policy - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
growth - activities in which the military was not a fundamental component.
Agriculture, industry and commerce were the principal occupations of Americans,
and Americans took pride in economic accomplisnments more than in
military prowess. Even the symbols of American greatness tended to be such
commercial achievements as the construction of clipper ships or the transcontinental
railroad. For the individual, fame and fortune were also more
likely to be attained via economic activity rather than through a military
career. Inevitably, therefore, the prestige of the small standing army was
far from high. Professional enlisted soldiers were generally viewed as
"undesirables," little better than criminals and Indians. Meanwhile,
"although it was generally socially acceptable, the officer corps failed to
attract a substantial number of the national elite in the same way that,
for example, the German Army did. Not only was there more money and status
in other careers in the US but American elites had developed no sense of
responsibility to bear arms in the national defense in marked contrast to
European elites.48/
To meet those crises that did require military responses, the
United States continued to rely upon short-term citizen soldiers, primarily
volunteers. Furthermore, despite the resurt to conscription in the later
years of the Civil War, which precipitated antidraft riots, the principle
of national reliance upon a volunteer army was not abandoned.49/ Ad hoc
measures to answer specific needs was, essentially, the order of the day,
leading some historians of the nineteenth century to contend that "the
United States never had a military policy worthy of the name" but rather
"blundered through [its] wars at enormous and unnecessary cost in life and
money.... "50/
2. World War I
mny..The First World War represents the first major break with the
above pattern. Although the Spanish-American War had signaled a new direction
in American foreign policy away from isolationism and toward both
imperialism and greater global participation generally, its impact on the
_ I military in American society was comparatively slight; the war was not only
fought with short-term volunteers, but fought so quickly and so epparently
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