The Oxford Companion to American Military History / Edition 1

by John Whiteclay Chambers

Overview

With more than 1,100 entries written by some 500 distinguished contributors, The Oxford Companion to American Military History is "the most comprehensive treatment of American military history ever compiled" (Parameters: U.S. Army War College Quarterly) and an "easy-to-browse, well-organized work" (The Washington Post).

Here is a gold mine of information on American military history, exploring battles and soldiers, ships and weapons, services and doctrines—as well as the social and cultural impact of the U.S. military at home and around the world.
The Oxford Companion to American Military History boasts over 1,100 entries written by some 500 distinguished contributors. Readers will find Stephen E. Ambrose writing on the D-Day landing, James M. McPherson on the battle of Antietam, John Keegan on the changing experience of combat, Jean Bethke Elshtain on Jane Addams, Mark A. Noll on religion and war, and Robert M. Utley on Sitting Bull. Ranging from brief factual pieces to extensive essays, the entries examine every major war from the Revolution to the Persian Gulf; important battles from Bunker Hill, to the Alamo, Gettysburg, Little Bighorn, Normandy, and Khe Sanh; and military leaders from Washington to Grant, Lee, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Westmoreland, and Schwarzkopf. Moreover, the Companion goes well beyond the usual "drum and trumpet" coverage to examine a wide range of subjects you might not expect to find. There are entries on relevant acts of Congress and on diplomatic policies such as the Monroe Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; on peace and antiwar movements; on war in film, literature, music, and photography; and on war viewed through the disciplinary lenses of anthropology, economics, gender studies, and psychology. The result is the widest ranging account compiled in one volume of war, peace, and the U.S. military.
With over a thousand authoritative and vividly written entries, maps of several major wars, extensive cross-referencing, lists of further readings, and an index, this volume is the first place to turn for information on our nation's military history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195071986
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/13/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	960
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 6.81(h) x 2.06(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

John Whiteclay Chambers II is Professor of History and former chair of the History Department at Rutgers University. A distinguished scholar in American history and in war and peace studies, he is the author or editor of nearly a dozen books.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

A

ABM TREATY (1972). See Salt Treaties (1972; 1979).

ABRAMS, CREIGHTON W. (1914-1974), one of the leading American generals of the twentieth century.

    From a humble background, in Springfield, Massachusetts, he earned an appointment to West Point in 1932 and graduated in the famous class in 1936 that produced 60 wartime generals. "Abe" Abrams commanded an armored battalion in World War II, and, astride his tank "Thunderbolt," led the column that relieved American forces in Bastogne during the Battle of the *Bulge.

    Considered the best tactical leader in the army, he was placed in charge of armored forces in Germany during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. He also earned the respect of President John F. *Kennedy for his sensitive handling of federal troops in racial disturbances in Alabama. Sent to Vietnam as deputy to General William C. *Westmoreland, he succeeded Westmoreland in 1968. Under President Richard M. *Nixon's strategy of "Vietnamization" Abrams sought to train and equip South Vietnamese troops to fight on their own.

    In the last two years of his life, as Army Chief of Staff (1972-74), he was determined to rebuild the army in a way that would ensure its decisive use in future engagements. His vision is widely credited with creating the foundation for the 1991 Desert Storm victory over Iraq during the *Persian Gulf War. His insistence on joining superbly trained soldiers to multiple and synergistically devastating equipment led to the development of the Air Land Battle, the strategythat produced the most lopsided military victory in history in 1991.

* Lewis Sorley, Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times, 1992. Robert H. Scales, ed., Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, 1993. —Timothy J. Lomperis

ACADEMIES, SERVICE

Overview U.S. Military Academy U.S. Naval Academy U.S. Air Force Academy U.S. Coast Guard Academy

ACADEMIES, SERVICE: OVERVIEW

The primary function of the military service academies is to educate and train professional officers for the nation's standing armed forces.

    With the development of modern standing armies and more complex military technology, the modern military academy originated in Western Europe in the eighteenth century, established by royal governments to train younger sons of the nobility or veterans as line officers. Other academies trained middle-class officers for the technical services: *artillery, military *engineering, and *logistics of the nineteenth century, preparation of naval officers shifted to shore-based naval academies, and in the twentieth century, air force academies were established.

    Unlike those in some other nations, U.S. service academies are not narrowly vocational, but offer a broad edition in the liberal arts and sciences, as well as engineering management, and the military sciences, while emphasizing, of course, leadership, duty, responsibility, and loyalty. The requirements for admission are similar to those of other undergraduate schools, although the academy stress physical ability, character, and leadership potentials.

    Appointments to the service academies (except for the Coast Guard Academy) are made by members of Congress, a requirement designed to ensure a representative geographical graphical distribution of the officer corps. In return for the government-provided college education, the newly commissioned graduates are required to serve five years active duty.

    From the early republic, some Americans partly viewed national military academies and the regular officer corps as potential aristocratic threats to democracy. Consequently, Congress has periodically adopted measures to ensure the representativeness of the academies and officer corps. For example, blacks were admitted to West Point beginning in the 1870s (although only in token numbers at first); women were admitted to all the service academies beginning in the 1970s.

    The officer corps in the United States is prepared for public and private military academies (the latter including such state-supported institutions as Virginia Military institute and The Citadel in South Carolina) as well as at officer Candidate School and in the campus-based Reserve Officer Training Corps (*ROTC). However, although only a minority of U.S. military officers graduate from service academies, their connections, training in military technology, and leadership qualities have promoted their carreers, including selection for positions of high command.

[See also Education, Military; Leadership, Concepts of Military.] —John Whiteclay Chambers II

    ACADEMIES, SERVICE: U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY

The U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York, located fifty miles north of New York City on the west bank of the Hudson River, originated as a *Revolutionary War fortress. After the war it became a military stores depot. George *Washington, however, advocating military 'academy to train professional officers, and Thomas *Jefferson saw an academy as a way to create a "republican" officer corps. On 16 March 1802, Jefferson signed the act establishing a military academy at West Point, the first American school of engineering.

    West Point's existence remained tenuous until Sylvanus *Thayer arrived as superintendent in 1817. Thayer studied European military academies after the *War of 1812 and modeled USMA on the French Ecole Polytechnique. Under Thayer, the "Father of the Military Academy," West Point became the nation's premier school for civil engineering. Thayer established a four-year curriculum and annual examinations. The books he secured in Europe became America's first technical library. His insistence upon strict discipline, integrity, small classes, and daily recitations placed the burden for learning upon cadets. Thayer's "system," copied throughout the United States, survives at West Point today.

    West Point was criticized by many during its early years as being wasteful and aristocratic. Alden Partridge, an 1807 graduate and later superintendent, became an unrelenting critic of both USMA and Thayer, who had replaced him. Instead, Partridge advocated regional military schools like Norwich, which he founded after leaving the army. Other critics included Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee, who claimed that West Point taught undemocratic values and was too expensive. Fortunately, West Point enjoyed support from other influential Americans, including President Andrew *Jackson, who declared it to be "the best school in the world."

    The critics were mostly silenced by the performance of the academy's graduates. When American expansion demanded engineers for internal improvements, West Point provided them. Most railroad lines built before the *Civil War involved academy graduates. Others mapped new territory, and supervised roadbuilding, canal construction, and harbor improvements. However, West Pointers mainly achieved fame in battle, beginning with the *Mexican War, where junior officers like Robert E. *Lee, Ulysses S. *Grant, and Thomas "Stonewall" *Jackson practiced what they had studied under Professor Dennis Hart Mahan, a disciple of the Swiss war philosopher, Antoine Henri *Jomini.

    Despite its superintendents' efforts, including those of Lee, the growing rift between North and South disrupted West Point life. When the Civil War began, most Southern cadets resigned and most Southern alumni sided with their native region. West Point graduates dominated in the Civil War, commanding both sides in fifty-five of the sixty major battles and one side or the other in the other five. West Pointer Jefferson *Davis served as president of the Confederacy; the contesting armies were commanded by the likes of Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Joseph E. *Johnston, Grant, William Tecumseh *Sherman, Philip H. *Sheridan, George B. *McClellan, and George Gordon *Meade.

    West Point stagnated after the Civil War, as the army was reduced to frontier constabulary duties. But America's colonial expansion after the *Spanish-American War and entry in World War I returned USMA graduates to prominence. Col. George W. *Goethals supervised the building of the Panama Canal. John J. *Pershing led the American Expeditionary Force in France and Chief of Staff Peyton C. *March mobilized and trained the army. March also revitalized the academy by appointing Douglas *MacArthur superintendent in 1919. MacArthur introduced curricular and other reforms, liberalizing USMA's course of study for the first time in a century and insisting upon every cadet being an athlete.

    The Reserve Officer Training Corps and Officer Candidate Schools bolstered the army's officer corps in World War II, but West Point continued to furnish many of the highest ranking officers for the army and air force. Four of the five men promoted to five-star General of the Army rank—MacArthur, Dwight D. *Eisenhower, "Hap" *Arnold, and Omar *Bradley—were West Pointers. Over 85 percent of living West Point graduates served in the armed forces during World War II, 10 percent as general officers, including George S. *Patton, Joseph *Stilwell, and Mark *Clark.

    The advent of *nuclear weapons and the *Cold War limited warfare in scope and resources. Difficult conflicts tested West Pointers MacArthur, Matthew B. *Ridgway, and Maxwell *Taylor in Korea, and William C. *Westmoreland and Creighton *Abrams in Vietnam. These experiences also changed the academy's curriculum, broadening cadets' education in humanities. Reform superintendents, like Taylor and Garrison Davidson, pointed to military governors such as Lucius *Clay in Germany and Douglas MacArthur in Japan to justify requiring more history, languages, economics, political science, and international relations. A 1960s building program supported doubling the Corps of Cadets, to over 4,000.

    Although Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point, graduated in 1877, black cadets were not treated well generally and only three African Americans graduated from West Point before 1941. These attitudes began to change following the integration of the armed forces after World War II, and minority recruitment increased significantly in the 1960s. After much controversy, USMA also admitted its first women cadets in 1976. Since the end of the Cold War, graduates have participated in expeditionary warfare, as in the *Persian Gulf War, where Gen. H. Norman *Schwarzkopf commanded Coalition Forces against Iraq.

    The U.S. Military Academy's mission remains essentially as in 1802: to provide leaders of character, imbued with the academy's motto, "Duty, Honor, Country," to serve the common defense. In 1994, the academy produced its 50,000th graduate.

    [See also African Americans in the Military; Education, Military; Leadership, Concepts of Military; Women in the Military.]

* Stephen E. Ambrose, Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point, 1966. Dave Richard Palmer, The River and the Rock, 1969. John P. Lovell, Neither Athens Nor Sparta? The American Service Academies in Transition, 1979. James L. Morrison, Jr., "The Best School in the World," 1986. Theodore J. Crackel, The Illustrated History of West Point, 1991. George S. Pappas, To The Point: The United States Military Academy, 1802-1902, 1993.

—Steven C. Gravlin

ACADEMIESSERVICE: U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY

The U.S. Naval Academy is a four-year undergraduate institution whose mission is to educate and train officers for the U.S. *Navy and U.S. *MarineCorps. The academy was founded in 1845 by Secretary of the Navy George *Bancroft. He overcame years of congressional opposition to a naval school by transferring Fort Severn, an old army post on the banks of the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland, to the navy for a naval school. Earlier, American naval officers were trained on shipboard by schoolmasters or chaplains, but the inefficiency of this system led to appeals for a naval school ashore. The Naval School opened 10 October 1845 with fifty-six midshipmen and seven faculty members under the direction of the first superintendent, Franklin Buchanan. Five years later, with a new four-year curriculum, summer cruises, and major improvements to the physical plant, the school became known as the U.S. Naval Academy.

    Over its 152-year history, the U.S. Naval Academy has expanded from the original 10 acres and antiquated buildings of Fort Severn to a modern, 338-acre campus designed by Ernest Flagg in 1894. His French Renaissance buildings, including Bancroft Hall and the Naval Academy Chapel, were completed early in the century, but complemented in the 1960s by the addition of three classroom buildings, the Nimitz Library, Halsey Auditorium, and recently a Brigade Activity Center.

    The Naval Academy program is supervised by a board of visitors and administered by an academic board composed of the superintendent, commandant, academic dean, and division directors. Once called "naval cadets," since 1902 students have been referred to as "midshipmen" a name originating in the days of sail. A need for more junior officers just prior to World War I prompted expansion of the student body to a regiment of 1,240 men. Today, the Brigade of Midshipmen numbers about 4,600, including women, who were first admitted in 1976 and now comprise about 10 percent of each class. Three African Americans entered the academy in the 1870s, but the first to graduate was Wesley A. Brown, Class of 1949. The number of minorities was increased from 9 midshipmen in 1965 to 178 by 1974; today, minority midshipmen compose about a fifth of each entering class.

    Applicants to the academy must qualify scholastically, physically, and medically, and obtain an executive nomination. Once admitted, midshipmen are educated at government expense in a four-year program taught by a civilian-military faculty. In the 1960s, Superintendents Charles C. Kirkpatrick and James F. Calvert expanded the core curriculum with the Trident Scholar independent study program, elective majors, and more professional courses. Midshipmen are under military discipline and are bound by the honor concept, which states: "A Midshipman may not lie, cheat, or steal."

    Athletics, first encouraged as intramurals by Adm. David Dixon *Porter, superintendent after the *Civil War, remain important to the academy program, and all midshipmen are required to participate in year-round sports. A navy football team was organized in 1882 and played the first Army-Navy football game at West Point on 29 November 1890. Blue and gold colors were chosen in 1893 and a navy team mascot, Bill the Goat, was first adopted by Commandant of Cadets Cmdr. Colby M. Chester (Class of 1864) in 1890.

    U.S. Naval Academy graduates are awarded a bachelor of science degree, first given in 1933, and commissioned as ensigns in the U.S. Navy or as second lieutenants in the U.S. Marine Corps. Because their education is paid for by the government, they are required to serve five years on active duty following graduation. Although the academy provides only a fraction of the navy's officers, many senior naval officers have been or are Annapolis graduates. Distinguished graduates include Admirals George *Dewey and William *Sampson; Fleet Admirals Ernest J. *King, Chester *Nimitz, and William F. *Halsey; Nobel Prize winner Albert Michelson; historian Alfred T. *Mahan; inventor Bradley Fiske; Adm. Arleigh *Burke; and President Jimmy *Carter.

    [See also Education, Military; Leadership, Concepts of Military.]

* Jack Sweetman, The U.S. Naval Academy: An Illustrated History, 1979. United States Naval Academy Catalogue, 1988-89.

—Barbara Brooks Tomblin

ACADEMIES, : U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY

In 1947, when the *Air Force was established as a separate service, the question of how to educate potential career Air Force officers was one which followed immediately. It seemed to Air Force leaders that since there was a clear distinction between the challenges of an Army career and an Air Force career, it was also important to create a distinct education process for an Air Force officer. In 1948 the Stearns-Eisenhower Board, studying military education, recommended the creation of a separate Air Force Academy, but not until the *Korean War was over was legislation for an Academy presented in Congress. On April 1, 1954, President Dwight D. *Eisenhower, who had been an early supporter of the idea, signed the bill that created the academy.

    Colorado Springs, Colorado, was chosen as the academy's home. Availability of land and water, a supportive community, an aesthetic environment, weather, flying conditions and real estate value were important factors considered. While the new institution was being constructed, the Class of 1959 began their Academy education at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, moving to the permanent site for their final year.

    Much planning went into the curriculum of the institution, and many of the principles behind a West Point education were adapted at the Air Force Academy. A military faculty was deemed important, as well as a core curriculum providing a strong concentration in the sciences. An introduction to flying was considered crucial. Development of character, intellectual and physical development, and professional military development form the basis of an Air Force Academy education; the second lieutenant graduated by the Academy is expected to meet demanding standards in each of these areas.

    In 1965 Congressional action increased the size of the cadet wing to 4400, almost doubling it. In 1976 the first women entered the cadet wing; their numbers have steadily increased in the succeeding decades.

    [See also Academies, Service: Overview; Air Force, U.S.: Overview.]

* John P. Lovell, Neither Athens Nor Sparta? The American Service Academies in Transition, 1979. George V. Fagan, The Air Force Academy: An Illustrated History, 1988. —Elizabeth A. Muenger

ACADEMIES, SERVICE: U.S. COAST GUARD ACADEMY

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy located in New London, Connecticut, was founded in 1876. It educates young men and women for a career as Coast Guard officers. Admission is based upon academic competition without congressional appointment. In the 1995-96 school year 862 cadets were enrolled. The student body included 24 percent women, 21 percent minorities.

    The curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the service. In addition to teaching professional skills, providing practical seagoing experience, and ensuring that cadets learn integrity, maritime law, and the importance of public service, the curriculum provides humanistic, scientific, and technical knowledge. An emphasis on interactive learning assures that tomorrow's graduates will have the analytical skills needed to cope with a changing international maritime world.

    The faculty consists of a mix of permanently assigned commissioned officers, rotating officers, and civilians. They provide a stable base of academic excellence and continuous interaction with the operational Coast Guard.

    Cadets concentrate in one of eight majors (civil, electrical, mechanical, or marine engineering; government; management; operations research; or marine science) and graduate with a bachelor of science degree and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.

[See also Coast Guard, U.S.; Coast Guard Reserve.]

* Paul Johnson and Bill Earle, "U.S. Coast Guard Academy," The Bulletin, Centennial Issue (1976). Irving H. King, The Coast Guard Expands, 1865-1915, 1996. —Irving H. King

ACHESON, DEAN (1893-1971), lawyer, statesman, secretary of state. After holding lower State Department posts from 1941 to 1947, Acheson became secretary of state under President Harry S. *Truman in January 1949, serving until January 1953. As a diplomatic official, Acheson held strong views about how, when, and why to use armed force in international affairs.

    Acheson was a hawkish interventionist before U.S. entry into World War II. After the war, in 1945-46, he advocated an agreement with the USSR on control of nuclear arms (embodied in the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan). In 1949, when the Soviets first exploded an atomic bomb, Acheson feared it would neutralize the West's nuclear weapons. In response, he consistently advocated building strong conventional U.S. and NATO military forces. Acheson thought an East-West war unlikely, but should it occur, he wanted a military that could stop aggression before the Soviets could conquer Western Europe. With some ambivalence, he always favored keeping a powerful American nuclear arsenal, and in 1950 as an adviser he recommended to President Truman that the United States build the hydrogen bomb. He worked to keep the *Korean War from becoming a general war, but used the sense of resulting urgency to push for greater *NATO forces, including the rearmament of West Germany.

    Advising Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon after 1953, he consistently took hard-line defense positions, especially in the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the *Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the early stages of the *Vietnam War. However, by 1968 he became an influential advocate of ending the war in Vietnam.

    Acheson's key strategic concepts focused on the efficacy of various forms of power, the importance of "strategic reach" to project the first line of U.S. defense far from American shores, and developing "positions of strength" before engaging in negotiations with potential adversaries.

    [See also Berlin Crisis.]

* Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, 1969. Gaddis Smith, Dean Acheson, 1972. Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953-71, 1992. Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War, 1992. —Robert L. Beisher

ACLU. See American Civil Liberties Union.

ADAMS, JOHN (1735-1826), member of the Continental Congress, diplomat, vice president, and second president of the United States. John Adams never soldiered, but throughout his public life he repeatedly faced issues of war and peace.

    In June 1775, at the beginning of the *Revolutionary War, Adams nominated George *Washington to command the Continental army, and in October and November 1775, as a member of the Continental Congress's Naval Committee, he was instrumental in creating the U.S. Navy and Marines. From June 1776 until November 1777, Adams chaired the Board of War and Ordnance, Congress's committee to oversee the Continental army and the conduct of the war. As a U.S. diplomat in Europe after 1778, Adams repeatedly implored France to make a greater military commitment. He emphasized the need for concerted action by Washington's army and the French Navy, a formula that eventually led to victory at the Battle of *Yorktown.

    Later, faced by the Undeclared Naval War with *France (1798-1800) during his presidency, Adams sought to avoid hostilities, fearful that the fragile new nation might not endure another war. He took steps to strengthen the Union's defenses, but also dispatched to Paris the envoys who ultimately negotiated the accord that prevented war. His action split the Federalist Party and contributed to his defeat in the 1800 election. Reflecting on his public career in 1815, Adams said that his greatest achievement had been the preservation of peace during his presidency.

* Page Smith, John Adams, 1962. John Ferling, John Adams: A Life, 1988. —John Ferling

ADAMS-ONÍS TREATY (1819) This agreement, also called the Transcontinental Treaty, was made during the administration of President James *Monroe and settled long-standing disputes between the United States and Spain. Madrid ceded East Florida to the Americans, while Washington surrendered its claims to Texas and agreed to assume payment of American financial claims against the Spanish up to $5 million. The treaty established definitive western boundaries for the Louisiana Purchase, following the Sabine, Red, and Arkansas Rivers to the 42nd parallel, and running along that line to the Pacific. The United States also secured Spanish claims to Oregon.

    Historians have variously interpreted the treaty's significance. Samuel F. Bemis stressed the establishment of the first American claims to territory bordering the Pacific. More recently, William E. Weeks emphasized that the treaty consummated the first phase of the United States's aggressive, nineteenth-century territorial expansion. Strategically speaking, the Florida cession closed a vulnerable point in American coastal defenses. European powers welcomed the treaty because it ended the possibility of war between the United States and Spain. Some westerners protested the loss of Texas, but otherwise, there was little domestic opposition. The agreement was named for its principal negotiators—Secretary, of State John Quincy Adams and Spain's minister to the United States, Don Luis de Onís.

    [See also Expansionism.]

* Charles C. Griffin, The United States and the Disruption of the Spanish Empire, 1810—1822, 1937. Philip C. Brooks, Diplomacy and the Borderlands: The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, 1939. Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. 1949. William E. Weeks, John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire, 1992. —Michael S. Fitzgerald

ADDAMS, JANE (1860-1935), American social reformer, settlement house founder, pacifist, and writer. Addams was born 6 September 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois. Heir to her father's political sensibilities, Jane Addams's early heroes were Abraham *Lincoln and Giuseppe Mazzini. A member of the first generation of college women, she found a way to put her social gospel and piety directly to work with the founding (with Ellen Gates Starr) of Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago's immigrant ghetto. In 1889, Addams claimed that democratic political governance was, in fact, a form of civic housekeeping: she became a leading social reformer of the era and a founder of modern social work.

    Jane Addams's world was turned upside down with the outbreak of World War I. Her defense of radicals and anarchists, her brave and often lonely devotion to *pacifism and opposition to "the idea of war" as well as its terrible reality, placed her outside the American mainstream and brought down derision and abuse. In 1915, Addams, Emily Greene *Balch, and others helped to create the Woman's Peace Party, which called for "continuous mediation." This was the forerunner to the *Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, founded in 1919, of which lane Addams was a founding mother and president from its inception in 1915 to her death. An advocate of women's suffrage, Addams in her articles, speeches, and books traced the powerful role women must play in promoting peace as an imperative to preserve human life. Her understanding of feminism set it in "unalterable" opposition to militarism.

    Unfairly and inaccurately called a traitor and a Bolshevik, Addams never reneged on her commitments to civil liberties or to pacifism. Her joint recognition (with Nicholas Murray Butler) for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 and her embodiment of the notion of service helped restore her stature as one of America's foremost humanitarians.

* Christopher Lasch, ed., The Social Thought of Jane Addams, 1965. Daniel Levine, Jane Addams and the Liberal Tradition. 1980.

—Jean Bethke Elshtain

AEGIS. The AEGIS Combat System is a sophisticated shipborne target detection and tracking system developed by the U.S. *Navy and currently installed in twenty-eight Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers and eighteen Arleigh *Burke-class fleet escorts.

    The U.S. Navy developed AEGIS in the 1970s in response to the Soviet threat of saturation missile attacks against American carrier forces. Conventional rotating radars cannot rapidly track and process multiple targets, but AEGIS planar arrays are able to track an unlimited number of targets and relay the data instantaneously to a main computer in the ship's combat information center. The system then rapidly prioritizes the target data received from its SPY-1 phased array radars and assigns targets to the ship's weapons systems. Superior to more conventional radar systems and highly resistant to electronic counter-measures, AEGIS has also enhanced the target collection and processing capability of Ticonderoga-class cruisers serving as flagships for battle groups.

    Budget limitations prompted the navy, which originally intended AEGIS for nuclear-powered escorts, to substitute the less expensive, but proven, oil-fired Spruance-class design for its new guided missile cruisers In 1988, the first of an AEGIS-equipped class of fleet escorts, USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), was launched, and to date twenty-eight have been completed.

    To support joint and coalition operations against adversaries in littoral areas, the U.S. Navy has offered the AEGIS system to allied navies. Japan already has a significant AEGIS capability and Spain plans to install the lighter, more compact SPY-1F arrays in its new F-100 class frigates.

    [See also Radar.]

* David Miller and Chris Miller, Modern Naval Combat, 1986. Dennis M. Bailey, Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser, 1991. Robert Gardner, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947-1995, 1995. John Jordan, An Illustrated Guide to the Modern U.S. Navy, 1992. Dr. Robin Laird, "The Challenges of Internationalization," Seapower (September 1997). —Barbara Brooks Tomblin

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE MILITARY. Americans of African descent have participated in all the wars of the United States, serving their country and themselves, for military service has offered African Americans a means of economic, social, and political as well as military advancement. Black participation thus must be understood in the context of the importance of racial issues that developed as early as the colonial era, issues that have shaped the unique expansion of African Americans in the American military.

    During the colonial period, the largest numbers of free blacks were in the northern colonies. These colonies were much more willing to include Americans of African descent in their militia than were the southern colonies, which held the majority of slaves, although some colonies used blacks in labor units for militia expeditions. But in cases of dire need, even colonies like South Carolina, where slaves greatly outnumbered whites, would arm slaves to fight in exchange for their freedom, as in the victorious campaign against the Yamasee Indians in 1715.

    Following the 1739 slave revolt in Stono, South Carolina, however, most of the colonies excluded all blacks from military service. Laws for black exclusion were repealed in the North for freed blacks and often overlooked in the South, where despite the official policy of exclusion, free Americans of African descent were still armed during conflicts with the Indians and the French, and even slaves served as scouts, wagoners, laborers, and servants.

    In the American Revolution, African Americans served with the New England "Minute Men" at Lexington and Concord and helped fire the "shot heard 'round the world." Although blacks had served in the colonial wars before the revolution and still served in northern militias, when the *Revolutionary War began in 1775, they were not at first welcomed into the *Continental army because of the influence of the slave states in the new national government. I was not until after November 1775, when the British started to recruit blacks into their forces, that African Americans were officially allowed to join the Continental army. By 1776, faced with increasing shortages of volunteers, Gen. George *Washington disagreed with the Continental Congress and declared that he could depart from the resolution that barred participation by blacks. Because Congress did not challenge Washington's action, more than 5,000 Americans of African descent served in integrated units in the Continental forces. Most of the southern states officially refused to use blacks in the military except as laborers, but in practice, some Southern black slaves were sent as substitutes. African Americans participated in many battles, including those of Bunker Hill, New York, Trenton and Princeton, Savannah, Monmouth, and Yorktown.

    Following the Revolutionary War, the new United States virtually eliminated its army and navy. The U.S. Army was soon established and accepted blacks; the U.S. Navy was created in 1798, accepting black sailors as it had during the revolution and continuing to do so throughout the nineteenth century, The smaller U.S. Marine Corps excluded blacks from its inception in 1798 until 1942. Black soldiers served in the War of 1812, but in 1820, Secretary of War John C. *Calhoun of South Carolina, responding to Southern slaveowners, banned any further enlistment by African Americans. As black veterans left, the U.S. Army became exclusively white until the *Civil War.

    The Civil War, a conflict over slavery as well as the nature of the Union, also raised the issue of black military service. The Confederacy, which used the black slaves as the basic agricultural labor force and which feared slave rebellion, refused to recruit blacks until 1865, when it was too late. In the North, the U.S. War Department in 1861 continued its policy of rejecting black enlistment, but in 1862 as slaves flocked to the Northern armies invading the South, some abolitionist Union generals began training them to fight. Official policy did not change until after the *Emancipation Proclamation took effect, 1 January 1863; then, when volunteering had slackened in the North and it had become a war to free the slaves, the Northern states and the federal government began recruiting the eager freedmen into black regiments with black noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and mostly white commissioned officers.

    Eventually, 186,000 Americans of African descent fought for their freedom in the *Union army (and another 30,000 in the *Union navy), winning fourteen Congressional Medals of Honor in the process. Units of the U.S. *Colored Troops fought in a number of major battles, including the 54th Massachusetts Regiment's assault during the siege of. *Fort Wagner at Charleston and the attack of the black Fourth Division of the Ninth Corps at the Battle of the Crater in the siege of Petersburg, Virginia. Confederates often refused to take black prisoners, and they killed a number of them at the *Fort Pillow massacre in Tennessee. Although the black soldiers were paid less than the whites, their wartime service and heroism were cited as one reason for giving black men the vote in *Reconstruction.

    After the Civil War, there were black militia units in the southern states until the end of Reconstruction, and in some northern cities well into the twentieth century. Congress added four black regiments to the regular army (the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry). These *"Buffalo" Soldiers, as they were called by the Indians, served mainly in the West, but they also saw combat in the *Spanish-American War and Philippine insurrection, as well as in the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916. Most of their officers were white, like John J. *Pershing. Only three African Americans graduated from West Point, 1865-98; one of them, Charles *Young (Class of 1884), remained the army's sole black officer until he was joined by Benjamin O. *Davis, Sr.

    With the increased segregation, disfranchisement, and lynching of black Americans at the turn of the century, race became an issue in the U.S. *mobilization for World War I. NAACP leader W. E. B. *Du Bois urged black men to join the military in order to regain the rights of citizenship and he obtained commissions for a few black junior officers (Col. Charles Young was forced into retirement). The southern-dominated Wilson administration supported the army's insistence on continuation of racially segregated units, and, after a race riot in Houston in August 1917, limited these to eight black combat regiments. *Conscription and voluntarism brought 380,000 Americans of African descent into the wartime army, but 89 percent were assigned to labor units and only 11 percent to the two combat divisions. Although the 93rd Division, which included the black National Guard units like the 369th New York (the "Harlem Hell Fighters"), distinguished itself fighting alongside French troops, after the armistice, the War Department concluded that in future wars, black soldiers should mainly serve as laborers. It cut back the one black regular regiment (the 25th Infantry) and excluded blacks from new specialties like aviation. By 1940, there were only 5,000 black soldiers (2 percent of the force) and five black officers in the army. The navy had been accepting fewer blacks since its changeover from sail to steampower in the later nineteenth century (there were only 441 black sailors in 1934); the Marines continued their all-white policy.

    At the outbreak of World War II, America reverted to its practice of turning to African Americans when it needed more troops. In 1940, President Franklin D. *Roosevelt appointed Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., to be the army's first black brigadier general, and opened the Army Air Corps to black pilots. These "Black Eagles," including Davis's son, Benjamin O. *Davis, Jr., who trained at Tuskeegee, Alabama, served in all-black units. In 1941, black labor leader A. Philip *Randolph threatened a protest march on Washington for equal opportunity in the defense workforce and the military. Civil rights activist Bayard *Rustin and Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad dramatized such concerns by going to prison.

    Most of the 900,000 blacks who served in the armed forces in World War II were in segregated units, chiefly in the army (and including black women, who served in segregated units of the *WACs and the Army and Navy *Nurse Corps). However, wartime demands for increased numbers of service people as well as the ideology of a war against Nazi racism contributed to some integration. The Coast Guard began racial integration on shipboard, and the navy followed on some fleet auxiliary ships. Army units were segregated for most of the war, but beginning with the Battle of the *Bulge, when the army suffered shortages of white infantrymen, some 4,500 men from black service units volunteered and formed black platoons in formerly all-white combat companies. Although the Marine Corps accepted a few black recruits, it largely maintained its racial segregation. Black service people, like other veterans, benefited after the war from the *G.I. Bill.

    In the postwar era, the armed forces initially sought to avoid integration, delaying even in the face of President Harry S. *Truman's 1948 election-year order (Executive Order 9981) for an end to segregation in the military—the armed forces were directed to provide equal treatment and opportunity regardless of race, The U.S. Air Force, however, had moved toward integration in 1949 after achieving independent status in 1947. Beginning in 1951, the reverses of the *Korean War led to the end of all-black units in the army and Marines, and moved all the services toward racial integration in the enlisted ranks for greater efficiency. Black and white service people now fought side by side, dined in the same mess hall, and slept in the same barracks. Nevertheless, the officer corps remained white, with black officers representing only 3 percent of the army's officers and 1 percent of the air force, navy, and Marine officer corps.

    The *Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of blacks ever to serve in an American war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, 1965-69, blacks, who formed 11 percent of the American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of black combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 14.9 percent, a proportion that subsequently declined. Volunteers and draftees included many frustrated blacks whose impatience with the war and the delays in racial progress in America led to race riots on a number of ships and military bases, beginning in 1968, and the services' response in creating interracial councils and racial sensitivity training.

    The Nixon administration ended the Vietnam War and the draft in 1973, and the *All-Volunteer Force (AVF) soon included a disproportionate number of African Americans. By 1983, blacks represented 33 percent of the army, 22 percent of the Marine Corps, 14 percent of the air force, and 12 percent of the navy. Black senior NCOs in the army increased from 14 percent in 1970 to 26 percent in 1980, and 31 percent in 1990. Blacks also increased in the officer corps; by 1983, the army had almost 10 percent, the air force 5 percent, the Marine Corps 4 percent, and the navy 3 percent. Black women were an important component of the influx of women into the AVF, beginning in the 1970s; by 1983, they comprised 17 percent of the army's officers and 20 percent of its enlisted women. For the air force, the figures were 11 and 20; the Marine Corps, 5 and 23; and the navy, 5 and 18 percent.

    In 1977, Clifford Alexander was appointed the first black secretary of the army, and in 1989, Army Gen. Colin *Powell was appointed the first black chairman of the *Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the uniformed services. Powell oversaw the *Persian Gulf War of 1991, in which 24 percent of the 500,000 U.S. service people deployed to the Middle East (30 percent of the soldiers) were Americans of African descent. Significant percentages of African American troops also participated in peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.

    The participation of Americans of African descent in the U.S. military has a long and distinguished history. But although African Americans have participated in all American wars, they have sometimes faced almost as bitter a hostility from their fellow Americans as from the enemy. Nevertheless, particularly since the 1970s, the U.S. military has made a serious effort at racial integration, and while much remains to be done, the military has achieved a degree of success in this area that surpasses most civilian institutions.

    [See also Ethnicity and Race in the Military.]

* Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865, 1956. Ulysses Lee, The United States Army in World War II; Special Studies: The Employment of Negro Troops, 1966. William H: Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West, 1967. Richard M. Dalfiume, Deseggregation of the U.S. Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953, 1969. Otis A. Singletary, The Negro Militia and Reconstruction, 1971. Arthur E. Barbeau, and Florette Henri, The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I, 1974. Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Arm, 1891-1917, 1974. Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph N. Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps, 1975. Robert V. Hayes, A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917, 1976. Alan L. Gropman, The Air Force Integrates, 1945-1964, 1977. Morris J. MacGregor, and Bernard C. Nalty, eds., Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: Basic Documents, 13 vols., 1977. Alan M. Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces during World War II, 1977. Morris J. MacGregor, Defense Studies: Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965, 1981. Martin Binkin, and Mark J. Eitelberg, Blacks and the Military, 1982. Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military, 1986. Charles C. Moskos, and John Sibley Butler, All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way, 1996.

—John Sibley Butler

AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE. To understand the nature of aggression and violence on the battlefield, it must first be recognized that most participants in close combat are literally "frightened out of their wits." Once the bullets start flying, most combatants stop thinking with the forebrain (that portion of the brain that makes us human) and start thinking with the midbrain (the primitive portion of our brain, which is indistinguishable from that of an animal).

    In conflict situations, this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one's own kind. Animals with antlers and horns slam together in a relatively harmless head-to-head fashion, and piranha fish fight their own kind with flicks of the tail, but against any other species these creatures unleash their horns and teeth without restraint. This is an essential survival mechanism that prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals.

    One major modern revelation in the field of military psychology is the observation that such resistance to killing one's own species is also a key factor in human combat. Brig. Gen. S. L. A. *Marshall first obrserved this during his work as an official U.S. Army historian in the Pacific and European theaters of operations in World War II. Based on his postcombat interviews, Marsha concluded in his book Men Against Fire (1946, 1978) that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their own weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. Key weapons, such as *flamethrowers, were usually fired. Crew-served weapons, such as *machine guns, almost always were fired. And action would increase greatly if a nearby leader demanded that the soldier fire. But when left on their own, the great majority of individual combatants appear to have been unable or unwilling to kill.

    Marshall's findings were and have remained controversial. Faced with scholarly concern about a researcher's methodology and conclusions, the scientific method in volves replicating the research. In Marshall's case every available parallel, scholarly study validates his basic findings. Ardant du Picq's surveys of French officer in the 1860s and his observations about ancient battles (Battle Studies, 1946), John Keegan and Richard Holmes's numerous accounts of ineffectual firing throughout history (Soldiers, 1985), Holmes's assessment of Argentine firing rates in the Falklands War (Acts of War, 1985), Paddy Griffith's data on the extraordinarily low firing rate among Napoleonic and American *Civil War regiments (Battle Tactics of the American Civil War, 1989), the British army's laser reenactments of historical battles, the FBI's studies of nonfiring rates among law enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s, and countless other individual and anecdotal observations, all confirm Marshall's fundamental conclusion that human beings are not, by nature, killers. Indeed, from a psychological perspective, the history of warfare can be viewed as a series of successively more effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing other human beings, even when defined as the enemy.

    By 1946, the U.S. Army had accepted Marshall's conclusions, and the Human Resources Research Office of the U.S. Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training, which eventually replaced firing at targets with deeply ingrained "conditioning," using realistic, man-shaped pop-up targets that fall when hit. Psychologists assert that this kind of powerful "operant conditioning" is the only technique that will reliably influence the primitive, midbrain processing of a frightened human being. Fire drills condition schoolchildren to respond properly even when terrified during a fire. Conditioning in flight simulators enables pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations even when frightened. And similar application and perfection of basic conditioning techniques increased the rate of fire to approximately 55 percent in Korea and around 95 percent in Vietnam.

    Equally high rates of fire resulting from modern conditioning techniques can be seen in Holmes's observation of British firing rates in the Falklands, and FBI data on law enforcement firing rates since the nationwide introduction of modern conditioning techniques in the late 1960s.

    The extraordinarily high firing rate resulting from these processes was a key factor in the American ability to claim that the United States never lost a major engagement in Vietnam. But conditioning that overrides such a powerful, innate resistance has enormous potential for psychological backlash. Every warrior society has a "purification ritual" to help the returning warrior deal with his "blood guilt" and to reassure him that what he did in combat was "good." In primitive tribes, this generally involves ritual bathing, ritual separation (which serves as a cooling-off and "group therapy" session), and a ceremony embracing the veteran back into the tribe. Modern Western rituals traditionally involve long separation while marching or sailing home, parades, monuments, and the unconditional acceptance of society and family.

    In the *Vietnam War, this purification ritual was turned on its head. The returning American veteran was attacked and condemned in an unprecedented manner. The traditional horrors of combat were magnified by modern conditioning techniques, and this combined with societal condemnation to create a circumstance that resulted in .5 to 1.5 million cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam veterans. The mass incidence of psychiatric disorders among Vietnam veterans resulted in the "discovery" of PTSD, a condition that we now know traditionally occurred as a result of warfare, but never in such quantity.

    PTSD seldom results in violent criminal acts, and upon returning to society, the recipient of modern military conditioning is statistically no more likely to engage in violent crime than a nonveteran of the same age. The key safeguard in this process appears to be the deeply ingrained discipline that the combat soldier internalizes with his military training. However, with the advent of interactive "point-and-shoot" arcade and video games, there is significant concern that society is aping military conditioning, but without the vital safeguard of discipline. There is strong evidence to indicate that the indiscriminate civilian application of combat conditioning techniques as entertainment may be a factor in worldwide, skyrocketing violent crime rates, including a sevenfold increase in per capita aggravated assaults in America since 1956. Thus, the latest chapter in American military history may be occurring in the city streets.

    [See also Combat, Changing Experience of; Combat Trauma; Disciplinary Views of War: Psychology; Psychiatry, Military; Training and Indoctrination.]

* Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, 1963. John Keegan, The Face of Battle, 1976. Jim Goodwin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders: A Handbook for Clinicians, 1988. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, 1995. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, 8th ed., 1996. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano, Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie, and Video Game Violence, 1999. —Dave Grossman

AGRICULTURE AND WAR. War and agriculture have often been intertwined during the nation's history. Although this usually involved arable land and farm production, there were times when agricultural trade was at issue.

    The American Revolution, for example, stemmed in part from British mercantilist regulations, including the requirements that the colonies ship certain commodities, such as tobacco, only to England, and that the English have a monopoly of the American market on certain foodstuffs such as tea. During the *Revolutionary War, agriculture helped to feed the American forces, and in the Continental Congress it saw U.S. commodity exports as a major lever in building alliances with other nations, creating the model Commercial Treaty of 1777 (Jefferson later sought to use the curtailment of American agriculture exports, the embargo, to force Britain and France to change their maritime policies toward the United States). Land was the major resource of the new government, which often offered it as enlistment bounty to soldiers during the revolution. The peace treaty of 1783 provided the new United States with land as far west as the Mississippi River.

    Westward expansion of agriculture intensified the pressures on American Indian nations and fueled intermittent wars with them. The westward expansion of American agriculture was founded on military conquest and the displacement of Native Americans. The *Mexican War of 1846-48 also involved westward expansion, this time at the expense of Mexicans as well as Indians.

    The *Civil War was partly caused by the expansion into those new lands and the debate over whether the agricultural workforce there would be slave or free. Secessionists dedicated to slavery believed that demand for southern cotton would force Great Britain and other countries to support the Confederacy. Southern agriculture continued during much of the war, maintained by slave labor; the main change was diversification from large cotton crops to corn and other foodstuffs as the South was cut off from Northern wheat supplies. In the North, many rural young men went into the *Union army, creating a great shortage on the farms when foodstuffs were bringing high prices because of inflation and increased demands at home and abroad. Immigration and use of farm machines was expanded—to horse-powered cultivators, mowers, and reapers—to resolve the dilemma.

    In 1862, the Republican Congress enacted a number of the party's programs for agriculture. Among these were the Homestead Act, promoting western agricultural expansion by granting family-sized farms free to settlers; the Morrill Act, offering states public lands to sell for endowing landgrant agricultural colleges; and the establishment of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Congress also adopted high protective tariffs for industry, which meant rural consumers would pay higher prices for manufactured goods.

    American agriculture boomed in World War I when the United States in essence fed the Allied nations as well as its own wartime armed forces. In 1914-18, American wheat production rose to an average of about 870 million bushels and cotton exports also increased, although corn production remained relatively stable. Farmers and much farm labor received draft deferments; encouraged by soaring commodity prices, they increased their production through purchase of gasoline-powered machinery and the cultivation of additional land. In 1918, grain production reached into the most arid section of the Great Plains. The wholesale price index of farm products more than doubled, from 100 to 208 between 1914 and 1918. When the wartime foreign and military demands declined after the war, export markets collapsed, and American agriculture, already heavily in debt from the wartime expansion, plunged into a severe economic depression in 1921, which lasted for more than a decade.

    During the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration responded to the depression in agriculture with commodity support programs that provided benefits to the more affluent commercial farmers, especially midwestern corn growers and southern cotton producers. At the same time, the New Deal in agriculture included a land-use planning effort in which USDA officials worked with less affluent farmers at the local level in pursuit of a reformist program. New Deal reform initiatives for agriculture, as in many other areas, were overwhelmed by the World War II economic mobilization. President Franklin D. *Roosevelt's wartime administration relied on the commodity support programs—not the land-use planning infrastructure—to guide wartime production. By guaranteeing high prices, the wartime program generated high output of crops that were not needed, overproduction of important crops, and a sharp rise in food prices. In pushing land-use planning to the margins of the mobilization, these wartime decisions determined the outlines of the agricultural policies that would dominate the postwar period. The postwar U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed commodity support payments according to the total output and landholdings of farmers; marginal producers received less and were thereby encouraged (in many cases forced) to leave farming. Whereas the mobilization for the Civil War gave birth to the Department of Agriculture, the mobilization for World War II ensured the demise of reformist planning efforts that had characterized the Department of Agriculture during the New Deal of the 1930s.

    During the war, farmers received draft deferments as well as loans for increasing production through mechanization, land acquisition, and increased use of fertilizers. The index of gross farm production (with 1939 at 100) rose from 108 in 1940 to 126 in 1946. Cash receipts from farm products doubled, from $9 billion in 1940 to $22 billion in 1945.

    The federal government sought to limit domestic civilian demand by rationing certain products, including sugar, coffee, meat, fats and cooking oils, butter, cheese, and processed foods. Wheat and cotton both tripled in price wheat from 90 cents a bushel in 1940 to $2.88 in 1948; cotton from 9 cents per pound in 1940 to 32 cents in 1947. Beef cattle prices also increased dramatically. During World War II, the American Farm Bureau Federation, created in 1920 among affluent, commercial farmers, worked actively to protect those farmers' interests under price controls and in directing programs necessary in the war effort.

    In the post-World War II period, the changing technologies and logistics of war sharply reduced the strategy importance of agriculture. During the 1940s and 1950 the national security doctrine asserted the need for the United States to maintain a preponderance of power-power that was not based solely upon strategic *nuclear weapons. National security required the United States to maintain a lead in industrial production and access to raw materials. Even with this expansive definition of national security, agricultural goods were at the margins of U.S. military planning.

    Yet while diminishing in its direct relevance to the military, agriculture played an important role in the *Cold War. The damage to European agriculture in World War II and extensive aid given through the *Marshall Plan to deter the expansion of communism led Washington to fund the marketing of American agricultural surpluses in Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s. With American agriculture continuing to produce more than was consumed by the domestic market, the Agricultural Trade Development Act of 1954 authorized the secretary of agriculture ture to accept up to $700 million in foreign currency as repayment for commodities shipped overseas to nations deemed friendly to the United States.

    In the 1960s, the Food for Peace program administered by George McGovern was one of the Kennedy administration's efforts to counter communism in Third World countries while assisting American farmers in finding foreign markets. The 1960s and 1970s saw a shift away from price supports and instead an expanded role for American farmers and agribusiness in producing foodstuffs under government subsidies for export to Third World nations.

    In the hegemonic role the United States played during the Cold War, a major strategy was to liberalize world trade in manufactured goods, especially through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) system. But under pressure from the farm interests, Washington in the 1950s obtained an exclusion of agricultural products from GATT, allowing the U.S. government to use import quotas to protect commercial farmers. Not until the late 1980s, when the more heavily subsidized farmers of Japan and the European Community would bear more of the cost of trade liberalization, did Washington include agriculture within the GATT.

    Agricultural goods were necessary to sustain the mass industrial armies of the twentieth century, but these supplies represented a shrinking portion of all munitions. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, for example, foodstuffs constituted the largest portion of military supplies (for soldiers and for horses), while ammunition constituted only 1 percent of the total. During World War II, food and clothing comprised approximately 10 percent of military supplies, while petroleum and ammunition constituted the largest share of military supplies.

    Even during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, procuring agricultural goods to feed and clothe the armed forces did not require specialized agencies and governmental controls. In the 1990s, as the nation entered the post-Cold War era, the separation of the military and agriculture seemed likely to widen further. Military planners project a significantly smaller force structure and procuring the necessary agricultural goods is increasingly taken for granted. If this projected diminution of agriculture's strategic importance does occur, it should not obscure the intimate ties between the U.S. military and agriculture in the foundation and early development of the nation.

    [See also, Economy and War; Expansionism; War: Effects of War on the Economy.]

* Murray R. Benedict, Farm Policies of the United States 1790-1950: A Study of Their Origins and Development, 1953. Richard Kirkendall, Social Scientists and Farm Politics in the Age of Roosevelt, 1966. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, 1977 Gregory Hooks, "From an Autonomous to a Captured State Agency: The Decline of the New Deal in Agriculture," American Sociological Review, vol. 55, no. I (1990), pp. 29-43. Gregory Hooks, Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: World War II's Battle of the Potomac, 1991. Renee Marlin-Bennett, Food Fights: International Regimens and the Politics of Agricultural Trade Disputes, 1993. —Gregory Hooks

AGUINALDO, EMILIO (1869-1964), revolutionary and statesman of the Philippines. During the *Spanish-American War, Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy consolidated a strong nationalist movement against Spain only to face a stronger opponent of Filipino independence, the U.S. government. Though initially aided by U.S. Navy and consular agents, Aguinaldo's provisional government became the primary obstacle to the annexation policy of President William *McKinley after Spain capitulated in August 1898. Six months later, U.S. troops drove Filipino militias from Manila and pursued them into the countryside. With his political council divided between accommodationists and die-hard nationalists, and his regiments poorly trained and ill-equipped, Aguinaldo's was perhaps a doomed effort. Nevertheless, he used guerrilla tactics and clandestine political organization to resist, retreating from redoubt to redoubt until his capture by Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston on 31 March, 1901. Accepting defeat, he swore allegiance to the United States and retired to his plantation. In 1935, he lost a bid for the presidency of the Philippine Commonwealth. After supporting Japanese occupation during World War II, Aguinaldo was imprisoned in 1945, but received amnesty. He died in 1964, a tragic but beloved Philippine national hero.

    [See also Philippine War (1899-1902).]

* Stuart C. Miller, Benevolent Assimilation, 1986. Glenn A. May, Battle for Batangas, 1992. —James Grant Crawford

AIDS. Shortly after the first cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were recognized among civilians in 1981, early forms of the disease (AIDS-related complex and lymphadenopathy syndrome) were detected among active duty personnel. The causative virus (now called the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV) was first isolated from ill soldiers and their asymptomatic but nonetheless infected wives in 1984. These military studies provided the first proof that HIV could be transmitted through heterosexual intercourse. Nationwide blood bank testing for HIV began in June 1985. Shortly thereafter, in October 1985, the Department of *Defense (DoD) began screening all civilian applicants for military service; those who tested positive for the virus were medically disqualified from service. Overall, 1 in 650 applicants was found to be infected, but prevalence rates in various geographic and demographic subpopulations varied from as low as 1 in 20,000 in the upper Midwest to 1 in 50 in northeastern urban centers. The HIV screening program was the first population-based screening program in the United States, and provided the first hard data that the epidemic had already spread silently throughout the country by the mid-1980s.

    HIV screening of active duty military personnel began in 1986. Based largely on the recommendations of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, policies for HIV infection were established to be comparable to those for any other chronic medical condition. Infected military personnel were to remain on active duty, to lodge in military quarters, and to continue work in their duty assignment. Implemented at a time when fear of HIV contagion was widespread in the United States, these policies were farsighted and courageous. All DoD HIV-positive personnel were to be medically evaluated periodically, and those with advanced disease were honorably discharged with medical disability and benefits. HIV-infected personnel were restricted from overseas deployment, from health care jobs where potentially risky procedures were performed, and from sensitive Personal Reliability Program (e.g., nuclear missile) positions. In an effort to decrease HIV transmission, HIV-infected active duty personnel were counseled by their commanders that if they knowingly put others at risk of infection through sexual intercourse, they could be prosecuted through the military justice system. Overall, DoD policies were designed to reflect fair and rational public health principles.

    Screening was originally undertaken annually for all active duty personnel, but this interval has gradually lengthened with a number of new service-specific regulations. For example, testing takes place every five years for all air force personnel, or for the following clinically indicated reasons: during pregnancy; on entry into a drug/alcohol rehabilitation program; on presenting at a STD (sexually-transmitted disease) clinic; on deployment overseas; on PCS (Permanent Change of Station) overseas. However, all personnel must be proven negative within six months of any overseas deployment.

    The U.S. military HIV research program began in 1986, when Congress provided $40 million for this purpose. The U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command, as the lead agency for infectious disease research, managed the tri-service program. Major accomplishments include the following firsts: definition of antibody test criteria for a diagnosis of HIV (criteria used worldwide today); evidence that HIV was becoming a serious problem among minorities; detection of transmission of drug-resistant HIV strains; tracking the global spread of genetic variants; vaccine therapy trials; and international preventive vaccine trials.

    At the heart of the controversy over HIV/AIDS research is the question of its relevance to the military. HIV/AIDS has little or no direct impact on readiness or combat operations for U.S. forces. However, recent studies have shown very high HIV prevalences among some African (one in four) and Asian (one in ten) military populations. From a broader national security point of view, the global pandemic is a threat requiring maximal efforts by all capable U.S. agencies.

    Rates for new infections have decreased; in 1995, the DoD's total of infections among active duty personnel was approximately 300. In 1996, an amendment to the department's authorization bill ruled that all HIV-infected personnel on active duty must be involuntarily separated, regardless of their fitness for duty or years of service; however, as of 1999, the policy was not to separate HIV-infected personnel who were physically fit. The impact of this legislation on the effectiveness of public health control of HIV within the military remains to be determined.

[See also Diseases, Sexually Transmitted; Medical Practice in the Military.] —Donald S. Burke

AIR AND SPACE DEFENSE. Recognizing that the two great oceans that had protected the United States from invasion for more than a century could now, at least in theory, be overcome through aerial assault, the administration of President Franklin D. *Roosevelt after the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 began to rearm the nation. A sizable investment in this effort went to the Army Air Corps, which was woefully inadequate to meet the needs of national defense. In April 1939, when Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1940, it authorized the Army Air Corps to develop and procure 6,000 new airplanes, to increase personnel to 3,203 officers and 45,000 enlisted, and to spend $300 million, much of it directly earmarked for defense of U.S. territory. As a result, the aviation forces received $70.6 million, 15.7 percent of the army's direct appropriations. This number and the percentage continued to climb during the early 1940s.

    After the attack on *Pearl Harbor of 7 December 1941, the ability of the Japanese Navy to strike American forces on the West Coast could not be dismissed. On 9 December, Gen. "Hap" *Arnold, commanding the U.S. Army Air Corps, directed that all aircraft on the West Coast be dispersed so that a single attack could not destroy significant military capability. He also placed air squadrons along the borders on alert, relocated most support infrastructure to the interior, and set into motion the modern approach to defense of the nation's perimeter.

    During World War II, coastal aerial attacks on the United States were limited to a few Japanese balloons carrying bombs over the West Coast in 1944 and 1945. However, the effect of World War II on thinking about U.S. national defense proved crucial. Two major technological developments rendered the nation particularly vulnerable to outside attack: the long-range strategic bomber (especially if carrying atomic bombs), and the ballistic missile, which had enormous potential for intercontinental attack (also with atomic warheads). During World War II, the strategic bombing campaigns in Europe and Asia represented for many the "creation of Armageddon"; estimates well in excess of 100,000 deaths took place in the two atomic bombings of *Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Likewise, the German V-2 rocket demonstrated the potential of missiles for long-range attack. As the first true ballistic missile, the V-2 flew at speeds of over 3,500 miles per hour and delivered a 2,200-pound warhead 500 miles away. First flown in October 1942, it was employed against targets in Britain beginning in September 1944. By the end of the war, 1,155 had been fired against England and another 1,675 had been launched against Antwerp and other Continental targets. The guidance system for these missiles was imperfect and many did not reach their targets, but they struck without warning and there was no defense against them. As a result, the V-2 had a terror factor far beyond its capabilities.

    Following World War II, despite postwar *demobilization, the *Cold War precipitated a continuation of the expansion of military aerospace activities and fostered the search for a truly effective air and space defense for the United States. In the process, the air arm became an independent service, the U.S. *Air Force, in 1947. The military air and space component during the Cold War involved a broad range of activities: training, equipping, and employment of aerospace power extended from aircraft to missiles to satellites to other systems, both passive and active. Much of this, such as satellite reconnaissance, was carried out in a highly classified environment, with neither details nor records of government available for ready inspection. All has been justified as a means of maintaining integrity against an aggressive threat from Russia and other global rivals.

    In this context, U.S. air and space defense strategy developed in two distinct ways. First was the development of offensive strategic nuclear forces capable of deterring any attack on the United States—either by striking an enemy before it had a chance to inflict significant damage, or by being able to retaliate massively in response to a strike.

    To execute this deterrent mission, the *Department of Defense (DOD) created such organizations as the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the late 1940s, and placed in command Gen. Curtis E. *LeMay, as rough and irascible an officer as the air force had, but he got results. LeMay fully understood that the nation's first line of defense-indeed, in many respects its only line of defense—was the nuclear deterrent that SAC was charged with maintaining. The command, he knew, had to be prepared to carry out its nuclear mission at any time for the deterrent to have viability. He therefore refined the procedures for strategic bombardment, both with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and strategic bombers, and he made them increasingly more effective. The preparedness of SAC to execute its mission became legendary and set standards of excellence still sought after within the air force, as SAC maintained a state of extreme readiness from the late 1940s through the early 1980s.

    More broadly, this strategy ensured the development of what was know as the nuclear triad: U.S. continental-based, long-range strategic bombers; U.S. continental-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); and sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles (SLBMs) carried on *submarines and therefore mobile. All of these could strike the Soviet Union—or anywhere else on the globe—with *nuclear weapons and therefore ensure an enemy's destruction despite a United States in ruins. Sometimes referred to as mutual assured destruction, this doctrine was known by the most appropriate acronym ever coined by the military: MAD.

    Second, perhaps more critical to air and space defense, was the development of early warning and interception systems by the United States. The first successful one was the DEW (distant early warning) Line, approved by President Harry S. *Truman in 1952, across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Its purpose was to provide *radar and other electronic surveillance of the Soviet Union to monitor technological progress and, more important, any possible hostile actions against the United States and its allies. The capability of this string of listening posts across the arctic was to be 100 percent detection for all weapons up to 100,000 feet in altitude, which would therefore handle ballistic missiles and bombers. A joint project, the United States provided the funding and supervision of the construction. The Canadians, with a similar system already in place in certain parts of their nation, would link with the DEW Line for an unbroken surveillance sequence in the arctic. This system was constructed quickly in the next two years, coming on line in 1957, and served its purpose throughout the Cold War. It was still operational, although its capabilities had been upgraded, at the close of the century.

    To manage the DEW Line, and to respond to any threat detected, the United States and Canada created the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in 1957 ("Aerospace" was substituted for "Air" in the title in 1981). Based at Cheyenne Mountain a few miles outside Colorado Springs, for more than three decades NORAD provided integrated command of air and space defense forces of the two nations. It directed dedicated interceptors, other fighters, surface-to-air missiles, air and space detection and control centers, and other facilities to defend the continent against attack.

    A U.S. service-backed antiballistic missile (ABM) program was accelerated in 1967. But by the early 1970s, Russian work on an ABM system of ultra-high-speed missiles and phased array radars threatened to destabilize deterrence, In 1972, one of President Richard M. *Nixon's arms control agreements was an ABM treaty limiting deployment to two ABM sites.

    Another major component in the U.S. air and space defense system was the strategic reconnaissance efforts of space satellites. Under development in the late 1950s, Project CORONA was the first successful reconnaissance satellite program, Essentially, the objective was to obtain high-quality satellite photographs of the Soviet Union and thereby ensure that the United States would never suffer another Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack. As part of this effort, the first satellite, launched 18 August 1960, reached orbit and then correctly returned its reentry vehicle containing photographs of the Soviet ICBM base at Plesetsk and the bomber base at Mys Schmidta. The satellite was plucked from the Pacific Ocean by U.S. Navy frogmen. After this flight, CORONA became an operational mission and functioned through 1973, when it was succeeded by later generation reconnaissance satellite projects.

    But strategic deterrence, satellite reconnaissance, and NORAD's warning and response capability were insufficient to guarantee safety against a determined enemy, and this prompted national security officials to seek an ultimate shield. The result was the *Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), unveiled by President Ronald *Reagan in March 1983. An expansive, technologically complex, and exceptionally expensive research and development (R&D) program, SDI's aim was to create an array of space-based technologies that could track and destroy incoming missiles. The project immediately became controversial because of its technical complexity, its high price tag, and because it would upset the strategic nuclear balance of power between the United States and the USSR that had succeeded in avoiding superpower war. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, SDI declined in importance and survived only as a modest R&D effort within the DoD in the mid- 1990s.

    Indeed, with the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the U.S. air and space defense system underwent substantial changes. NORAD continues to exist, but as a component of U.S. Space Command and its mandate has been narrowed since there is no major strategic threat. Some of its response component has been transferred from the active military force to the Air National Guard. Some nuclear forces of the DoD have been taken off alert, some nuclear weapons destroyed, and SAC inactivated, and targeting of Russia has been deemphasized, The DoD component managing SDI has been reduced in size and funding and renamed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Finally, public conceptions of air and space defense, such as civil defense in its various capacities, have been minimized.

    [See also Arms Control and Disarmament; Canada, U.S. Military Involvement in; Deterrence; Missiles; Satellites, Reconnaissance.]

* Benson D. Adams, Ballistic Missile Defense, 1971. Astronautics and Aeronautics: A Chronology of Science, Technology, and Events (covers 1915-85), 24 vols., 1962-90. Ernest J. Yanarella, The Missile Defense Controversy: Strategy, Technology, and Politics, 1955-1972, 1977. Paul B. Stares, The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984, 1985. William E. Burrows, Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security, 1987. Robert F. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 2 vols., 1987; Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon, 1987. Matthew Evangelista, Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies, 1988. H. Bruce Franklin, Star Wars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination, 1988. Sanford A. Lakoff and Herbert A. York, A Shield in Space? Technology, Policy, and the Strategic Defense Initiative, 1989. Jeffrey Richelson, U.S. Military Uses of Space, 1945-1991, microfiche documents, 1991. Donald R. Baucom, The Origins of SDI, 1944-1983, 1992. Kevin C. Ruffner, ed., Corona: America's First Satellite Program, 1995.

—Roger D. Launius

AIRBORNE WARFARE. The first concept for the use of American airborne troops occurred during World War I in 1918, when Gen. Billy *Mitchell proposed a mass drop of paratroopers against German trenches on the western front. The following year, Gen. John J. *Pershing endorsed Mitchell's plan, but the armistice of November 1918 made the airborne assault unnecessary. *Isolationism and small budgets between the world wars prevented the development of an airborne force, but the U.S. *Army kept a close eye on developments in the Soviet Union and Germany where paratrooper and glider units participated in large training exercises. The dramatic, successful assault in May 1940 on Fort Eben Emael in Belgium by German parachute and glider troops, followed by a successful German mass airborne assault against Crete in 1941, convinced military planners that America needed an airborne capability for the coming war.

    On 16 August 1940, a test platoon of U.S. paratroopers made their first jump at Fort Benning, Georgia, and by April 1942, four months after U.S. entry into World War II, a parachute school was in full operation. In August 1942, the army formed its first two airborne divisions, the 82nd and the 101st. Their mission was vertical envelopment: to land behind enemy lines in order to disrupt command, control, and communications and to impede the enemy's ability to fight. From the beginning, U.S. paratroopers exhibited characteristics that remain central to the airborne fighting spirit. All were volunteers, physically and mentally tough, filled with esprit de corps, and capable of acting alone in a crisis.

    The U.S. Army formed six airborne divisions of parachute and glider regiments during World War II, and the most famous exploits of these elite units under commanders such as Maxwell D. *Taylor, James M. Gavin, and Matthew B. *Ridgway occurred in Europe. The first combat action took place in November 1942, during the *North Africa campaign, followed by a larger airborne assault during the invasion of *Sicily in July 1943. Early airborne operations had significant problems; but in September 1943, paratroopers proved their worth when the 82nd Airborne made an emergency jump into the beachhead at Salerno, Italy, and helped prevent a potential Allied debacle. The 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were among the best in the war and fought valiantly in June 1944 as the airborne vanguard of the *D-Day landing. Despite some units being dropped in the wrong place, they captured key bridges and road junctures and impeded the German Army's ability to react to the amphibious assault. In August, a provisional division of airborne and glider troops supported Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. The 82nd and 101st Airborne jumped again that September and fought at Eindhoven and Nijmegen in Holland as part of Field Marshal Bernard Law *Montgomery's abortive British Operation Market-Garden to seize the Arnhem Bridge on the Rhine. During the Battle of the *Bulge, the 82nd Airborne helped to defend the northern shoulder of the German salient near St. Vith. Meanwhile, the 101st rushed to Bastogne by truck and fought a dogged defense of the village, denying the Germans control of an important road junction even while surrounded. In March 1945, the 17th Airborne Division participated in Operation Varsity, the airborne assault supporting the British crossing of the Rhine River in northern Germany. The 11th Airborne Division fought in several campaigns in the Pacific and distinguished itself in 1945 during the liberation of the *Philippines.

    The *Cold War saw a dramatic transformation in airborne forces. Significant reductions in airborne units occurred after World War II. During the *Korean War, the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team made two jumps in an effort to cut off retreating North Korean forces at Sukchon in October 1950 and at Musan-ni in March 1951. The Korean War saw a greater use of *helicopters, and in 1952 the army formed its first helicopter battalions for vertical envelopment and soon eliminated all glider units.

    The unconventional nature of the *Vietnam War precluded normal airborne operations and led to air-mobile warfare in which helicopters transported soldiers to the battlefield. The army's first air-mobile division, the 1st Cavalry Division, deployed to Vietnam in August 1965 and fought the war's initial, major air-mobile Battle of the *Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Later, the 101st Airborne Division converted from parachutes to helicopters, and air-mobile "search and destroy" missions came to dominate U.S. operations. The 173rd Airborne Brigade conducted the only major parachute drop of the Vietnam War near Tay Ninh City in February 1967.

    In the post-Vietnam War era, airborne and air-mobile forces remain vital to the U.S. military. The 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Divisions deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990 and saw action during the *Persian Gulf War. In 1994, the 82nd Airborne was en route from North Carolina to a parachute drop to help overthrow the military junta in Haiti, but was recalled in the air due to successful political negotiations. Today, the 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Divisions retain their elite status, maintain a high level of readiness, and possess the strategic mobility to respond rapidly to crises across the globe.

    [See also Army Combat Branches: Aviation.]

* S.L.A. Marshall, Night Drop, 1962. John R. Galvin, Air Assault, 1969. James M. Gavin, On to Berlin, 1978. Gerard M. Devlin, Paratrooper!, 1979. Clay Blair, Ridgway's Paratroopers, 1985. William B. Breuer, Geronimo!, 1989. —Michael D. Doubler

AIRBORNE WARNING AND CONTROL SYSTEMS. See AWACS and E-3s.

AIRCRAFT. See AWACS and E-3S; Bombers; Blimps and Dirigibles; Ground Attack Planes; Helicopters; Stealth Aircraft; Transport Planes; U-2 Spy Planes; Vertical Take-off and Landing Aircraft.

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS. Invented by the British during World War I, the aircraft carrier was adopted by the United States and Japan as an experimental weapon to augment the battle line. In contrast to the Japanese, whose fleet and carriers were designed for defensive operations in the western Pacific, the U.S. Navy planned for an offensive, transpacific war all the way to Japan and created the long-legged "fast" (33-knot) carrier to operate over those great distances. The navy first converted a collier (coaling ship) into the 11,050-ton carrier Langley (CV-1 "V" being the symbol for heavier-than-air craft), commissioned in 1922. Then it converted two battle-cruiser hulls, as allowed by the *Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty, into 36,000-ton fast carriers of the Lexington class. While the 542-foot Langley experimented with fighter and scout planes in fleet maneuvers during the 1920s, the navy developed *dive-bombers and *torpedo planes for the new 888-foot-long carriers. As soon as the Lexington and the Saratoga joined the fleet, Adm. Joseph Mason Reeves placed squadrons of all four plane types aboard them, a total of eighty planes per carrier. With the Saratoga, he launched a successful surprise mock attack on the Panama Canal during Fleet Problem IX in 1929. This demonstration of offensive carrier air power established the foundation of U.S. carrier aviation for the rest of the century.

    During the war games of the 1930s, similar aggressive attacks struck the Hawaiian Islands, including Pearl Harbor; West Coast seaports; and defending fleets and land-based air forces. Traditional battleship admirals often minimized these achievements and argued for using the carriers with the battle line, but this only inhibited their mobility and made them vulnerable to air, ship, and submarine attacks. The Lexington-class carriers mounted a defensive battery of eight 8-inch and twelve 5-inch guns. In fact, their own fighter planes and escorting gunships provided the surest defense. So newer carriers, built from the keel up as carriers, mounted only eight 5-inch guns. Flight decks were made of wood so that *bombs would not explode until they struck the hangar deck, enabling planes to keep operating during battle.

    The stunning Japanese attack on *Pearl Harbor by planes from six Japanese carriers on 7 December 1941 proved decisively the offensive power of fast carriers. It was, however, uncharacteristic of Japanese warships to operate so far from home waters. Adm. Ernest J. *King, commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet, therefore instituted wide-ranging offensive hit-and-run raids with the six available carriers to keep the Japanese off balance. Their most aggressive leader was Adm. William F. *Halsey, who even launched James *Doolittle's army bombers from the Hornet to strike Tokyo in April 1942. U.S. carriers won naval victories at the Battle of the *Coral Sea in May, the Battle of *Midway in June, and the battles around *Guadalcanal between August and November, sinking several Japanese carriers—four at Midway alone. But one by one all U.S. carriers were sunk except for the Saratoga and the Enterprise, and even these two were heavily damaged. The reasons included imperfect tactics and damage control, inferior aircraft, inadequate numbers of fighter planes, ships, and antiaircraft guns, and insufficient reconnaissance.

    These lessons were applied to the construction of two dozen new fast carriers of the Essex class, which entered the fleet in 1943. At 27,100 tons, the 872-foot Essexes each embarked an air group of three squadrons: thirty-six fighters, the superior F6F Hellcat; thirty-six dive-bombers, first the SBD Dauntless and later the SB2C Helldiver; and eighteen torpedo bombers, the TBF/TBM Avenger. All three types performed scouting functions too, but the greatest innovation for detecting enemy planes was the installation of shipboard search *radar, enabling fighter director officers to coordinate their fighters out to 100 miles from the carrier. In addition, antiaircraft defenses included twelve 5-inch/.38-caliber guns and numerous 40mm and 20mm batteries on each carrier. Nine 11,000-ton light carriers (CVL) of the 31-knot Independence class, converted from cruiser hulls between 1941 and 1943, added additional offensive punch; each operated twenty-four fighters and nine torpedo bombers. Circular screens of new escorting fast *battleships, *cruisers, and *destroyers, all bristling with antiaircraft guns, surrounded the carriers in each tactical formation.

    Organized in the Fast Carrier Task Force of some fifteen carriers and 1,000 planes, these carriers provided the overwhelming firepower that spearheaded the Central Pacific offensive of 1943-45. Their optimum effectiveness occurred under the sagacious leadership of Adm. Marc A. Mitscher as the fast carriers overcame virtually all enemy opposition. The only major changes were the introduction of four-plane night fighter teams aboard each Essex, three carriers equipped primarily for night operations, and an increase of fighters, including the F4U Corsair, over bombing planes to counter the kamikazes, Japanese suicide planes. Only one of the new fast carriers was sunk, the light carrier Princeton, off Leyte.

    In the Atlantic, to defeat Germany's U-boats, the navy depended on small, slow 18-knot escort carriers (CVE), eighty-four of which were commissioned. There were four major classes of CVEs, some converted from oilers but most mass-produced; they varied in size between 7,800 and 11,400 tons, and each carried a composite air group of nine fighters and twelve torpedo bombers. Operating primarily as an independent hunter-killer group, each escort carrier worked in concert with its five destroyers and destroyer escorts to track down and sink most of the U-boats destroyed between 1943 and 1945. Many of them also operated in the Pacific, where fighters outnumbered torpedo bombers in providing close air support during amphibious assaults. Light construction made the escort carriers especially vulnerable, and several were sunk by bombs, gunfire, submarine torpedoes, or kamikazes.

    Three large (CVB) 45,000-ton, Midway-class carriers, commissioned after the war ended, featured armored flight decks in order to nullify bomb hits. Each had a 986-foot flight deck and a 137-plane air group of fighters and dive-bombers. The future of the carrier and its vulnerability to nuclear weapons became a cause of bitter controversy in the late 1940s, a controversy complicated by interservice *rivalry. The navy depended upon the older Essexes in the Korean War (1950-53). Their air groups were comprised of F4U fighter bombers, F9F jet fighters, and piston-engine AD (later A-1) Skyraider attack planes. Atomic bombs were first deployed aboard carriers in the early 1950s.

    The *Korean War and the menace of the Soviet Union served to stimulate new carrier construction. During the 1950s and 1960s eight attack carriers (CVA, later CV again) belonging to the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk/America classes were built. Each displaced 56,000 to 61,000 tons and had 1,046-foot flight decks to accommodate new and heavier planes. Air groups (later air wings) were comprised of up to 100 fighters and attack planes, mostly jets. The major fighters were F-8 Crusaders and F-4 Phantoms IIs, the bombers A-Is, A-3 Skywarriors, A-4 Skyhawks, A-6 Intruders, and A-7 Corsair IIs. Cruising endurance was greatly increased with the commissioning in 1961 of the first nuclear-powered carrier (CVN), the 75,700-ton Enterprise, which did not require refueling at sea. To deal with the large Soviet submarine force, thirteen Essexes were redesignated as antisubmarine carriers (CVS) between 1954 and 1973; these operated S-2 Tracker pison-engine search planes and H-34 Seabat and H-3 Sea King antisub *helicopters. All of these carrier types and planes supported ground operations during the *Vietnam War (1965-73). In addition, three converted Essexes acted as amphibious-assault helicopter personnel carriers (LPH) during the 1960s, until superseded by the Iwo Jima (LPH) and Tarawa (LPA) classes (landing platform, helicopter or assault) built specifically for that purpose.

    During the 1970s, doctrinal confusion and criticism over retention of the large and seemingly vulnerable attack carriers continued. They were retained because of repeated crises in the Middle East and the growing Soviet surface fleet, which though basically defensive, included a few carriers. Eight 81,600-ton nuclear-powered carriers of the Nimitz class with 1,089-foot flight decks were added between the late 1960s and late 1990s to begin replacing older oil-fueled ships. Each was accompanied by a protective screen of missile-bearing escort ships and formed a carrier battle group. They provided the core of the offensive power projection that effectively deterred the Soviet Navy. F-14 Tomcat fighters and F/A-18 Hornet fighter attack planes joined the carriers during the 1970s and 1980s, respectively, along with S-3 Viking antisub jet search planes to augment E-2 long-range early warning radar carrier aircraft.

    Throughout the *Cold War, attack carrier strength remained fairly constant between twelve and fifteen, but even the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90 did not diminish the need for carriers to help deter and quell global tensions. Thus, six carriers participated during 1990-91 in the *Persian Gulf War. The continuing requirement for such large numbers of these extremely versatile carriers has been governed by the fact that, generally, for every carrier operating on station, one is home-ported undergoing refit and overhaul, and another is in transit to or from the operating area. In this way, the United States has maintained the long-legged global reach of its naval power.

    [See also Fighter Aircraft; Navy Combat Branches: Surface Forces; Navy Combat Branches: Naval Air Forces.]

* Stefan Terzibaschitsch, Aircraft Carriers of the U.S. Navy, 1980. Norman Friedman, Carrier Air Power, 1981. Stefan Terzibaschitsch, Escort Carriers and Aviation Support Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1981. Norman Friedman, U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History, 1983. Clark G. Reynolds, The Fighting Lady: The New Yorktown in the Pacific War, 1986. George C. Wilson, Supercarrier, 1986. Edward P. Stafford, The Big E, 1988 repr. Clark G. Reynolds, "The U.S. Fleet-in-Being Strategy of 1942," The Journal of Military History, Vol. 58 (1994), pp. 103-118. Theodore Taylor, The Magnificent Mitscher, 1991 repr. —Clark G. Reynolds

AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIALISTS. Among the ever-widening links between military and social institutions, few have been as extensive or dynamic as the relationship between the U.S. military and the aircraft industry. From the industry's origins before World War I through the early *Cold War period, this relationship, though heavily mediated by Congress, was made up of army and navy officers and individual aircraft industrialists who for the most part owned and operated independent firms. These firms performed research and development for new military aircraft and also manufactured them. During the interwar years, suggestions that the aircraft industry be nationalized were occasionally heard but never really challenged the consensus that the industry ought to remain in private hands and that the military ought to relate to aircraft firms on contractual business terms kept as distant and impartial as possible.

    From the first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 through World War I, the aircraft industry was dominated by two firms named after this technology's pioneers, the brothers Orville and Wilbur *Wright and Glenn Curtiss. When the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and Congress pushed for large-scale airpower during World War I, other firms entered the industry to try to meet the enormous demand. Most notable were two automobile companies, Fisher Body and Willys-Overland. The Ford Motor Company also engaged briefly in large-scale production of the Liberty aircraft engine. But despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, wartime military aircraft production proved a fiasco, mainly because of the misguided effort to mass-produce air frames according to the automobile industry's assembly-line manufacturing methods. Nevertheless, many blamed an "Aircraft Trust," supposedly composed of corrupt corporate executives and military contracting officers who profited enormously but failed to produce aircraft. The U.S. Congress imposed a punishing postwar business environment for military aircraft that meant unprofitability for the industry. Worried about possible collusion, Congress also blocked efforts to streamline the industry's dealings with the military.

    Throughout the interwar years, military aircraft design and manufacture remained highly competitive, despite severely limited military spending. Congress maintained easy access for new entries through price-competitive contract laws, which military officers were obliged to follow. Low start-up and capital costs also eased entry for the many aircraft entrepreneurs who wanted to be part of the exciting new technology despite business risks. The energies of this group of competitive entrepreneurs/industrialists, many of whom were independently wealthy and willing to absorb steady losses, were key to the industry's viability until mass demand developed during World War II. They maintained an airpower supply base that was inferior to, but at least comparable with, those of the world's leading military powers.

    In this period, tiny new companies emerged to give the aircraft/aerospace industry many of its familiar names Glenn Martin, William Boeing, Donald Douglas, Chance Vought, Charles Lawrence, and Clyde Cessna found plenty of room to compete with the two larger firms under the Wright and Curtiss names. Three other lesser-known but significant figures also entered the industry during the early 1920s. In 1923, Reuben Fleet established Consolidated Aircraft in Buffalo, New York, and moved it to San Diego in 1935, where it eventually became an important part of General Dynamics. In 1926, Frederick Rentschler reorganized Pratt & Whitney into a major supplier of aircraft engines. The most prominent aircraft industrialist during the 1920s was Clement Keys, a Wall Street financier deeply committed to aeronautics. He bought Curtiss Aeroplane in 1920 and arranged the Curtiss-Wright merger in 1928, which combined aircraft and engine production and became a critical airpower supplier during World War II.

    Aviation companies became a focus for much of the investment frenzy of the 1927-29 stock market boom. Some aircraft firms merged, but new, independent ones also appeared. All found access to new investment capital that helped sustain a competitive industry during the early depression years. Most notable among the new entries were Leroy Grumman, John Northrop, Igor Sikorsky, Sherman Fairchild, Lawrence Bell, and Alexander de *Seversky. Seversky's firm was reorganized as Republic Aircraft in 1938. North American Aviation, controlled by General Motors, was incorporated in Baltimore and moved to Los Angeles in 1935 under the guidance of James Kindleberger. The Loughead brothers established a company, but changed its name to Lockheed because it was so often mispronounced. In 1931, two entrepreneurs from Boston, Robert and Courtland Gross, bought Lockheed and made it an important innovator in Los Angeles. During the 1930s, Howard Hughes also began competing from Los Angeles. In 1939, James McDonnell established a company in St. Louis.

    In the 1930s and even during World War II, the industry remained fragmented, highly competitive, and geographically dispersed. Companies pursued resolutely independent business and technological strategies. Most snubbed he industry's trade association in Washington, D.C., unwilling to suspend their separate interests for a common industry front that might alter the debilitating contracting rules they all faced in their dealings with army and navy officers. In 1940, Congress authorized cost-plus contracts and advance payments. But even after these reforms and the massive new demand for warplanes, the industrialists remained highly independent and wary of one another and the government. Some giant aircraft corporate combines expanded or emerged during the war, such as Curtiss-Wright and Consolidated-Vultee (Convair), and automobile companies—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—entered the industry on a large scale. But aircraft manufacture still did not become heavily concentrated.

    The industry's relations with the military also remained erratic, ad hoc, and unpredictable. The early aircraft industry scarcely resembled a common perception of military industries as appendages of a "warfare state" or a state-centered 'military-industrial complex. The government had no overall plan or coordinated approach for mobilizing the aircraft industry or demobilizing it in 1945. It relied on the independent strengths and abilities of the manufacturers. The military's involvement with firms rarely went beyond issuing aircraft specifications and contracts, providing financing, and selecting sites for new factories. Industrialists continued to give only nominal support to their trade association. They plotted individual competitive strategies for the postwar military and civilian market. Relations between firms and the air force and navy became more integrated only when the industry's viability seemed threatened by balance sheet crises during the late 1940s and the *Korean War. Rapid technological development meant far greater complexity in aircraft design and production and also seemed to mandate more stable, predictable, and longer-term relations.

    [See also Air Force, U.S.: Overview; Procurement: Aerospace Industry.]

* I.B. Holley, Jr., Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces, 1962. John B. Rae, Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960, 1968. Roger E. Bilstein, The American Aerospace Industry: From Workshop to Global Enterprise, 1996. Jacob Vander Meulen, The Politics of Aircraft: Building an American Military Industry, 1991. —Jacob Vander Meulen

AIR FORCE, U.S.

Overview Predecessors of, 1907-46 Since 1947

AIR FORCE, U.S.: OVERVIEW

The U.S. Air Force, the world's most powerful air arm, was not always the most potent. The force dates its beginnings from 1907 as an organization of three men and no operational aircraft within the U.S. Army. During and immediately after World War I, the Army Air Service remained much smaller and less capable than European air forces. However, as the Army Air Forces, it grew during World War II to become the mightiest air force in the world, with 2.4 million uniformed people in 1944 and nearly 100,000 operational aircraft. In 1947, as the U.S. Air Force (USAF), it finally became an independent service, reaching its maximum size in 1955 during the *Cold War era (960,000 people). By 1998 it had "downsized" to 381,100 active duty, uniformed personnel (plus 184.000 in the *Air Force Reserve and *Air National Guard). But today's force, with its 580 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 4,700 aircraft (another 1,900 in the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard), and numerous space-based reconnaissance *satellites, has much greater range, capability, mobility, and flexibility than the numerically larger Army Air Force of World War II.

    The USAF provides its aircrews with more flying hours and more realistic training than any other comparable force in the world, and its equipment is unmatched technologically. Those that can compete with USAF crews in skill are all regional: Israel, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Australia retain motivated, capable air forces, but all are range-limited and considerably smaller. Although some air forces approach the size of the USAF in aircraft numbers (e.g., China's), all of them are range-restricted and most of their aircraft are obsolete. The Soviet Union came closest to possessing a large, global air force, but since 1991 Russia's airpower has greatly deteriorated,

    The American air forces have been reorganized several times. From 1907 to 1947, the force was part of the U.S. Army. Within the army, it became sequentially the Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Signal Corps (1907-14), the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps (1914-18), the Army Air Service (1918-26), the Army Air Corps (1926-41), and the Army Air Forces (1941-47). Since 1947, the force has been on a par with the army and navy.

    Through 1918, its primary mission was reconnaissance, although some air supremacy fighting and ground attack did occur during World War I. It was not until 1923 that army doctrine officially recognized combat strike uses for airplanes. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Army Air Corps developed the strategic bombing doctrine in which "air power" was envisaged as being decisive in war: an enemy's vital targets would be bombed, and the war could end before ground or naval forces became engaged.

    The idea of strategic bombing dominated air force thinking and force structure through World War II and for twenty-five years thereafter. In the 1930s, the Army Air Corps developed robust four-engine bombers, but poor *fighter-aircraft, because fighters were seen as unnecessary for escorting the defensively armed and armored bombers that it was believed "would always get through." It was thought a war would end before fighters became necessary to support ground forces. The Army Air Forces (together with Britain's Bomber Command) blasted German cities into rubble using mainly B-24 and B-17 heavy *bomber aircraft, but the war in Europe ended only when Allied armies occupied Germany's territory. The Army Air Forces achieved more decisive results in the Pacific, but only after the army, navy, and *Marine Corps captured enough territory to bring very long range B-29 bombers within range of Japan. Massive bombardment in 1945, culminating in the atomic bombings of *Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was probably the most important factor causing Japan to surrender without an invasion.

    Convinced that aerial bombardment had won both the European and the Pacific Wars, air force leaders developed a huge strategic bombing force during the 1950s that would deter the Soviet Union, or defeat it should war occur. While the USAF developed superior interceptor aircraft, it discounted the value of tactical aircraft for supporting ground forces. The *Korean War did not dramatically alter this situation, nor did the growing power of the Soviet ground forces in the 1950s: Today's air force, however, is more flexibly equipped.

    Its current mission is to control air and space in order to provide freedom of action for air, sea, and ground forces to secure national security objectives. And the USAF is more capable of performing multiple missions than in the past. One can track the change in doctrinal emphases from the *Vietnam War, when the emphasis on strategic bombing gave way to increased emphasis on tactical operations. Since 1982, six consecutive air force chiefs of staff have been fighter pilots, none of whom had any flying lime as strategic bomber crew members. In 1992, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Strategic Air Command (SAC), the command most identified with strategic bombing, was disestablished. SAC's nuclear strategic missions were placed in a new joint (multiservice) command, the Strategic Command. (SAC's conventional missions went to other organizations.)

    Today's balanced air force is divided into eight major commands, thirty-eight field operating agencies, and three direct reporting units. The eight major commands contain almost 94 percent of the uniformed personnel. Air Combat Command is the largest, with 28 percent of the people. It has fighters (F-15s, F-16s, F-117s, A-10s, etc.) and bombers (B-52s, B-1s, B-2s). Two other commands also possess fighters. U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Pacific Air Forces (combined, 16% of the air force) would both be supplemented by Air Combat Command aircraft if needed. The Air Education and Training Command, about 17 percent of personnel, is equipped with training aircraft (T-37s and T-38s, etc.), and is responsible for training and most professional education. The Air Mobility Command (about 15%) has aerial refueling tankers (KC-135s and KC-10s) and transports (C-130s, C-141s, C-5s, and C17s). The Space Command (6%) maintains the strategic missile forces during peacetime and the space-based satellites. The Special Operations Command (2%) is equipped with *helicopters, some specially equipped C-130s, and gunships. The Materiel Command (10%) equips the force through research, development, and acquisition of systems, and sustains it through maintenance and supply.

    The thirty-eight field operating agencies, such as the Air Weather Service, contain 5 percent of personnel. Finally, the three direct reporting units (e.g., Air Force Academy) contain about 1 percent of personnel.

    The USAF today is engaged in missions around the world, demonstrating daily its global power and reach.

    [See also Academies, Service: U.S. Air Force Academy; Air and Space Defense; Air Force Combat Organizations; Special Operations Forces: Air Force Special Forces; Strategy: Air Warfare Strategy; Tactics: Air Warfare Tactics.]

* Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, editors, The Army Air Forces in World War II, 7 vol., 1948-1958. Irving B. Holley, Jr., Ideas and Weapons: Exploitation of the Aerial Weapons by the United States during World War I; A Study in the Relationship of Technological Advance, Military Doctrine, and the Development of Weapons, 1971. Robert F. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force 1907-1964, 1974. United States Air Force, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 5 vol., 1981-1983. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea 1950-1953, 1983. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report, 1993. —Alan Gropman

(Continues...)

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
About the Editors	xv
Directory of Contributors	xvii
The Oxford Companion to American Military History	3
Maps
Revolutionary War	843
Civil War	844
World War II: Europe and North Africa	845
World War II: The Pacific	846
Vietnam War	847
Tables
U.S. Military Service and Casualties in Major Wars and
Conflicts, 1775-1991	849
U.S. Armed Forces Rank and Insignia	850
Index	855

Editorial Reviews

"A thoroughly detailed look at the sweep of American military history..., with an all-star cast of thousands, including contributors Stephen Ambrose, John Keegan, Volker Berghan, James McPherson, and many others.... Seems to cover every major (and minor) military action in US history.... A must-have for any military historian or history buff."—Kirkus Reviews

"Using everything from brief entries to extensive essays, this one-volume treasure does much more than list battles and generals; it 'explores the changing nature of war and the military'.... Comprehensive and lively. Highly recommended for all public libraries."—Library Journal

"Belongs on the bookshelf of all serious military historians. Thorough, fair, and readable, it is a treasure house of information [that] can also be read for entertainment."—John S. D. Eisenhower

"To recruit 500 of the top military historians and experts across the full breadth of American military history to write with exacting standards of brevity and readability is a monumental accomplishment. Brilliantly planned and executed, The Oxford Companion to American Military History will be required for every military library, public and personal."—John F. Lehman

"A careful and comprehensive collection of scholarship"—Washington Post Book World

From the Publisher

This book is big, heavy, and expensive, but as a comprehensive reference of military history it is well worth it. More than 1100 alphabetically arranged entries cover every aspect of American military history--from Bunker Hill in 1775 to the Gulf War in 1991. Using everything from brief entries to extensive essays, this one-volume treasure does much more than list battles and generals; it "explores the changing nature of war and the military." Of course, people, places, battles, and weapons are included, but those expected entries are nicely balanced by entries on logisitics, the laws of war, propaganda, anti-war movements, foreign trade, war plans, politics, literature, art, and movies. Essays on the history of land warfare and the disciplinary views of war are particularly good. Chambers (Major Problems in American Military History) has assembled 500 contributors, including noted historians John Keegan and Stephen Ambrose, to provide expert analysis, insight, and understanding of the American way of war. Although the accompanying maps are too few and too bland to be of much use, this book is otherwise comprehensive and lively. Highly recommended for all public libraries.--Col. William D. Bushnell, USMC (ret.), Brunswick, ME Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal