommendation of a $13.3 billion defense budget, but a month after the fighting in Korea started, the secretary hastily proposed a supplemental appropriation request of $10.5 billion, (an increase of 79%), bringing the total requested to $23.8 billion.[34] In making the additional request, Johnson informed a House appropriations subcommittee that "in light of the actual fighting that is now in progress, we have reached the point where the military considerations clearly outweigh the fiscal considerations."[35]

U.S. reverses in Korea and the continued priority accorded to European security resulted in rapid, substantive changes in U.S. defense policies, including a long-term expansion of the armed forces and increased emphasis on military assistance to U.S. allies. Preoccupied with public criticism of his handling of the Korean War, and wishing to deflect attention from the peacetime defense economy measures he had previously espoused, Truman decided to ask for Johnson's resignation. On September 19, 1950, Johnson resigned as Secretary of Defense, and the president quickly replaced him with General George C. Marshall.
I'm not sure how accurate the Wikipedia article is of course, but if even half of it is true the United States military was in sorry shape by 1950, as its performance in the early parts of World War II and the crash remilitarization program shows. Just how bad could things have gotten under President Truman and Secretary Johnson? Would they have been even worse under an isolationist Republican government if they had won both the 1946 and 1948 elections?
 
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The Korean War demonstrated the bankruptcy of the doctrines Johnson & Co, were following. Avoid any war for the US for another five or even three years & Johnsons reforms are far further embeded and difficult to reverse.

1. Fewer WWII combat veterans in the Regular & Reserves from natural attrition. their experience in the Korean war was critical to holding things together in the initial emergency, & capability restoration in 1951.

2. Reduction in training funds. This relates directly to 1. Experience has a natural fade out cycle & robust training is necessary to keep up capabilities. The concept Johnson followed had any ground or naval forces needed for a follow up to the USAF decisive victory being rebuilt from thin cadres.

3. Navy with rapidly declining numbers of capitol ships, amphibs, fleet support ships/shore support units, Marines reduced to the 1900 form as ships companies and base guards.

4. By 1950 the US Armies ready force and stratigic reserve was on paper the 82d AB Div. The only full strength division in the US. Since the 82d was key to the infant NATO war plans it was not used in Korea. Had Johnsons plan continued the US Army formations would have been further reduced leaving just the 82d & a few independant regiments for use in a emergency. Formations like the 8th Army in Jaan with a residual combat capability in June 1950 would have been gone by 1952. Reduced to a paper existance.
 

Delta Force

Banned
The Korean War demonstrated the bankruptcy of the doctrines Johnson & Co, were following. Avoid any war for the US for another five or even three years & Johnsons reforms are far further embeded and difficult to reverse.

Apart from cutting everything except SAC, and giving SAC little funding at that, what other reforms took place besides austerity?

1. Fewer WWII combat veterans in the Regular & Reserves from natural attrition. their experience in the Korean war was critical to holding things together in the initial emergency, & capability restoration in 1951.
Do/did all United States military personnel sign eight year service obligation contracts? Wouldn't everyone who entered during World War II be out of the reserves by around 1953 or so?

2. Reduction in training funds. This relates directly to 1. Experience has a natural fade out cycle & robust training is necessary to keep up capabilities. The concept Johnson followed had any ground or naval forces needed for a follow up to the USAF decisive victory being rebuilt from thin cadres.
Would even SAC have been capable of fulfilling its role after the cuts? There weren't many atomic weapons or aircraft available, and training standards were low in the late 1940s. Curtis LeMay quipped that he became leader of a flying club when he first took over SAC.

Also, would Rickover and possibly even LeMay be at risk of being asked to retire from the military? Rickover would be proposing expensive nuclear powered ships and strategic nuclear weapons for one of the services out of favor with Johnson, and LeMay seems to be the kind of person who would either tell Congress what he really thought about SAC's readiness during testimony, or else resign and criticize things as private citizen.

3. Navy with rapidly declining numbers of capitol ships, amphibs, fleet support ships/shore support units, Marines reduced to the 1900 form as ships companies and base guards.
Would the USN be at risk of losing its lead to the Soviet Union in the naval arms race? If Rickover leaves and naval nuclear power isn't a priority, the Navy could lose a decade or more of naval propulsion work relative to the Soviet Navy. That could mean that both sides start off on relative parity.

Also, if the Navy is incapable of marshaling enough forces to perform a blockade, landing capabilities are lost by the Marines and deprioritized by the Army, and the Air Force is deficient in tactical reconnaissance and tactical strike capabilities, it seems anything on the scale of the Cuban Missile Crisis would leave the United States no option but to fold or resort to a full scale nuclear attack.

4. By 1950 the US Armies ready force and stratigic reserve was on paper the 82d AB Div. The only full strength division in the US. Since the 82d was key to the infant NATO war plans it was not used in Korea. Had Johnsons plan continued the US Army formations would have been further reduced leaving just the 82d & a few independant regiments for use in a emergency. Formations like the 8th Army in Jaan with a residual combat capability in June 1950 would have been gone by 1952. Reduced to a paper existance.
How would things have played out if the military had continued to deteriorate, with the Soviet Union deciding to use its conventional forces somewhere in the mid-1950s or later? With the poor state of the United States military, no FRG military, and the British being to some extents in a better position than the United States (fighting in Malaya and even supplying most of the lift capacity in the early phases of the Berlin Airlift), might NATO never start either? It seems Johnson wasn't a fan of NATO either.
 
the 8 year commitment didn't begin until sometime in the late 1970's or 1980's...before that was a 6 year commitment....

I do think Truman's decision making process was clouded by his National Guard background and his experiences in the inter-world war period...

Louis Johnson was probably worse a Secretary of Defense than McNamara or second Rumsfeld....
 
the 8 year commitment didn't begin until sometime in the late 1970's or 1980's...before that was a 6 year commitment....

My 1974 enlistment had a six year obligation.

I do think Truman's decision making process was clouded by his National Guard background and his experiences in the inter-world war period...

Trumans thoughts were almost irrelevant. Congress slashed the funds drastically, then cut them again. The appointment of Louis Johnson to the new position of Secretary of Defense was simply appointing the man whos ideas fit what Congress demanded.

Louis Johnson was probably worse a Secretary of Defense than McNamara or second Rumsfeld....

He certainly bought off on the Big Bomber - Big Bomb doctrine. Of course a lot of folks fell for that one. The siren song of the high tech panacea that would substitute clean shiny science & hardware for sweat & blood, hard training, and young men maimed and dying. Two global wars in twenty five years with the collective butchers bill running well over fifty million & a similar number crippled or driven mad. Preparing for even a little war meant facing up to the harsh demands of preparation. The USAF pushed a promise of a easier way.
 
Apart from cutting everything except SAC, and giving SAC little funding at that, what other reforms took place besides austerity?

Jet fighters, radar gun sights for them & radar improvments for everyone, refined 90mm guns for tanks, catapults for aircraft carriers. Actually a fair number of R & D was continued, just not much put into production.

Do/did all United States military personnel sign eight year service obligation contracts? Wouldn't everyone who entered during World War II be out of the reserves by around 1953 or so?

The key are the lifers, the Sergents, Captains & Colonels whos skills require years to cultivate. A basic rifleman can be trained in a few weeks & a gunner for a MG, mortar, tank or cannon in a few months; 'IF' ther eis suffcient long term cadre around. The trend in the 1940s would have cut deeper & deeper on that critical portion of the Army & Navy.

Would even SAC have been capable of fulfilling its role after the cuts?

There were plans in place & being executed to provide the necessary number of bombers & accoutrements through the 1950s. The Berlin Crisis of 1948 had instigated executing those plans & they would have matured between 1949 & 1955. A robust USAF was central to the rational behind the Army & navy budget cuts forced by Congress and planned under Johnsons guidance.

Would the USN be at risk of losing its lead to the Soviet Union in the naval arms race?

There was no naval arms race. The global expansion program of the USSR was brief & soon canceled. Through the 1950s the Soviet Navy was a capable, but glorified coast guard.

How would things have played out if the military had continued to deteriorate, with the Soviet Union deciding to use its conventional forces somewhere in the mid-1950s or later? With the poor state of the United States military, no FRG military, and the British being to some extents in a better position than the United States (fighting in Malaya and even supplying most of the lift capacity in the early phases of the Berlin Airlift), might NATO never start either? It seems Johnson wasn't a fan of NATO either.

US strategy was embodied in the Drop Shot plan. That neither provided for nor intended to defend western Europe. The war would be won by bombing Soviet industry and transportation to rubble as with Germany in 1943-45. The starved Red Army would be mopped up after its logistics collapsed under atomic bombardment.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Trumans thoughts were almost irrelevant. Congress slashed the funds drastically, then cut them again. The appointment of Louis Johnson to the new position of Secretary of Defense was simply appointing the man whos ideas fit what Congress demanded.

Would a Republican President and/or a different Congress (such as isolationist Republicans) have done the same thing?

Jet fighters, radar gun sights for them & radar improvments for everyone, refined 90mm guns for tanks, catapults for aircraft carriers. Actually a fair number of R & D was continued, just not much put into production.

Apart from the steam catapult, those were all at least in the advanced prototyping stage by the end of World War II.

The key are the lifers, the Sergents, Captains & Colonels whos skills require years to cultivate. A basic rifleman can be trained in a few weeks & a gunner for a MG, mortar, tank or cannon in a few months; 'IF' ther eis suffcient long term cadre around. The trend in the 1940s would have cut deeper & deeper on that critical portion of the Army & Navy.
How far would the cuts have gone?

There were plans in place & being executed to provide the necessary number of bombers & accoutrements through the 1950s. The Berlin Crisis of 1948 had instigated executing those plans & they would have matured between 1949 & 1955. A robust USAF was central to the rational behind the Army & navy budget cuts forced by Congress and planned under Johnsons guidance.
What did those plans include?

Also, would there have been any contingency for operations that didn't involve nuclear armed bombers from SAC? It doesn't really matter if you destroy enemy logistics if you have no forces to defend against enemy ground forces and air attack.

There was no naval arms race. The global expansion program of the USSR was brief & soon canceled. Through the 1950s the Soviet Navy was a capable, but glorified coast guard.
If the USN is shrinking the Soviet Navy would be able to increase to a better relative position. I was thinking more in terms of the nuclear submarine and SLBM race though.

US strategy was embodied in the Drop Shot plan. That neither provided for nor intended to defend western Europe. The war would be won by bombing Soviet industry and transportation to rubble as with Germany in 1943-45. The starved Red Army would be mopped up after its logistics collapsed under atomic bombardment.
Wouldn't the Soviets have had extensive resources stockpiled in forward operating locations? Also, would the United States have known where the important Soviet military and industrial facilities were? The French and British would probably want some conventional forces capable of at least a few weeks of defense against the Soviets.

Also, Johnson's stance towards the Soviet atomic test had prevailed and it was viewed as a fluke, it seems the United States might even lose its lead in atomic weaponry, although not in deployment capabilities.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Schwamberger
Trumans thoughts were almost irrelevant. Congress slashed the funds drastically, then cut them again. The appointment of Louis Johnson to the new position of Secretary of Defense was simply appointing the man whos ideas fit what Congress demanded.

Would a Republican President and/or a different Congress (such as isolationist Republicans) have done the same thing?

I'd think so. The idea of the Republican party being defense hawks has come since the start of the Cold War. In the 1920s & 30s they were as adamant about cutting defense spending as anyone. In the latter 1940s the Republican leaders were mostly the same men who voted for repeated reductions in the defense budget in the 1920s.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Schwamberger
Jet fighters, radar gun sights for them & radar improvments for everyone, refined 90mm guns for tanks, catapults for aircraft carriers. Actually a fair number of R & D was continued, just not much put into production.

Apart from the steam catapult, those were all at least in the advanced prototyping stage by the end of World War II.

Yes, they were continued. Again there is a paralle to the 1920s. While the overall Army budget was cut with every appropriations bill the funds for R & D were not entirely eliminated. ie: Most of the development of the artillery used in WWII was completed between 1920 & 1928. The conversion designs of the Browning infantry MG from water cooled to air cooled were made in the 1920s. The 75mm gun improvement projects led directly to the guns used on the M4 medium tank & the M10 Tank Destroyer. All those in the 1920s were part of ongoing R & D programs that reached back to 1900 or beyond. This was little different after 1945. The generals & service secretaries did their best to continue the R & D programs & pursue new leads. That was what the Admirals Revolt was really about. Not just the preservation of a carrier construction but of a broader range of programs for improving equipment.

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The key are the lifers, the Sergents, Captains & Colonels whos skills require years to cultivate. A basic rifleman can be trained in a few weeks & a gunner for a MG, mortar, tank or cannon in a few months; 'IF' ther eis suffcient long term cadre around. The trend in the 1940s would have cut deeper & deeper on that critical portion of the Army & Navy.

How far would the cuts have gone?

I've no idea. The trends in 1949-50 look 'bad'. In some respects worse than those of the 1920s.

Quote:
There were plans in place & being executed to provide the necessary number of bombers & accoutrements through the 1950s. The Berlin Crisis of 1948 had instigated executing those plans & they would have matured between 1949 & 1955. A robust USAF was central to the rational behind the Army & navy budget cuts forced by Congress and planned under Johnsons guidance.

What did those plans include?

There were the assorted jet aircraft programs. The second generation like the F86 were already in production & service. The B47 production started in 1947. The anti aircraft missile programs that led to items like the Nike were underway. The USN atomic powerplant program was well underway. Programs that led to the M14 & M16 rifles & M60 MG were in place.

Also, would there have been any contingency for operations that didn't involve nuclear armed bombers from SAC? It doesn't really matter if you destroy enemy logistics if you have no forces to defend against enemy ground forces and air attack.

The most fanatical of the atomic warfare & big bomber school assumed the enemy would be reduced to impotence fairly quickly under the massive air force they proposed. The more pragmatic, those who wrote the Drop Shot plan understood it would take a extended time to recreate a new Army capable of occupying ground in Eurasia. They were depending on the lack of a Soviet Navy to keep them penned in Eurasia. To put it another way there were serious doubts by the likes of Marshal, Eisenhower, Bradley, & others that Europe, including Scandanavia, Spain, and Britain could be defended.

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There was no naval arms race. The global expansion program of the USSR was brief & soon canceled. Through the 1950s the Soviet Navy was a capable, but glorified coast guard.

[quaote]If the USN is shrinking the Soviet Navy would be able to increase to a better relative position. I was thinking more in terms of the nuclear submarine and SLBM race though.[/quote]

The Soviet navy, or blue water navy, was so small at the time it was zero stratigic threat. Late in the Stalin era there was a large construction program laid out & started. That would have to be continued for a decade to reach any useful stratigic competitive level. So, over the long run the Soviet Navy might be a threat by 1960 or later.

Quote:
US strategy was embodied in the Drop Shot plan. That neither provided for nor intended to defend western Europe. The war would be won by bombing Soviet industry and transportation to rubble as with Germany in 1943-45. The starved Red Army would be mopped up after its logistics collapsed under atomic bombardment.

Wouldn't the Soviets have had extensive resources stockpiled in forward operating locations? Also, would the United States have known where the important Soviet military and industrial facilities were? The French and British would probably want some conventional forces capable of at least a few weeks of defense against the Soviets.

Yes the Red Army had started expanding forward depots in Poland, Germany, ect... From 1948 the US started collecting information on Soviet industry. At that point it was in about the same position as Britain was with information of German industry in 1939. The Drop Shot plan contemplated several years to defeat the USSR. The DS plan was interpreted several different ways. The USAF saw it as the destruction of Soviet military capability through a sustained and ultra effective bombing program. 'Other' operations would be fairly easy follow up. Accepting the surrender of demoralized Red Army formations. The US Army saw it more like the WWII model where a rebuilt multinational ground force fought its way back into Eurasia with assistance from the USAF.

Also, Johnson's stance towards the Soviet atomic test had prevailed and it was viewed as a fluke, it seems the United States might even lose its lead in atomic weaponry, although not in deployment capabilities.

The reaction to the 1948 Berlin crisis ended any chance of that. The expansion & rearmament programs for the USAF pre Korean War were fairly robust. They were expanded as the 1950s went along, but the programs laid out 1949 or earlier were for a large 'jet' age air force. The other half of this was a worst case evaluation of Soviet rearmament of its air force & strike capability. For 45 years US intelligence sources tended to present the Red Army as three meters tall & filling the landscape with military power. Post 1990s it has become clear the Soviet atomic weapons development fit the more conservative best case models that were set aside when making US plans.
 

Delta Force

Banned
So essentially the military during this period was akin to the Russian military of the 1990s, with little funding for conventional forces (especially the navy) and some funding for strategic forces? Also, with extensive research programs replacing warehouses full of equipment that could provide for an immediate force surge?
 
He certainly bought off on the Big Bomber - Big Bomb doctrine. Of course a lot of folks fell for that one. The siren song of the high tech panacea that would substitute clean shiny science & hardware for sweat & blood, hard training, and young men maimed and dying. Two global wars in twenty five years with the collective butchers bill running well over fifty million & a similar number crippled or driven mad. Preparing for even a little war meant facing up to the harsh demands of preparation. The USAF pushed a promise of a easier way.

Such as Robert Heinlein. If you read his "world saving" articles of '45-'46 you can see he imagines a world of hostile nuclear powers (he imagined that nuclear weapons were trivially easy to develop, now that the method had been revealed) with incredibly long-ranged delivery systems.

In the early draft of Space Cadet, the Patrol solved every problem by nuking the source and the would have been a scene where the protagonist would have to destroy his own hometown. Peace Through Atomic Destruction.

:eek::eek::eek:
 
So essentially the military during this period was akin to the Russian military of the 1990s, with little funding for conventional forces (especially the navy) and some funding for strategic forces? Also, with extensive research programs replacing warehouses full of equipment that could provide for an immediate force surge?

There are paralles. Post 1918 Army CoS Peyton Marsh & then Pershing tried to create a armed and trained reserve capable of standing up a one million man army in a few months. At the end of the 1920s funds for anything were such that providing 100,000 combat ready soldiers inside three months for War Plan Orange was problematic.
 
Ike the General I think had the smallest military after WWII. He pointed that nuclear deterrence and just-enough force was best for democracy, because planes are worse than hospitals or ploughs.

But Macarthur, by repeating his never-scout and never-be-ready doctrines that let him be bombed in the Philippines even after Pearl, is most responsible for the troubles there.
 

Delta Force

Banned
There are paralles. Post 1918 Army CoS Peyton Marsh & then Pershing tried to create a armed and trained reserve capable of standing up a one million man army in a few months. At the end of the 1920s funds for anything were such that providing 100,000 combat ready soldiers inside three months for War Plan Orange was problematic.

Wasn't the United States rearming several years prior to World War II? Fighting a defensive war against another great power without assistance would have dramatically shown the folly of the older militia type methods the United States military operated under until even after Korea. Of course, things were downsized after World War II anyways, so it's possible another crisis would have occurred before the standing army approach was fully adopted.
 
Wasn't the United States rearming several years prior to World War II? Fighting a defensive war against another great power without assistance would have dramatically shown the folly of the older militia type methods the United States military operated under until even after Korea. Of course, things were downsized after World War II anyways, so it's possible another crisis would have occurred before the standing army approach was fully adopted.

There were repeated budget cuts during the 1930s. 1937-38 were the last of the low budget years. In 1938 Congress finally voted a budget that returned the military to the 1932 levels in the following years. This mostly went towards some new ships for the navy, and underwriting some test batches of new aircraft, mostly to keep the factory doors open. In 1939 the tensions in Europe caused another small supplement for 1940.

The Navy had a lot of ships designed & launched in the 1920s. The carriers, a bunch of submarines, some cruisers, some amphib transports. There were a few more support ships accquired in the 1930s. There were a lot of slick looking designs in the drawers but next to nothing on ways in 1937-39. Training funds were scarce, & a lot of new ordnance had never been run through a adequate test program. The Navy had two combined arms expeditionary brigades of Marines, & could scrounge up a third out of leftovers and reservists.

The Army had a lot of school trained officers. 17,000 on active service & at least 60,000 in its Reserve. Empahsis was on staff work since that had been a major failing in the Great War. The officers also did a lot of map exercises, but there was no money for field training above brigade size. There were a lot of modern weapons designed in the 1920s, & available only in a few test batches. The Garand rifle, air cooled MG, modern 105mm howitzers, a family of 75mm & three inch high velocity guns, and a variety of modern aircraft all notable by their tiny numbers on hand.

Four ground divisions were suposed to be at full strength & ready for war. Depression ear economies had those short 25% to 35% of men. Another four or five Regular Army divisions were effectively half strength. In the National Guard there were a hypothetical two dozen divisions. all badly under strength & undertrained. The Reserve Divisions existed on paper. About 2,500 Reserve officers were assigned to each, but there was no equipment, a tiny number of NCOs, and a little class room training each year. Field training consisted of 'observing' the Regular Army battalions in the field or the Div HQ at map exercises.

In the 1920s here had been the Bannana Wars. Hati & Nicaragua saw Marine groups growing through 1928. Effectively brigade strength in Nicaragua. I guess President Coolidge loved United Fruit. Also in 1928 the Marines and Army battalions in China were reinforced, the 4th Marines expanding to a combined arms brigade, and the Army 15th Infantry coming to near full strength. During the Hoover years all that was drawn down until the Marines were scare in Latin America & only a few rifle companies in China.

When France collapaed in June 1940 there was a panic in Congress. The war Powers Acts mobilized all the Army & navy reservists, brought the National Guard into Federal service for a year. Authorized a massive ship building program - the Two Ocean Navy & handed both the Army & navy blank checks. By late summer 1941 over four million men had gone into active service, and were training with real equipment.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Given the massive mobilization needed for the Korean War, is it possible that getting into a war after the cuts have become more entrenched would have meant putting the United States on full wartime mobilization, at least in certain sectors? There wouldn't be much industry capable of being quickly converted to military production, and some resources, such as petroleum, would be in short supply (the United States was an exporter until after World War II).
 
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