Preparing for the Next War: American Plans for Postwar Defense, 1941-45

Description

Even while fighting a global war, the Ameri- can armed services began to plan for postwar defense in order to take advantage of the public’s wartime ardor for preparedness. Their efforts gave expression to revolution- ary changes in the nation’s view of its place in the world and its future needs for national security. Drawing on the files of planning agencies and on private papers, Michael Sherry convinc- ingly argues that prevailing theories about the origins of the cold war should be revised. Postwar defense plans reflectéd widespread concern over the nation’s failure to resist Axis aggression in the 1930s and its growing vulnerability to attack. Strategists proposed a powerful military machine—not the usual skeleton force—to guarantee national safety in peacetime. Rational analysis as well as an emotional reaction led to an ideology of national preparedness, a war-conscious mentality, even before the cold war began. Military planners, making easy analogies between Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, perceived a Soviet threat to American security. But this urge for preparedness was widely shared by scientists and civilian authorities as well. Reading the future in terms of the past, Americans envisioned a nation so strong that it could deter or crush aggression anywhere in the world. The vision was largely innocent in inspiration, but its potential for arrogance, misapplication, and misunderstanding by others proved tragic. Michael S. Sherry is assistant professor of history at Northwestern University.