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Gregory D. Foster is Professor of National Security Studies in the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University.
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration, and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
—DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
The year 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. The Eisenhower School, part of the National Defense University, is one General Dwight D. Eisenhower on D-Day, June 6, 1944 (CSU Archives/Everett Collection) of seven colleges that constitutes the senior level of the U.S. military’s professional military education system.
Founded in 1924 as the Army Industrial College to compensate for America’s many mobilization short- comings in World War I, the school was renamed the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and moved to Fort Lesley J. McNair in 1946, alongside the newly established National War College. Signifying the heightened importance of joint, inter-Service thinking and operations growing out of World War II, both would become part of the National Defense University when it was established in 1976. In 2012, reflecting the thinking of some that the terms Industrial and Armed Forces conveyed unduly narrow imagery of a past that had long since given way to a much more complex strategic environment than the logistics and mobilization focus that had carried the Army and the country through World War II, the college adopted its current name.
In early 2023, the National Defense University, acting through its Ethics Program Coordinating Committee, issued a new institutional learning outcome that called for all University components to integrate ethics, civil-military relations, and the profession of arms (or, in more encompassing terms, the national security professions) into their programs. The following two articles in this special feature of Joint Force Quarterly seek to recognize and celebrate the Eisenhower School’s centennial anniversary through the overlapping lenses of ethics and the profession of arms. Eisenhower School professors Elias Ursitti, Eric Weis, and Donald Loren address ethical concerns, challenges, and imperatives. The next article is a compilation of noteworthy—in some cases even iconic—statements various scholars, practitioners, and interested observers have made over time on the profession of arms.
The articles are grounded to varying degrees in the past (roughly 1924 to 1989), the present (1989 to today), and the future (beyond 2024). This approach provides a basis for not only identifying areas of overlap between the two inter- related domains of inquiry addressed here but also highlighting key areas of continuity and discontinuity over time.
In one sense, the past could be viewed as an era of “hot war,” the extended historical period dating to antiquity, in which military force was central to the conduct of statecraft. Then followed the compressed “Cold War” period, whose defining theme was the avoidance of major war against a major peer adversary. The present could be characterized as a period of “new war” or “violent peace,” involving new uses of the military and the subordination of the military to other instruments of power. The future, fraught with uncertainty in matters of national security, raises profound questions about the continuing role of the state, the military’s relationship to the state, and the military’s centrality and mission(s). Could the future we are yet to experience conceivably even produce a condition of enduring universal peace or no war? Perhaps it could, if we choose to make it so. Time will tell.
Timeline of Key Events
1920 League of Nations, National Defense Act of 1920
1922 Washington Naval Treaty
1924 The Founding: Army Industrial College
1929–1939 Great Depression 1932 Bonus Army demonstrations
1940 Arsenal of Democracy, Selective Training and Service Act
1941 Lend-Lease
1941–1945 World War II (last declared war/last total war/last total mobilization/ last conclusive end)
1944 Bretton Woods, World Bank, International Monetary Fund
1945 United Nations
1946 First Renaming: Industrial College of the Armed Forces
1947 National Security Act (National Security Council [NSC], Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Air Force, National Military Establishment, Central Intelligence Agency), U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, followed by U.S. European Command (1952), U.S. Southern Command (1963),
U.S. Central Command (1983), U.S. Northern Command (2002), U.S. Africa Command (2008), etc.
1947–1989 Cold War
Containment Doctrine (X Article, NSC-68)
Presidential foreign policy doctrines (Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan)
Presidential foreign policy nondoctrines (Johnson, Ford, Obama, Trump)
Massive Retaliation (Eisenhower, 1954–1961), Flexible Responsen (Kennedy, 1961)
Weinberger-Powell doctrines (1984, 1990)
1948 Selective Service Act, Marshall Plan, Key West Agreement
1948–1949 Berlin Airlift
1949 Amendments to National Security Act, Soviet Union atomic bomb/arms race, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, People’s Republic of China, Geneva Conventions, “Revolt of the Admirals”
1950 Uniform Code of Military Justice as Federal law
1950–1953 Korean War (limited war/“police action”/stalemate-armistice; United States as United Nations execu- tive agent)
1951 Universal Military Training and Service Act, Australia–New Zealand– United States Treaty
1953 Defense Reorganization Act
1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (1954–1977)
1955–1991 Warsaw Pact, Central Treaty Organization (1955–1979)
1955–1975 VIetnam War (limited war/ advisory mission/counterinsurgency)
1958 Defense Reorganization Act 1970 Kent State shootings
1973 War Powers resolution, end of draft, return of POWs, Watergate
1974 Nixon resignation
1976 Establishment of National Defense University
1986 Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act
1989 Fall of the Soviet Union 1990–1991 Gulf War
2001 September 11 terrorist attacks
2001–2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force
2001–2021 AFGHANISTAN WAR
2003–2011 IRAQ WAR
2012 Second Renaming: Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy
2018–present “Great Power competition”
Major Professional Military Education Studies: Clements Committee (1975), Skelton Panel (1987).
Special Operations Forces Expansions: Rangers (World War II revitalization), Special Forces (1952), SEALS (1962), Delta Force (1977).
Human Resource Developments: Racial desegregation (1948), women in military (1948), women in combat (1991, 1994, 2013–2015, 2016), gays in military (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” [1993], open service [2011], lifting of transgender ban [2021]), diversity, equity, inclusion, wokeness (2022–present).
Incidents/Atrocities: USS Pueblo (1968), My Lai (1968), Son Tay (1970), Mayaguez (1975), Iran hostage (1979–1981), Desert One (1980), Iran-Contra (1985–1987), Abu Ghraib (2004), Haditha (2005), numerous others (Tailhook, Eddie Gallagher, Fat Leonard, Aberdeen, Air Force Academy, Air Force Basic Training, many command reliefs, many sexual assault/harassment incidents).
Treaties, U.S. Not a Party: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (1996), Mine Ban (1997), International Criminal Court (1998), Cluster Munitions (2008), Arms Trade (2013).
Landmark Books: C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (1956); Walter Millis, Arms and Men (1956); Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State (1957); Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (1960); Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback (1962); Russell Weigley, The American Way of War (1973); Richard Kohn, Eagle and Sword (1975).