The Department of War/Defense, part B

Announcer: Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor. N. Rodgers: Hey Aughie. J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you? N. Rodgers: I'm good. How are you? J. Aughenbaugh: I'm fine, thank you. N. Rodgers: Excellent. J. Aughenbaugh: I'm particularly excited because we get to continue our discussion of the Department of War, which eventually becomes the Department of Defense. Yes. Where we left, remember the serial movies, well, not when we were kids, but when our parents were kids. Where they would go, and there'll be a cliffhanger at the end of the previous week's cereal and then you would go to the movie house and see the next one? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I'd like to think that we do that with our listeners, although I'm not sure our listeners feel particularly cliffhangeried. Where we left last time, we had gotten up to World War I, which I think you put it to me off recording. The first 140 years out of the way. But then it gets a little sticky, wicked, like starting with World War I, things get more complicated in part because we come out of that isolation just as a note for listeners up until World War I. We had only fought wars in our hemisphere, and wars that directly affected us. We weren't going out and taking names around the world. J. Aughenbaugh: We were not imperialistic by any stretch. N. Rodgers: We didn't just say Europe. It looks like something we could add to our property. We just didn't do that, and then you get World War I, and you get some real changes in the attitude about, in the apartment of war. J. Aughenbaugh: The idea of the United States being isolationist, definitely changed. Let's be very clear, Nia,, there was a pitch battle in this country as to whether or not the United States should get involved in World War I. N. Rodgers: Yeah, it wasn't any easy. Oh sure we'll go do that. There were a lot of people who said no. That's all the way in Europe. Let them fight it out amongst themselves. It doesn't involve us. But was part of our connection or a part of our reason for joining World War I financial? J. Aughenbaugh: Some of it was financial, but it was this idea that if we did not get involved, the war might not have ended as quickly as it did. This was a bloody war with a lot of casualties. N. Rodgers: Yes, trying to warfare. J. Aughenbaugh: It really required the United States Department of War to change. For instance, the Department of War was given broad authority to take over parts of the US economy because we needed materials, men, supplies, because again, as you pointed out, Nia, the war was overseas. N. Rodgers: Right. We have to take to the war in order to fight it. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. In this required significant changes. N. Rodgers: Who was the secretary of war at this time? J. Aughenbaugh: I believe you actually like the secretary's name. Newton D. Baker. N. Rodgers: Newton. I love these names. J. Aughenbaugh: That's not a first name you see used all that much. N. Rodgers: He had a person in charge of munitions, Benedict Crowell. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Right? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: His Chief of Staff was Peyton C. March. I just love these names. I do. I'm such a cheap date, but that didn't come easily, because at first, wasn't there some serious infrastructure problems that they had to overcome? J. Aughenbaugh: Well, yeah. The country just was ill-prepared to get involved into this effort. The federal government, particularly the Department of War, was ill-prepared. N. Rodgers: It got better though with World War II, didn't it? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, it did. N. Rodgers: Because World War I, we were trying to figure out how to be an industrialized nation at war in a large war situation. J. Aughenbaugh: What was particularly interesting, Nia about the United States Department of War during World War II was FDR went ahead and had as Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. Stimson served as Secretary of War 30 years earlier. He actually picked inexperienced person to run the Secretary of War, and Roosevelt, was the way he ran. Basically his White House didn't rely just on Stimson. He actually relied on General George Marshall on military strategy. It was very interesting the way FDR used the War Department and how he went about, and again, his commander-in-chief. We saw this early on with President Washington, but even during World War II, the thought process was the president was in charge of the War Department. N. Rodgers: Roosevelt had not served. J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct. He had been the Secretary of the Navy during World War I, but that was a civilian position. He never served in a uniform capacity. N. Rodgers: But didn't General Marshall complain that the Chief of Staff of the War Department, had a lot of detail because there were so many people, so many bureaus. It wasn't a streamlined, I guess is what I'm getting at as it is now. Now, I think it's a lot more streamlined about who reports to who and how many people report to one individual rather than if you think about the Chief of Staff having a whole bunch of people reporting to him and then having to report to the president. That's more complicated. J. Aughenbaugh: When we moved into World War II, and we mentioned this in the previous podcast episode. The debate as to how to organize the War Department really came to a head. N. Rodgers: Okay. J. Aughenbaugh: Should we have bureaus? Or should we go ahead and split up the War Department by function? This is not just a battle that you see within the War Department. You see this all the time in large bureaucracies even today. How do you structure and how do you organize it? How do you organize a bureaucracy so that it achieves its basic functions or purposes? N. Rodgers: Way in the future when we talk about the Department of Homeland Security, somehow FEMA ended up in the Department of Homeland Security. There is a huge controversy about even today, like even broiling under the surface of all this is, should FEMA really be part of Homeland Security? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Because what is the purpose of Homeland Security? N. Rodgers: What's the purpose of FEMA? J. Aughenbaugh: Is that a good fit? Historically, FEMA had been a standalone agency reporting directly to a president. But now it's part of a larger bureaucracy. Can it get lost in that larger bureaucracy? N. Rodgers: Stimson, what does he do? You said he streamlined. J. Aughenbaugh: Basically, what Stimson did was he divided the army into three autonomous components. You had the army ground forces, he had the Army Air Force. This is the precursor to the United States Air Force, and then he had the services of supply. Basically a supply unit. N. Rodgers: Okay. Getting food, getting tanks, getting whatever to wherever you need it to go. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, uniforms. N. Rodgers: It socks, simpler things than what I'm thinking of, but you can't have a fighting force without socks. You just can't J. Aughenbaugh: You had different uniforms because we were fighting in different parts of the world, so a uniform that might work in. N. Rodgers: In Siberia, is not going to work in the Philippines because the temperature difference is going to be. J. Aughenbaugh: If you're fighting in Europe during the middle of winter. N. Rodgers: Or North Africa in the middle of summer. That makes sense. I didn't even think about that, but that would be a logistical nightmare to make sure that people had enough J. Aughenbaugh: Huge undertaking. You want to talk about supply. Nia, how do you go ahead and make sure that you have enough gasoline for the tanks? N. Rodgers: You have to have supply tankers, and you have to protect the supply tankers, and they have to chase the army as it advances. Because armies don't just stay in one spot and fight, and fight and fight and fight. The whole point of having an army is to take land, is to take properties, so as somebody you have to offer that stuff as to follow those people and then retreat if they start to lose. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, so you're in this precarious position. You don't want to get too far behind with your supplies. Because then you basically leave your ground forces exposed without enough supplies to continue to fight. N. Rodgers: You might get cut off. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: By a re-reaction. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. N. Rodgers: But you don't want to be so close that you're in the actual battle, standing there in a gasoline resupply truck, because that's not going to end well for anybody. J. Aughenbaugh: The other thing that became really obvious in the War Department during World War II was the War Department was beginning to lack space in Washington DC. Okay? N. Rodgers: Because World War II is huge. J. Aughenbaugh: World War II was huge. N. Rodgers: Being fought on multiple fronts, so you can end up with a lot of stuff. J. Aughenbaugh: The War Department was spread all over Washington DC, Suburban Maryland, Virginia. N. Rodgers: Really? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I work for the War Department. Which building? J. Aughenbaugh: Interestingly enough, N. Rodgers: Is that when we get? J. Aughenbaugh: The Pentagon. N. Rodgers: We love the Pentagon, it's a beautiful building. I mean it seriously, it's a really cool, and somebody explained to me one time the complexity of finding someone's office in the Pentagon, because you have to know which section, which floor, but there's letters and numbers involved in all of these, and there's E section, and there's a number for the floor, but then there's also a side of the build. I don't even know how to explain it, but yeah, it is not an easy thing to find a person's office in the Pentagon. J. Aughenbaugh: It took nearly a year-and-a-half for it to be built. N. Rodgers: Really? I didn't realize that along. It's huge. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, one it's huge, but also we were actually fighting the war. N. Rodgers: That's true. That's an excellent point because if it was built in '43, we were in it at that point. J. Aughenbaugh: At the time it was considered when they finally built it, it was considered the world's largest office building. N. Rodgers: I hear that Washington Post reporters, if they're waiting to see if we're going to go to war, they will wait at the Pentagon for pizza deliveries in the middle of the night J. Aughenbaugh: The night. Yes. N. Rodgers: If they get bunches and bunches of pizza, you know that they're planning something. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I love that. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I like to think it is. J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, Nia, I've actually heard that from reporters who have covered different parts of government. N. Rodgers: Really? Did they do it in different buildings? Or they're hanging around, the fed waiting to see if it's going to go up x number of basis points by the number of pizza that gets delivered. J. Aughenbaugh: In my life, I've known a number of reporters who've covered N. Rodgers: I knew you were shady. J. Aughenbaugh: Who've covered police departments, and they know when something is going down by whether or not the pizzas are being delivered to a police precinct or there are delays and they turnover in shifts. N. Rodgers: That's really clever. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I have reporters, they're clever. During World War II, we get the building of the Pentagon, and we get this consolidation of the work into one spot. We also get consolidation of the various bureaus into chunks, so that now it's easier to manage. We're going to have a postwar period with where it becomes the Department of Defense. But before we do that, I had no idea the number of people who had been Secretary of War who I've heard of, who went on to do things, I'm not trying to be ugly to any government official or secretary who's listening to this podcast. One, what are you doing? Don't you have other things to do? But also two, I'm not casting aspersions on you, but I don't know your name most of the time. Most of the time, if you said to me Nia, name the the current secretaries in the current administration, I might be able to eke out a couple. J. Aughenbaugh: I give my students a hard time because they can't name all nine of the Supreme Court justices. But there's only 15 cabinet secretaries, and most of the time if I get maybe half of them correct, and I'm like, but I mean right now N. Rodgers: I'm lucky if I get two. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: Partly, that's a good thing. Because if you know that person's name, it means that something terrible is going on with that department. Generally speaking, the reason that people knew Betsy DeVos but couldn't name most of the other people in Donald Trump's cabinet was because the Department of Education was perceived to be in great disarray under Secretary DeVos. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: The reason that people remember Howard Baker is because Howard Baker worked for 41 during the Gulf War, trying to bring about at least some peaceful resolution to all that. If you don't know people's names, that's actually a good thing in some ways, because it means that things are just working along the way they generally have always done. J. Aughenbaugh: For many government bureaucrats, even if they are secretaries of departments, they would probably prefer to be nameless, faceless. They serve their four years or three years, and that's it, and they're never known. N. Rodgers: It's a good thing because they didn't make the news. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: In some way, or for something terrible or whatever. But we have Henry Knox, who was the first. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: But we have other people on there. J. Aughenbaugh: James Monroe, who eventually became president. He was a Secretary of War. We mentioned Calhoun, who had a very long career in the United States Senate. I did not know this until I did the research. Jefferson Davis was the Secretary of War before he became President of the Confederacy. I did not know that. N. Rodgers: I didn't either until I saw your notes and there are many things we could unpack about that. We won't do it now. J. Aughenbaugh: Here's another good first name, Edwin. Not Edward, Edwin. Edwin Stanton was part of Lincoln's team of rivals. N. Rodgers: Edward Stanton would have run against Lincoln because that's when he chose his team of rivals. They were all people who ran against him. J. Aughenbaugh: It's team for reposts for the Republican Party nomination. N. Rodgers: I love this name. J. Aughenbaugh: The next one? N. Rodgers: Alphonso Taft. J. Aughenbaugh: Taft. N. Rodgers: Sorry, Alphonso Taft. Taft, you have heard of because President Taft, who was not Alphonso Taft, but Alphonso Taft's son, right? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Alphonso Taft was the father. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. J. Aughenbaugh: He was only secretary of war for 75 days but he goes back to Ohio and basically creates the Taft political machine in Ohio. A political machine that has continued even into this millennium. N. Rodgers: Because we have William Taft who became president. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: But then William Taft's son. J. Aughenbaugh: Son Robert becomes a US senator. He has offspring and they have elected positions in Ohio. N. Rodgers: Some of the Tafts were governors and some of them were also state senators and that thing J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: That's a Ohio family of power. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Then you have Henry Stimson, who was secretary of war for President Taft. But then 30 years later, Roosevelt, a Democrat, appoints him secretary of war. N. Rodgers: So you must have thought he did a good job. J. Aughenbaugh: Bill Newman and I talked about this with you previously. It's only recently that you see secretaries who, it was not unusual in our country's history to actually have people to run federal departments and agencies across presidential administrations of different parties. You see this with Stimson. It wasn't that all that unusual. We live in such a polarized partisan time that the idea that Biden would have Republican secretary of state. Would be unheard of. N. Rodgers: Which is really unfortunate because what you want are the best people for the job. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I firmly believe that party should be second and who's best for the job should be first. If you know that you're entering a time of, let's say fiscal drama. You want people who have been really good at fiscal policy regardless of their party. Because it's going to hurt Americans if we don't have good people dealing with all that. It shouldn't be about party, it should be about who's good at this job. J. Aughenbaugh: In particular, secretaries keep their jobs if they do what the president wants them to do. If a Democratic president appointed a Republican to run, for instance, secretary of the State Department. As long as they went ahead and did what the President wants them to do. If they are able to go ahead and subvert, push down their partisan preferences. If they are experienced at running the State Department, then why not? N. Rodgers: Right. Now we move into the DoD? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: We'd go from the Department of War to the Department of Defense, which I think is an interesting name change, which you and I should philosophically talk about it at some point. Whether words in the government actually mean what they think they mean. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, the thinking in part. At the end of World War II, President Truman proposes a creation of a unified Department of National Defense. He gives this talk to the United States Congress. Before Truman became vice president, he was a US Senator from Missouri. His claim to fame as a US senator was when the nation first got involved in World War II, Truman was pointing out all the ways that there was waste fraud, and abuse in the nation ramping up to go to war. N. Rodgers: Which would have been capitalism. J. Aughenbaugh: You wouldn't know. Again, very few people when a nation goes to wars is like how do we do this following the three Es of efficiency, effectiveness, and something being economical. We just want to go ahead and get into the war and make a difference, win the war. N. Rodgers: Well, and there are always profiteers. J. Aughenbaugh: Sure. N. Rodgers: There are always profiteers, there are always people who are like, oh, you need nylon, I got nylon over here but the price just went up $17,000 a barrel or whatever. That gouging is going to happen but I liked that Truman was like this is unacceptable because that sounds so very Truman-like. That's when he said that's an acceptable. J. Aughenbaugh: Standard Midwest. This just doesn't make sense. N. Rodgers: This is not okay. But not hugely loudly fussy, just this is not okay. I think, can I throw out there that another one of the reasons that they might have gone with defense rather than war is people were tired. J. Aughenbaugh: Tired of war. N. Rodgers: At the end of the war, people were just done. If you had stuck a fork in them, if we're to come out clean like a cake, they were not having it. J. Aughenbaugh: The words War Department suggested that the purpose of the department was to fight wars. But after World War II- N. Rodgers: Was to defend democracy. J. Aughenbaugh: - defend democracy. N. Rodgers: Which is how you end up being able to justify the Cold War. But that is another episode as we discussed. J. Aughenbaugh: Truman convinces Congress to go ahead and pass the National Security Act of 1947 and it basically, if you will, created what we know today is the Department of Defense. But we get more than just the Department of Defense. We get the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, official recognition of the Air Force, and the creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is all part of a significant reorganization of the Department of War. N. Rodgers: Because the CIA used to be the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, although the NSA still exists, although they call themselves no such agency, or sorry, other people call them that. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office like that is also part of when you decentralize all of your intelligence gathering and you have what [inaudible] referred to as turf wars by people you don't want to share their information, then you have things that go by the wayside because there's no centralized Agencies. Putting that under the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, where you centralize all that stuff, at least theoretically, helps to make intelligence gathering a more streamlined process. J. Aughenbaugh: How it's gathered, analyzed, and then recommendations are made to decision-makers N. Rodgers: Like all things, it again, devolves so that when you get 911 later, which is not part of this episode, we're not going to focus hugely on. But when you get 911 later, one of the complaints was that there was not enough intelligence sharing across the various intelligence agencies. Whenever we say that they gathered and they streamlined and they focus things, I'm sure you've noticed over this episode that it's focused and then it gets unfocused because the bureaucracy gets bloated. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: People start pulling things apart because they want to be in charge of x thing but not y so they pull all this stuff apart and then somebody says no, no, no, no and they bring it all back together again. Then it starts to slowly drift apart. J. Aughenbaugh: Also, recognize too in a democracy. You see this with the Department of Defense near. Members of congress are interested in how the Department of Defense is going to benefit their congressional district or their state. N. Rodgers: You try to close the military base and see what that senator does to your- J. Aughenbaugh: Your budget. N. Rodgers: - your life. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: They make you cry because they're not playing about the fact that those are their constituents. That's tax money, that's jobs. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. These are really good jobs. They can make a huge difference in the lives of their constituents. N. Rodgers: Well, and guess what? All those people who come to that base and spend money in the towns around that. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: That's the reason some towns in this country exist at all. It's because there's a military base close by. Fayetteville, I am looking at you, which should not exist without Fort Bragg. I mean, it would exist, but it would not exist in the form that it is. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, when we're thinking about, for instance, me and our home State of Virginia. Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: Without the United States Navy, I mean, come on this. N. Rodgers: It couldn't exist. J. Aughenbaugh: To me it was truly fascinating the fact that this all happened right after the war. In the research I did, scholars are all over the map on this because on one hand, as you pointed out, the nation after World War II was tired of being in a war. But how quickly the decision was made to convert the War Department to the Department of Defense and then consolidate under the Department of Defense all of these units. It's like you should never make a decision about buying a new car. N. Rodgers: Never make big decisions under stress? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, that's right. N. Rodgers: You don't buy a new car when your car is in the shop for the third time and you're just like screw this, I'm going and buying a new car. That's a bad time to make that decision. You're going to buy their first car that you come across that's reasonably what you'd be willing to have. J. Aughenbaugh: Or the old adage that you never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. N. Rodgers: When you're hungry. That's right. J. Aughenbaugh: You just don't. N. Rodgers: Yeah, you will make bad life choices when you do that. J. Aughenbaugh: It was very interesting that this happened. Think about this, the war ends in 45. Within two years, Congress passes the National Security Act. By 1949, the Department of War is renamed the Department of Defense. N. Rodgers: Well, it speaks to we're going to have to do this better if we're going to do this. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: If we're going to get involved in these worldwide conflicts, we have to have a better system, we have to do a better job of this. That's what it speaks to. It speaks to we got along and we did what we needed to do in World War II, but we've got to be better at it. Whatever else one may say about President Truman. President Truman was an excellent organizer in the sense of we need to organize the government so that it makes sense and it works as efficiently as possible. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: It is not surprising that it would happen. Now, isn't the National Highway system Truman? J. Aughenbaugh: No, that was Eisenhower. N. Rodgers: Eisenhower. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: A massive defense issue too. J. Aughenbaugh: That is one of the great examples of how a federal government program was created for x purpose but it ends up serving a different purpose. Because when Eisenhower pitched a national highway system to the United States Congress, he went ahead and argued that we needed it for defense purposes, to be able to move troops, weapons around the country, and to avoid being targeted by the Soviet Union, we needed a highway transportation system much like what he saw in Germany during World War II. Because one of the ways that Germany was so effective at getting troops and supplies was they have the Autobahn. N. Rodgers: A great highway system in general. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, a great highway system in general. N. Rodgers: But it end up being the way that we get to Spring Break in Florida from New York, get on 95 and drive south to find the beach. J. Aughenbaugh: It is truly fascinating. We just mentioned Eisenhower. N. Rodgers: He's such a huge part of our lives. J. Aughenbaugh: It is, and Eisenhower, when he finished his second term, gave a farewell address. N. Rodgers: The Military Industrial Complex. J. Aughenbaugh: Complex. He warned of this in his farewell address. Eisenhower thought that the nation needed to guard against the influence of the military and defense contractors having such close relationships and so much influence with members of Congress, and this has been the criticism of the United States post-World War II. That so much of what our federal government does and so much of our spending is for defense. That we have shortchanged other spending priorities. N. Rodgers: The argument that I have heard is that we spend so much in comparison to other nations. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Yet it's embarrassingly ridiculous how much we spend on having a Department of Defense and all the stuff that goes on with that. But it's not surprising to me that there would be a bloat that would come with having a professional army, which is what you have. You have a professional army. You have people who are paid to do that job. You don't have the draft anymore, at least not right now. We have had the draft at various points in our history, but right now we don't have the draft. I appreciate Eisenhower's warning because I think it was accurate that this is going to become an industry. It's an entity that you have to be really careful of. J. Aughenbaugh: There were two parts to his warning. One was the industry and how it could be damaging to, if you will, governing. But he also warned about this over-reliance on science-based public policy, what he called the scientific technological elite, and you see this a lot in the Department of Defense. We need the most up-to-date current weapons because our opponent might, have them. We rely on science and technology but many public policy decisions perhaps should be based or made on what do humans need, which is not necessarily related to science. Science doesn't always solve a public policy problem because sites frequently changes. N. Rodgers: Our understanding of the world frequency changes. J. Aughenbaugh: Science might tell us that this would be the best solution to a public policy problem but if the public's not willing to accept that particular solution, then sciences and solving the problem. N. Rodgers: Oh my goodness, an excellent example of this for people who think that Aughie is being anti-science, because he's not, is when there's a giant flood and people come in and they say, oh, well, the way to solve this is to pick this town up and move it 100 miles in that direction, and then you'll never have this problem again because you will be clear of the floodplain. That is the purely scientific solution to that problem. J. Aughenbaugh: Sure. N. Rodgers: Tell it to the people who have lived in that town for 200 generations. They, don't want to leave their town. They don't want to leave where their spot is because they'd been there forever. It is perfectly scientific solution that will not work in an actual social situation. People won't leave their homes because they love that place. J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, I'm going to go a little bit further with your example. Think about what many planners suggested we do with New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina. N. Rodgers: Move everybody out. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Move everybody out, move them to higher ground, get away from Lake Pontchartrain. It's a mess. The levees don't work. You all will have to move inland. I'm sorry. Were you talking to us we weren't listening? We've been here for how many years and you're going to just try to move us inland? J. Aughenbaugh: Scientifically, the planners were correct. N. Rodgers: It's a bowl. You've held the city in a bowl. J. Aughenbaugh: A bowl. N. Rodgers: What do you want us to do for you and they're like fix the levees. J. Aughenbaugh: But how do you go ahead and tell a whole bunch of people. N. Rodgers: Whose families have been there for hundreds of years. J. Aughenbaugh: Who relish that culture, who make lives there. J.Aughenbaugh: You're going to have to move because it makes no sense to go ahead and keep hundreds of thousands of people in a city that's below sea level. N.Rodgers: Unless we put you in a submarine, this isn't going to work. Yet people rebuilt after Katrina. I hear him on that. Can we talk briefly about the various secretaries of defense before we get into the criticisms of defense? I know we're going to go a little bit long on this one because the criticisms are going to take us, but we'll try to keep it as tight as we can. I knew every single name on the list except the first name. It's weird to me. It says a lot about I think about the world I live in that I can almost always name who the secretary of defense is. That implies a more warlike country that I am comfortable feeling like we are. J.Aughenbaugh: I had the same conclusion as I was coming up with a list of some of the more prominent Secretaries of Defense. I'm like, I know these people. N.Rodgers: I can actually pick these people's pictures out from other people's pictures. I would know who they were except for George Marshall. I couldn't pick out George Marshall or James Forrestal who was the first. But you have on here, Robert McNamara. J.Aughenbaugh: He was the Secretary of Defense for both JFK and LBJ during the Vietnam War. Caspar Weinberger, Iran Contra, Dick Cheney. I completely forgot Nia that Dick Cheney was Bush 41 Secretary of defense. I completely forgot. N.Rodgers: You're right. I know him as a Vice President. J.Aughenbaugh: I knew he was part of the Bush 41 national security team. N.Rodgers: Honestly, I probably would have listed him as the National Security Advisor. In my brain, I probably would have. Rumsfeld. Unknown unknowns, his infamous known unknowns, known known unknowns. What are you saying? We've never had a woman; we've never had a female Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense not yet. J.Aughenbaugh: No. N.Rodgers: Which is an interesting question of whether the military, now that women are finding their way into the military in higher and higher rank if we will see because we're now seeing generals and we're saying, multi-star generals. Females in those positions, if we will eventually see a Secretary of Defense. I know they don't always come out of the military, but a lot of these people, I think served at some point before they went into civilian life. J.Aughenbaugh: That's also very interesting too. There is a federal law Nia that says that there is a general prohibition on a former officer in the military serving as Secretary of Defense. N.Rodgers: Isn't it a certain number of years you have to have been retired? Because I seem to recall that somebody wanted Colin Powell at one, and he hadn't been out long enough. J.Aughenbaugh: The Bush 43 administration didn't want to go ahead and burn political capital on it. Joe Biden had to do it with his Secretary of Defense, who is our first African American Secretary Defense, General Austin. But there is a prohibition. Again, it's designed to make sure that we don't have such an explicit, if you will, military industrial door. N.Rodgers: I think we have just a moment. Can you mention George C. Marshall and what he's known for? J.Aughenbaugh: Yes. General Marshall was basically career military. When World War II broke out, he became FDR's primary advisor in regards to the war. After the war, General George Marshall was tasked by Truman to come up with how could the United States help Europe rebuild itself. He and his staff came up with what became known as the Marshall Plan, where the United States gave billions of dollars to rebuild Europe. N.Rodgers: Under the theory that World War I left Germany so poor and so destructured. Their infrastructure was destroyed, that it actually led to World War II. Because they had nowhere to go. They were poverty-stricken. They were expected to pay back all debts. J.Aughenbaugh: We learned a lesson after World War I. Part of it was humanitarian, but part of it was narrow American self-interest. N.Rodgers: Let's not have to come back and do this in another 20 years. J.Aughenbaugh: I actually use this as an example with my students in my public policy class. Because narrow self-interests frequently gets criticized as a poor reason for Public Policy. Narrow self-interest was one of the chief if you will foundations of the Marshall Plan. If we rebuild Europe, we have trading partners. We also have a buffer in regards to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. N.Rodgers: It was totally in our best interests to rebuild Europe. J.Aughenbaugh: These countries are going to be our allies. Why? Because we help them rebuild. They're not going to jump in bed with the Soviets. They're going to be our allies. N.Rodgers: Did the Marshall Plan extend to Japan? Was it everybody we had fought with? Was it just Europe? J.Aughenbaugh: I thought it was just Europe. N.Rodgers: Okay. N. Rodgers: Fascinating individual. Nia: But that's one of those controversies of the Marshall Plan is. When you think about the criticisms, most of the criticism, I think that comes from the DoD is money. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: People are like, why are we spending this money on defense? What are we worried about Mexico or Canada invading, like, come on. Mexico has a better chance than Canada, I think. But I think that either way we're probably pretty safe. Like it's not likely to be and we have these giant oceans between us and everybody else. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: You get the inner ballistic missiles and that's a greater concern later on. But it does seem like we spent a lot of money. But another criticism is the Marshall Plan, is this idea of why are we spending a gazillion dollars, which is not how much it was, I can't remember how many billion it was. It was back in the day, quite a bit of money. But one of the modern criticisms, at least that I am very much aware of, because you beat it into me in the Homeland Security Program when you were my professor, is that we were ill-prepared for what has become the war on terror or terrorism attacks. We were ill-prepared for 911, didn't occur to anybody that somebody would use a plane as a giant bomb, which is what happened, because when you take off from Boston going across the nation, you have a lot of fuel on that plane. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: If you turn it in flight into a building in New York, you are going to have a giant bomb. It's actually very clever. I'm not wishing to Kudo bin Laden, that's clever but we had not thought of them. N. Rodgers: Yeah. I mean as a weapon. Nia: Right. N. Rodgers: Okay. Nia: But isn't the biggest criticism of DoD Vietnam? N. Rodgers: Yeah. Beyond the fact that we spend a significant percentage of our gross domestic product on defense spending, there have been any number of criticisms, Vietnam being the most obvious. Nia: Do you think people criticized the DoD because we lost Vietnam or because they lied about Vietnam? N. Rodgers: I think it's both. Nia: Okay. N. Rodgers: I think it's both and again, McNamara was the Secretary of the Department of Defense, Robert McNamara, and before he got hired by the Kennedy administration, he was the CEO of the Ford Motor Company. Nia: I didn't know that. N. Rodgers: He was one of the, "Whiz Kids" of the Kennedy administration. The best and the brightest. We're going to bring the best science and technology, and we're going to bring it to bear to what the federal government does. But what happens when your science and your technology is important? Nia: Needs their jungle. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: I mean not to be ugly, but frankly needs their jungle. N. Rodgers: Doesn't work with an opponent that is highly motivated in a part of the world that many Americans didn't understand why we were there. Nia: Couldn't find on a map. N. Rodgers: It really forced the Department of Defense to change its thought processes about going to war and you saw this, for instance, pretty clearly with the Persian Gulf War during the Bush 41 administration. Because the chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was Colin Powell, who was a junior officer during Vietnam. Powell made it very clear, if we're going to go to war in the Persian Gulf, we need to have a clearly identified mission. We need to know what is not a victory, and we need the support of the United States Congress and the American people before we go. Nia: We need an exit strategy. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: Which it's funny because I don't think that anybody at least from my memory of Desert Storm just the first 41s. N. Rodgers: Yeah, the Persian Gulf. Nia: The Persian Gulf War. Basically for folks who don't know, quick summary, Iraq invades Kuwait and Kuwait's like, well and they did it to get Kuwait's oil and Kuwait said, excuse me, the United States, could you lend us a hand with this? The United States said, we would love to lend you a hand with that, and we came in and we pushed Iraq back. N. Rodgers: Sure did. Nia: Then it was over. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: Like Iraq cup push back and they haven't gone back into Kuwait. They learned a valuable lesson about when Americans, but that war because it was discrete, there was a beginning and a middle and an end. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: I don't think very many Americans have much heartburn in terms of that. I think they're like, yeah, okay. It's when wars get weird, like Iraq and Afghanistan where it just goes on and on and you can't figure out what we're trying to do. N. Rodgers: Yeah. The global war on terrorism is another pointed critique. Nia, you know this because of your studies in Homeland Security. One of the difficulties that nation-states have in fighting terrorism is how do you know when you defeated terrorism? Nia: How do you know when you've defeated terrorism? You know when you've captured specific individuals and you can say. N. Rodgers: Yeah. Nia: What right like when President Obama was like we got bin Laden or whoever, you know when you've gotten individuals but because you're fighting an idea. N. Rodgers: Yes. Nia: How do you say, and now we're done? We have fought terrorism and terrorism is finished. It's not. As long as there have been more than three humans, there have been forms of terrorism. Terrorism goes back to Biblical times. It's not a thing you can just say, and we're finished. It's like the war on drugs. You can't fight a war on drugs. How do you know when you've eradicated drugs from the earth? N. Rodgers: Think about, for instance, Nia, the British experience with the Irish Republican Army. Nia: The IRA. N. Rodgers: We're talking about seven, eight decades. Nia: Exactly. The only way you could possibly finish that completely will be to kill every person in Ireland, which is not something you want to do. So short of that, how do you finish? N. Rodgers: A war like that. Nia: In case of Afghanistan badly. N. Rodgers: We've seen this. The other criticism, I know we've been critical of President Trump. But President Trump made a point that I think many Americans were probably like their elected officials to actually give some thought to, which is, the United States has the largest military in the world. It's larger than the next seven largest militaries combined, so why are we the ones? Nia: Well, yeah, I agree with President Trump that if we're going to be the policeman of the world, if everybody turns to the United States as United States will fix it, then they probably should contribute equally. N. Rodgers: Saying that we are the wealthiest nation, I don't think President Trump was saying they should give the same amount of money, but they should give the same percentage of money that the United States does. If you expect the United States to be the world's police force. J. Aughenbaugh: This ties into a larger debate that many Americans just don't understand. When we spend all this money on the Department of Defense. When you combine DOD expenditures plus what we spend on entitlement spending the percentage of the federal government spending pie, that is discretionary, where we can go ahead and say, hey let's go ahead and take care of, N. Rodgers: Let's forgive all student loans. There is this much of the pie. I'm holding my fingers apart from each other. I realized just now, you all can't see that, but it's some tiny percentage left. There just isn't money to do a lot of discretionary spending if you spend this much money on the DOD. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. This has been our existence for basically 75 years now. N. Rodgers: It's probably time to rethink this. But the problem is, and I liked it, and my part of the opinion part here is it's entrenched. J. Aughenbaugh: Sure it is. N. Rodgers: But what do you want us to do? We always spend that money on this. It's really hard. The DOD has been extraordinarily clever in building bases all over this country, in employing military all over this country, so that when Congress says, we need to cut from the military spending, other people in Congress saying, no. Because it's their constituents that are being affected. The DOD has been very smart about how it's gone about. J. Aughenbaugh: We might want to do an upcoming episode, Nia on BRAC, which is base realignment enclosure process. Because I don't think many Americans understand that. N. Rodgers: Closing a base. My gosh. J. Aughenbaugh: You've heard the expression, an act of God is required. N. Rodgers: Exactly. J. Aughenbaugh: But it's not only just bases in the United States, it's bases around the world. N. Rodgers: People say we should pull all of our bases in various countries. Some of the cities in those countries depend on the bases in order to exist. Now you're going to throw thousands of people out of work. You're going to throw off local economies enormously. It's not as simple as, just close it and we'll all go home. J. Aughenbaugh: They have strategic importance in regards to those nations, defense strategies. It has strategic importance. Just purely symbolic. The United States is here. N. Rodgers: Has a presence. That's one of the reasons we have embassies around the world, is to have a presence in the world. J. Aughenbaugh: This is one of the ways that we make a commitment to other nations. We got your back. N. Rodgers: Or we've got an eye on you. It could go either way and that's not a terrible thing too when you're talking about rogue nuclear powers. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: For somebody to be able to say, and we're keeping an eye on you, just so you know. J. Aughenbaugh: But I really do believe we should do just an episode about, N. Rodgers: We'll do that an episode on foreign bases and national bases, not just closure but maintenance and why we have them where we have them. J. Aughenbaugh: The whole BRAC process is just utterly fascinating. Nia, you and I we record this podcast in a state that has one of the highest percentages of the state GDP affected by the Defense Department spending. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: I think the only other state in the country that has a higher percentage of its GDP that is comprised of DOD spending is California N. Rodgers: Virginia's military through and through. Which is why when we criticize, we criticize with love. J. Aughenbaugh: Well so much of this podcast is us saying, hey. N. Rodgers: There's criticism with love. We're commentary with love. J. Aughenbaugh: But it's understanding that there are trade-offs. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: We're concluding with criticisms. But quite obviously you and I, over the last two podcast episodes, are just utterly fascinated by a democratic nation, that one of its first departments was the creation of the Department of War. N. Rodgers: Keep in mind people who say the military budget shouldn't be this high and then they also say, we should intervene in ongoing wars around the world, for instance, Ukraine, Russia. You can't have that both ways. J. Aughenbaugh: No. N. Rodgers: You're either going to have to spend the money to intervene in a war or you're not going to spend the money. You can say those things but it's nuanced as is everything we ever talk about on this podcast. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I don't think we've ever talked about anything that was absolutely clear in terms of the red pill or blue pill. There's always the purple pill. There's always the thing in the middle, where you're like, yeah. But if you want that, then you're going to have to allow for some spending in the Department of Defense if you want to be able to intervene in situations like that. J. Aughenbaugh: Because those interventions require capacity. N. Rodgers: Exactly. J. Aughenbaugh: We saw this pretty clearly with World War I and World War II. N. Rodgers: Ramping up is expensive and hard to do. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. But if you already have the capacity, then you can make informed decisions about intervening around the world? N. Rodgers: Exactly. J. Aughenbaugh: Anyways, great conversation Nia. Thank you. N. Rodgers: Thank you so much Aughie. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Announcer: You've been listening to civil discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.