While preemptive attacks between nation states may go back in history to the Punic Wars, or even before, I do not believe they became part of U.S. national “defense” policy until the “right” to do so was articulated by Bush the Senior in the doctrine given his name.
In a modern “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” world, there may be unintended consequences that we cannot foresee, unknown unknowables, because, as you wrote in your essay before this last one, history is not the same as fortune telling. But, as you write today, that’s democracy.
The National Security Act of 1947 established the National Military Establishment with no Cabinet position head, changing the name from the War Department and creating separate departments for the Army and the newly formed Air Force to join the Department of the Navy, and doing away with the Secretary of War position, last headed by then Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. The National Security Act was amended in 1949, renaming the National Military Establishment the Department of Defense and consolidating the departments under the Secretary of Defense position in the Cabinet as the head of the Department.
President Harry S. Truman had appointed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense in 1947, after he had served as a special administrative assistant to his former Dutchess County, New York neighbor President Franklin D. Roosevelt beginning in 1940, who appointed him six weeks later Undersecretary of the Navy in 1940, and Secretary of the Navy in 1944.
But neither the National Security Act of 1947, nor its amendment in 1949, limited the Department to only the defense of the United States of America within its borders.
While preemptive attacks between nation states may go back in history to the Punic Wars, or even before, I do not believe they became part of U.S. national “defense” policy until the “right” to do so was articulated by Bush the Senior in the doctrine given his name.
In a modern “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” world, there may be unintended consequences that we cannot foresee, unknown unknowables, because, as you wrote in your essay before this last one, history is not the same as fortune telling. But, as you write today, that’s democracy.
The National Security Act of 1947 established the National Military Establishment with no Cabinet position head, changing the name from the War Department and creating separate departments for the Army and the newly formed Air Force to join the Department of the Navy, and doing away with the Secretary of War position, last headed by then Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. The National Security Act was amended in 1949, renaming the National Military Establishment the Department of Defense and consolidating the departments under the Secretary of Defense position in the Cabinet as the head of the Department.
President Harry S. Truman had appointed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense in 1947, after he had served as a special administrative assistant to his former Dutchess County, New York neighbor President Franklin D. Roosevelt beginning in 1940, who appointed him six weeks later Undersecretary of the Navy in 1940, and Secretary of the Navy in 1944.
But neither the National Security Act of 1947, nor its amendment in 1949, limited the Department to only the defense of the United States of America within its borders.