Budgets and Strategy: The Enduring Legacy of the Revolt of the Admirals

Abstract

THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR II posed new challenges for the United States. Since resources would be scarce relative to requirements, officials hoped to extract efficiencies through reforms, including the “unification” of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. The result turned out to be a poisonous interservice rivalry that hamstrung the military in developing unified strategic plans and budgets consistent with national policy. Civilian attempts to break the impasse by mandating specific cuts only exacerbated the situation by provoking the navy into open defiance. The Korean War and the opening of the fiscal spigot under National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68) resolved the crisis but bequeathed a troubling legacy. Henceforth, managing interservice rivalry was possible only by loosening the government’s purse strings and delegating responsibility for allocating funds to the services. The correlation between aggressive civilian reform and military setbacks at the start of the Korean War also discredited the notion that civilian leaders should play a significant role in determining how the services spend their money. The services have, in turn, used their power to divide budgets equally, thereby minimizing interservice friction over money but undermining the intention of the National Security Act to promote greater efficiency.1