US Defense: Some Interesting Historical Information
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is an important federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies directly involved with national security and military affairs. The DoD is one of the most important occupants of The Pentagon and is made of three chief sub-departments, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy and the Department of the Air Force.
Other DOD groups include the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the famed National Security Agency (NSA).
In terms of the department’s history, it was set up based on some specific ideas constructed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and on 19 December 1945, President Harry S. Truman proposed the creation of a new unified Department of National Defense. The proposal was debated over and was not passed until 1947.
On July 26, 1947, President Truman finalized the National Security Act of 1947 which founded the National Military Establishment which would begin active operations in September, 1947. The Establishment had the ill-fated abbreviation NME which sounds very much like ‘enemy’ and it was, in 1949, renamed the DoD.
Until the creation of the DoD, US armed forces were separated into various departments which lacked any real central authority. The Marine Corps remained as a separate service under the Naval Department while the Coast Guard remained under the auspices of the Treasury Department.
The DoD’s budget was approximately 7 billion in 2007 though this figure does not include tens of billions more in spent on ‘supplementary’ things like nuclear weapons tests.
In times of war, the Department of Defense has authority over the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is always considered one of the five branches of the US armed services, according to the US Code. During times of declared war the Coast Guard operates as a section of the Navy even though the Coast Guard has not been under the full control of Navy since World War 2.
The official command structure of the Department is set down by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in October, 1986. The Act modified the chain of command of the US military and it introduced the most distinctive changes to the Department since it was established.
According to the Act, the command structure passes from the US President, through the Secretary of Defense, to the commanders of all military forces (COCOM). The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is chiefly responsible for readiness of the US military and behaves as the President’s military adviser while remaining firmly outside of the chain of command.