War and military power have always been central to American political, economic, and social development. Indeed, elements of the U.S. military predate the creation of the nation. Yet, the government and people of the United States historically have expressed ambivalence about a standing army, foreign commitments, and defense spending. Despite being former generals, Presidents George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower used their presidential farewell addresses to warn of the potential dangers of military excess: Washington admonished against international alliances, and Eisenhower warned about the dangers of the military-industrial complex.

The armed forces represent one of America's most important continuous institutions, yet the role of the military and its relationship with the nation has varied considerably across time (Weigley 1977; Millet and Maslowski 1994). Quantitative data provide an excellent way to examine and understand these dynamic changes. Similar to other government agencies, the armed forces have budgets and personnel, but only the military prepares for and fights wars. This chapter, as a consequence, contains series common to other chapters, such as budget outlays and personnel, but it also contains data unique to the armed forces and national defense, such as a chronology of arms control treaties, lists of battles and campaigns, and a variety of series on military casualties.

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Today the military forces of the United States are divided into three separate branches: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps and, in time of war, the Coast Guard), and the Air Force. The military forces that would become the American Army and Navy were developed at the end of the eighteenth century and were critical to ending British rule over the Colonies. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington maintained that the American Army was the nation and that, as long as the Army existed, so too would the dream of an independent America (Ellis 2002, pp. 130–1). Figure Ed-A shows armed personnel strength for the military, relative to the U.S. population, from 1794 to 1995. The U.S. armed forces grew rapidly from fewer than 1,000 in 1789 to a peacetime force of more than 10,000 by 1809. Five years later, after war with England broke out, U.S. forces increased to more than 45,000. The ability to mobilize rapidly has been a characteristic of the American military throughout its long history as evidenced by the sharp spikes in the figure coinciding with each of the major wars.

The nation's physical isolation from Europe and Asia has greatly influenced the development of the U.S. armed forces, especially the Navy. Although the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans protected the young nation from potential adversaries abroad, they also required the Navy to defend two extensive coastlines and to be ready to project force over great distances when needed (Beach 1986; Howarth 1991). Table Ed198–199, which lists overseas naval engagements from the Revolutionary War on, shows that the American Navy acquired this ability early in its history.

The Marine Corps began as naval troops who boarded enemy ships and attacked foreign ports and other distant shore targets. The Marine Corps fought during the Revolution and was active in some of the earliest battles the United States fought after the Revolutionary War, such as the fights with Barbary Pirates between 1801 and 1805. At the beginning of the twentieth century, as the Army fought more battles abroad, some of the differences between the Army and the Marine Corps began to blur. The Marine Corps, fearful for its organizational independence, created a culture and mission different from their traditional naval role and distinct from the regular Army. Most significantly, the Corps developed methods for fighting small conflicts, frequently against adversaries employing guerrilla tactics (Bickel 2000).

Although many associate the Marines with amphibious landings, the Army actually made more amphibious landings in World War II than the Marine Corps. And, even though the Marines fought many large-scale battles during World War II, such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, they retained much of their small-war focus. This longtime distinction was largely terminated during the Vietnam War when the Army encouraged the Corps to convert into a large-scale attack force similar to that of the Army (Gartner 1997).

Today, the key distinguishing feature of the Marine Corps is its integrated fighting units. Marine Corps units contain their own artillery, tank, air, and infantry capabilities. This makes them comparatively self-contained and facilitates their rapid global deployment. Some records on the Marine Corps are aggregated with Navy data; however, separate information on the Marine Corps can be found in Table Ed26–47, Table Ed48–81, Table Ed82–119.

A major organizational change that followed the Second World War was the creation, by the National Security Act of 1947, of an independent Air Force from what had previously been the Army Air Force (Sherry 1987). Table Ed26–47 identifies Air Force enlisted and officer strength (see also Table Ed82–119). Table Ed48–81 provides information on the Air National Guard. Air Force casualties are described in Table Ed1–5, and Air Force and Army Air Force major air battles can be found in Table Ed200–201.

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The U.S. military conducts a variety of activities, from education of military dependents to hurricane relief; however, the armed forces' singular mission is to prepare for and fight wars. But what is a war? Scholars, politicians, and military officers often disagree. The most common definition among scholars of international conflict comes from the Correlates of War Project, which defines war as the use of force by a country that results in at least 1,000 battle deaths from all combatants (Small and Singer 1982). Using this definition, smaller military operations, such as the air strikes against Libya in 1986, the invasion of Panama in 1989, and conflicts with nonnational actors like Al Qaeda in 2001 and 2002, would not qualify as wars.

Politically, a president's use of force does not require a Congressional declaration of war. Yet most major U.S. military incursions began with either formal, legislative declarations of war (such as World Wars I and II) or informal votes (such as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in Vietnam). Nonetheless, the use of force without a Congressional declaration is neither a recent nor a rare phenomenon (Keynes 1991). Furthermore, even when made, formal and informal legislative declarations of war have not always been unanimously supported, and some have passed by comparatively small margins (for example, World War I and the Persian Gulf War).

Declarations of war represent visible signs of civilian control of the military, but there are many other aspects of civilian oversight. That elected officials direct, supervise, and command the military is not a given in any society - not even in democracies. In the United States, however, the historical record suggests that civilian oversight, though not perfect, does work. Examples of civilian-military disagreements that show the power of civilian oversight include the disputes between Lincoln and McClellan during the Civil War and between Truman and McArthur during the Korean Conflict. It is important to keep in mind that most of the behavior described by data presented here is the result of complicated political processes involving civilian and military interests as well as the constraints and pressures imposed by the country's foreign relations.

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An important mission of the military dating from the nation's beginning and lasting for most of the nineteenth century was to effect the political expansion of the United States across the continent, parts of which were claimed at various times by Spain, France, England, Russia, Mexico, and, for brief periods, independent states in Texas, Utah (Commonwealth of Deseret), and California (Bauer 1969, 1974; Meinig 1988). The war with Mexico (1846–1848) not only brought Texas into the Union but also culminated in the Mexican cession of its claims to Alta California and much of the territory to the west and north of Texas. In addition, western expansion inevitably brought the United States into conflict with a succession of Indian nations (Dillon 1983; Afton, Halaas, and Maisch 1997). The duration, cost, and activity of the U.S. government's war with the various Native American nations from 1866 to 1891 are portrayed in Table Ed202–211, Table Ed212–222 These tables provide the location of critical battles between the U.S. armed forces and Native Americans and include casualty figures for non-Indian military, non-Indian civilians, and Indians. Army battles against Mexico are shown in Table Ed196–197, and their corresponding casualties and financial costs are listed in Table Ed1–5, Table Ed82–119, and Table Ed168–179.

American military expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to the Spanish-American War (1898), with military attacks on Cuba and the Philippines and the American accession of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and a protectorate over Cuba (Cosmas 1971). The military was also called upon to suppress the Insurrection in the Philippines against the United States, and American military rule of the islands lasted until 1901.

The military's contribution to territorial expansion extends beyond conflict with Mexico, the Native American nations, and Spain in many ways that are not captured by the data. For example, the Army was largely responsible for exploring and surveying the West; frontier posts and army fortifications provided protection and assistance to pioneers and trappers. Moreover, the potential might of the U.S. armed forces likely influenced negotiations with other European claimants that eventually determined the nation's final boundary.

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It is traditional to list ten major wars in U.S. history: the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the War of 1812 (1812–1815), the Mexican War (1846–1848), the Civil War (1861–1865), the Spanish–American War (1898), World War I (1917–1918), World War II (1941–1946), the Korean Conflict (1950–1953), the Vietnam War (1964–1973), and the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991). Dates shown here refer to U.S. involvement, not necessarily to the time span of the entire war. There is a large scholarly literature that explores these wars from different perspectives.¹

Major wars, such as World War II, are frequently described by their battles (for example, the Battle of the Bulge, Iwo Jima, the Battle of Britain, and the Battle of the Atlantic). Major World War II battles are shown in Table Ed196–197, Table Ed198–199, Table Ed200–201. Identifying a campaign and battle is necessary not just for political and historical reasons but also for such organizational routines as awarding battle pins recognizing hazardous service - a status that has financial consequences for military personnel.

There is great variation both across and within services on what constitutes a battle. In general, Army battles are the shortest and most intense. Even here, there is variation (Young 1959; Weigley 1984). For example, among Army battles, the Revolutionary War Battle of Lexington lasted less than one day (April 19, 1775), whereas the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal lasted from August 7, 1942 to February 21, 1943 (see Table Ed196–197). Likewise, although the famous Navy Battle of Mobile Bay lasted just one day during the Civil War (August 5, 1864), many other Navy operations are more akin to patrols than battles (Sims 1921; Beach 1986; Howarth 1991). Some of these campaigns and operations lasted for years, such as the U.S. patrol around the islands of Quemoy and Matsu that protected Taiwan from a possible Chinese attack, conducted from August 23, 1958, to June 1, 1963. Some naval battles, such as the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, span an entire war and have no definitive dates (see Table Ed198–199). In the Air Force, there are a few short air operations, such as the U.S. Air Force's expeditionary service in the Congo from November 23 to 27,1964 (Sherry 1987). Most Air Force actions are much longer, such as the antisubmarine mission in the Atlantic Ocean conducted by the Army Air Forces during the entire duration of the Second World War, from December 7, 1941, to September 2, 1945 (see Table Ed200–201).

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Battles may be the chronological markers of war, but casualties are their metric. Members of the armed forces become casualties when they are killed in action (KIA), missing in action (MIA), wounded in action (WIA), or taken as prisoners of war (POW). Twentieth-century American casualty data represent one of the most reliable types of military information (Adams 1991). More suspect are casualty figures from the nineteenth century. Although military personnel die or are injured in peacetime, war leads to dramatic increases in the human and economic costs paid by a nation for its national defense. Casualties represent the most costly aspect of national defense, although these costs are not usually quantified in dollars and cents. They are also the most critical factor in determining the domestic political consequences of war. The number of U.S. military personnel killed in action has been shown to be the main influence on American attitudes toward a conflict (Mueller 1973, 1994; Gartner and Segura 1998, 2000).

The human costs of major U.S. conflicts are shown in Table Ed1–5, which includes personnel killed in action and wounded in action. The series on casualties to active-duty forces from all hostile actions includes more information but covers far fewer years (Table Ed6–25). Casualties from wars with Native Americans are presented in Table Ed202–211, Table Ed212–222 which includes data on both U.S. military and Native American casualties, as well as non-Indian civilians (it is rare to have data on civilian casualties, even if just for one side).

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In 1945 the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) began a competition for global superiority called the Cold War, which the Department of Defense defines as spanning the period between September 2, 1945 (the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II) and December 26, 1991 (the founding of the Russian Federation and the dissolution of the Soviet Union). Cold War stakes were high, with most of the world divided into two camps. Each side possessed nuclear weapons that could destroy the other. During the Cold War, security expenditures in both the United States and the USSR were enormous. The Cold War led to a significant expansion in the size of U.S. forces and the use of force abroad compared to what had hitherto been the norm in peacetime. In addition to fighting major wars in Korea and Vietnam, U.S. armed forces fought smaller conflicts in Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Grenada. For decades, thousands of U.S. forces were stationed in Korea and Japan, and hundreds of thousands were stationed in Europe to support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Data on defense spending (Table Ed146–154, Table Ed155–167 and Table Ed180–195) and the number of military personnel (Table Ed26–47) provide a picture of some of the economic costs of peacetime mobilization during the Cold War.²

America initiated atomic warfare with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. Atomic weapons represented a fundamental change in deliverable explosive power. They were initially difficult to manufacture, and the United States had comparatively few of them immediately following the Second World War. This changed rapidly as the Cold War escalated. By 1952, the United States was able to produce atomic weapons in considerably greater quantity and developed the first hydrogen bomb, a weapon ten times more powerful than previous atomic devices.

With the Soviet Union's successful test of its atomic bomb in August 1949 and its development of bombers, missiles, and submarines capable of attacking the United States, the defensive advantage of the physical distance from Europe and Asia diminished. Thus, the United States faced a serious threat to its continental homeland for the first time since the British burned Washington D.C., in the War of 1812. This helped to fuel American hysteria at home (McCarthyism), a rapid expansion of alliances, and a nuclear arms race between the super-powers.

Figure Ed-B shows the number of U.S. nuclear warheads stockpiled from 1945 to 1995. The figure shows the dramatic rise in nuclear weapons during the Cold War. It is important to remember, however, that these data do not control for weapon type (all the weapons before 1952 are atomic weapons, whereas later figures include hydrogen weapons) or weapon size (the 1945 weapons, such as that dropped on Hiroshima, were the equivalent of about 12.5 kilotons of TNT; later ones represent many megatons). The United States divides its nuclear forces into land-, air-, and water-based systems, called the Triad, represented by land-based, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), long-range bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Table Ed223–227 provides data on warheads for each component of the Triad. Finally, Table Ed155–167 provides data on atomic energy spending by the military.

The destructive power of missiles with nuclear warheads, which could not be called back or destroyed after being launched, created an incentive to negotiate meaningful arms control agreements. International arms control efforts had begun in the late nineteenth century but, with a few exceptions, had minimal impact on the growth and development of weapons systems. Table Ed228 shows these and all other arms control agreements signed by the United States. Many of the arms control treaties deal primarily with nuclear weapons and are bilateral between the United States and the USSR. The number of treaties signed increased dramatically after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

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The Cold War ended when the USSR dissolved in 1991. Counter to many hopeful expectations, this led to only a slight decrease in the size of the U.S. military (Table Ed26–47). The end of the Cold War was followed by an increase in a range of American military activity around the globe (Table Ed6–25 and Table Ed196–197, Table Ed198–199, Table Ed200–201). U.S. troops became involved in humanitarian missions (for example, Somalia), peacekeeping missions (for example, Bosnia), and long-term military operations (for example, patrolling the no-fly zones in Iraq).

The 1991 Gulf War to repel the Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait ("Desert Storm”) showed the effectiveness of high-tech weapons and modern logistics (Pagonis and Cruikshank 1992; Murray 1995). Politically, the Gulf War demonstrated the consensus approach that many U.S. leaders saw as critical if the world's lone remaining superpower wanted to avoid engendering international resentment. The end of the Cold War eliminated hostile nations that were likely to threaten the U.S. homeland and dramatically reduced concerns about U.S. nuclear vulnerability. Instead, the threat would come from nonnational sources.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the U.S. response in Afghanistan and war in Iraq suggest that the United States will continue to maintain active and powerful armed forces, and that unilateral actions, small wars, and counterterrorist actions will become increasingly central to the mission of the U.S. armed forces. Casualty figures for 1980–1998 include American military deaths caused by terrorist actions, broken down by service (see Table Ed6–25). Other data relevant to the study of terrorism include military sales to foreign countries, found in Table Ed180–195.

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Throughout most of the nation's history, the armed forces depended exclusively on volunteers. The United States initiated compulsory service (the draft) during the Civil War. It was reintroduced for World War I and World War II. In 1951, during the Korean War, President Truman reinstituted the draft and, since it was not repealed at the end of the hostilities in Korea, this action became the genesis of the peacetime draft that continued until 1973. Since then, the United States has had an all-volunteer military.

During conscription, not all military draftees report for duty. Table Ed120–129, Table Ed130–145 provide the annual number of registered conscientious objectors, convictions for Selective Service violations, and civilians inducted into military service, and the amount of time served in prison by convicted Selective Service violators.

Personnel are the key to the military, and the demographics of those serving have altered dramatically over time. Perhaps the most important recent change has been the introduction of women into the military. Women served in the military in the First World War and many more served in a larger variety of roles in the Second World War (Braybon and Summerfield 1987). Nevertheless, women began to be a significant part of the peacetime military only during the Cold War. Table Ed26–47 shows the number of women in the U.S. armed forces. There are separate series for officer and enlisted women broken down by each service.

The percentage of women dramatically increased with the end of conscription and the introduction of the all-volunteer force. Figure Ed-C shows active-duty women in the U.S. military as a proportion of all active-duty forces from World War II to the present. The absolute number of women in the U.S. armed forces decreased after the Cold War ended, but the proportion represented by women has continued to increase. One reason for this is that the roles for women have steadily increased. Today, women can participate in almost all aspects of military service, including most combat duties.

Officers, from lieutenants to generals, form the military chain of command, but most military personnel are enlisted (for example, privates and sergeants). Although the basic distinction between officer and enlisted personnel has remained constant throughout America's history, the number and percentage of officers in the U.S. military are not fixed and has fluctuated. As the U.S. military introduced technology into all aspects of military service, it required more highly skilled personnel to operate and maintain these new systems. For example, the introduction of nuclear power onto Navy ships (aircraft carriers) and boats (submarines) requires naval nuclear engineer officers. At the same time, while the primary purpose of the U.S. armed forces is to prepare for and fight wars, the military routinely conducts a variety of other noncombat-related operations. For example, the U.S. military operates one of the largest primary and secondary educational systems in the world. More direct to its missions, each service operates a variety of schools that teach subjects from parachute jumping to coffee purchasing. Many of these functions have also increased over time, especially with the end of conscription in the 1970s and the need for the volunteer force to compete with the private sector for employees.

Although civilians handle much of the noncombat-related supervision, and new technology has made it easier to conduct some critical military functions, many of these new tasks and operations require additional technically skilled military leaders and administrators. This need resulted in a systematic expansion of the officer corps during the Cold War that was much greater, comparatively, than that of enlisted personnel. Figure Ed-C displays the number of military officers as a percentage of total forces from 1801 to 1995 (excluding the Civil War, for which the data are not clear). Since the end of World War II, there has been a significant and rather steady expansion of the officer corps in relation to the changes in total armed forces personnel. Historically, the Air Force and Navy have had a much higher percentage of officers than the Army. Given the rapid rise in enlisted personnel during wartime mobilization discussed earlier, it is not surprising that the ratio of officers to enlisted personnel falls in wartime.

Officers and enlisted military personnel serve either in active service (their full-time job is to be in the armed forces) or in the reserves, in which case the military is mostly a part-time proposition for them unless they are "called up”  to active duty. The U.S. reserves combine state-level forces that can be federalized and national reserve forces. In war, when called up, both types of units support the active troops by providing additional personnel to fight or to provide logistical support. After the Vietnam War, the military incorporated the reserves more tightly into the military organization through the use of Round-Out Brigades for each of its active divisions. This change was intended to make it harder to deploy a large number of forces without mobilizing the reserve - as Presidents Johnson and Nixon had done throughout most of the Vietnam War. During both the war against Iraq and its occupation, considerable numbers of reserves were called up and deployed to the Middle East.

The use of reserve troops to fight in shorter wars, however, has had mixed results. In the Gulf War, most Army reserve Round Out Brigades intended for the ground war were unable to finish their battle training in time to contribute to combat. Navy and Air Force air units and personnel, however, found it easier to make the transition from civilian to active-duty. The easiest transition of all was among the many support units and personnel, such as stevedores, who essentially do the same job when mobilized as they do in peacetime. The Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force all have reserve units. These forces create the Army National Guard, Army Reserve, Naval Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve (see Table Ed48–81).

The racial composition of U.S. reserve and active troops has changed significantly over time. In the nineteenth century, African Americans fought in the Civil War and in frontier battles with Native Americans (the Buffalo Soldiers). African Americans served primarily as service support troops in the First and Second World Wars. Although most black troops were restricted from combat, this did not mean that they did not face risks and sometime death. During World War II, more than 200 African Americans died while loading an ammunition ship that exploded at Port Chicago in the San Francisco Bay.

Starting with Truman's 1948 executive order to end segregation in the military, the U.S. armed forces were in the vanguard of civil rights advances. The military began to integrate blacks into regular combat service first as segregated units (as in the Korean War) and then as individuals (as occurred in the Vietnam War). After the integration of African Americans into the U.S. military, there has been a concern that blacks began to represent a disproportionate percentage of those drafted into the military and subsequently killed in war - especially during the Vietnam War (Gartner and Segura 2000).

Other minority groups, such as Japanese Americans, Filipinos, Latinos, and Native Americans, also played important roles in the armed forces. Unfortunately, the available data do not effectively capture their roles.

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The selection of series for this chapter illustrates the nature and transformation of the U.S. armed forces and its conflicts over the last two centuries. There has been an effort to identify as many important military variables as possible from "peacetime”  periods, such as the size of the reserves and the defense budget. New categories have been added to traditionally important series, such as the inclusion of gender in the series on active military personnel. Also, when possible, the data are broken down by military department (Army, Navy, and Air Force) or military service (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard). Perhaps more importantly, compared with past compilations, the scope of the topics covered has been expanded, including series on U.S. conflicts with Native Americans, battles and campaigns fought, and expanded casualty figures. Also included are data on the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, such as information on U.S. nuclear warheads, arms control treaties, and reserve levels.

A word of caution is in order because there are systematic reasons why some of these data are likely to contain errors. To begin with, on issues of national security, the government is often disinclined to release accurate or timely data. As a result, data on weapons, such as the number of nuclear warheads or delivery vehicles in the nuclear Triad, were retrospectively revised as perceptions of the Communist threat, and thus security procedures, changed throughout the Cold War.

Even more fundamentally, the destructive nature of war itself often destroys wartime data. As a result, data from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars - especially, in the latter case, those that deal with the Confederacy - tend to be incomplete. Many of the U.S. battles fought, and forts and other military construction efforts undertaken, were on the American frontier or overseas - conditions that decrease the likelihood of obtaining complete and accurate data.

Military organizations, like all organizations, have incentives to exaggerate or downplay particular data. The Department of Defense tended to minimize the amount it was spending on defense. This is particularly true in the Cold War when massive amounts of defense spending and research development were channeled through the Department of Energy and other agencies such as the National Science Foundation. Prior to the Cold War, the government frequently allocated some defense spending through the Departments of Interior or Indian Affairs. In almost all cases, military data tend to be predominantly produced by the military itself. Only recently have external auditors, such as Congress, regularly exercised oversight over the creation and dissemination of U.S. military information, increasing the confidence we can have in these data. Finally, the data do not paint a complete picture of all critical factors in the U.S. armed forces or its conflicts. Some critical issues, such as race, are largely missing from the data. On the other hand, the range of the data extends beyond the topics discussed in this essay and include subjects such as the proportion of KIA to WIA over time (Table Ed1–5, Table Ed6–25), spending on research and development (Table Ed155–167), and the effectiveness of wartime medical care (Table Ed82–119).

The U.S. military represents one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world. The data in this chapter provide a dynamic, motion picture-like window into what is today, clearly, the most powerful military in the world.

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There are seven Reserve components: the Army National Guard, Army Reserve, Naval Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve. Within the Reserve components, personnel serve in one of three manpower management categories: Ready Reserve, Standby Reserve, and Retired Reserve. There is no Standby Reserve in the Army National Guard or Air National Guard. The Ready Reserve is made up of three subgroups: the Selected Reserve, the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), and the Inactive National Guard (ING). The Selected Reserve train regularly and are paid for their participation in unit or individual programs. IRR members have a service obligation but do not train and are not paid. In time of war or national emergency, the president may recall Ready Reserve personnel from all Department of Defense components for up to 270 days if necessary.

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Series Aa7 and Series Ed26.

Note that only Union army personnel are included during the Civil War, whereas the population series used in the denominator covers all states, both Union and Confederate. As a result, this graph significantly understates the extent of military mobilization during the war.

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Series Ed227

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Series Ed26–27, Series Ed29, Series Ed34, Series Ed39, and Series Ed44.

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Young, Gordon R. 1959. Army Almanac. Stackpole.

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