Secretary of Defense

(noun)

The Secretary of Defense (SecDef) is the leader and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense, an Executive Department of the US government. The Secretary of Defense exercises command and control, subject only to the orders of the President, over all Department of Defense forces (the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps) for both operational and administrative purposes.

Related Terms

Examples of Secretary of Defense in the following topics:

  • National Security

    • The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense.
    • This was later changed in the amendment to the act in 1949, creating what was to be the Department of Defense.
    • The Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense.
    • Initially, each of the three service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on August 10, 1949, to assure their subordination to the Secretary of Defense.
    • At the same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of Defense.

  • The Peace Accords and the Legacy of Defeat

    • During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R.
    • Thousand of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught.
    • Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that failure in bombing Vietnam was imminent.
    • Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion. " Doubts also surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing.
    • Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours...

  • Financing the War

    • As the U.S. entered WWII, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau began planning a national defense bond program to finance the war.
    • Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., however, preferred a voluntary loan system and began planning a national defense bond program in the fall of 1940.
    • On the advice of Odegard, the Treasury began marketing the previously successful baby bonds as "defense bonds."
    • Three new series of bond notes, Series E, F, and G, would be introduced, of which Series E would be targeted at individuals as "defense bonds."
    • These were marketed first as "defense bonds", then later as "war bonds."

  • Homefront Security

    • The idea of civil defense began to come of age, both worldwide and in the United States, during World War I, when it was usually referred to as civilian defense. 
    • The US followed the British model and the efforts were formalized with the creation of the Council of National Defense on August 29, 1916.
    • It consisted of six cabinet members (the secretaries of agriculture, commerce, interior, labor, navy, and war) and an unpaid civilian advisory committee, whose task was to investigate and advise the president and heads of executive departments on the strategic placement of industrial goods and services for the potential and future use in times of war.
    • On May 20, 1941 the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD) was created to co-ordinate state and federal measures for protection of civilians in case of war emergency.
    • Civil Air Patrol poster produced for the Office of Civilian Defense as part of a campaign to build interest in joining CAP during World War II.

  • The Kellogg-Briand Pact

    • It is named after its authors: United States Secretary of State Frank B.
    • In 1927, with rumblings of discontent in Germany, France approached the United States with a proposal that the two nations enter into a defensive alliance.
    • Secretary of State Kellogg, not wanting the U.S. to become snarled in an alliance, suggested a wider pact that would outlaw war.
    • Senate did not add any reservation to the treaty, it did pass a measure interpreting the treaty that included the statement that the treaty must not infringe upon America's right of self defense and that the United States was not obliged to enforce the treaty by taking action against those who violated it.
    • Nations that have resorted to the use of force since the Charter came into effect have typically invoked self-defense or the right of collective defense.

  • The Debate over Preparedness

    • In 1915, a strong "preparedness" movement emerged, arguing that the U.S. needed to immediately build up strong naval and land forces for defensive purposes.
    • General Leonard Wood, ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, and former secretaries of war Elihu Root and Henry Stimson were the driving forces behind the Preparedness Movement, along with many of the nation's most prominent bankers, industrialists, lawyers, and scions of prominent families.
    • Emphasizing the weak state of national defenses, the leaders of the Preparedness Movement showed that America's army, even augmented by National Guardsmen, was outnumbered 20 to one by the German army, which was drawn from a smaller population.
    • Secretary of War Lindley Garrison created his own preparedness plan, adopting many of the proposals of the preparedness leaders.
    • Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1916 in June, legislation that authorized an enormous increase in the size of the military.

  • The Mood in America

    • Stimson, United States Secretary of State in the Hoover Administration (1929–1933), it applied the principle of non-recognition of international territorial changes that were executed by force (ex injuria jus non oritur).
    • Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles in a declaration of July 23, 1940, that announced non-recognition of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—and remained the official U.S. position until the Baltic states regained independence in 1991.
    • The new vice-presidential nominee was Henry Agard Wallace, a liberal intellectual who was Secretary of Agriculture.
    • This act allowed the President "to lend, lease, sell, or barter arms, ammunition, food, or any 'defense article' or any 'defense information' to 'the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.'"
    • Secretary of State in the Hoover Administration, who proposed a doctrine based on the principle of non-recognition of international changes resulting from the use of force.

  • Hamilton's Economic Policy

    • Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, strongly influenced the financial policies of the United States during the Federalist Era.
    • Secretary of the Treasury in 1789, a position he held until January 1795.
    • Thomas Jefferson (then the Secretary of State) and James Madison vigorously opposed Hamilton's proposals.
    • After reading Hamilton's defense of the National Bank Act, Washington signed the bill into law.
    • Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton , shown here in a 1792 portrait by John Trumbull, released the “Report on Public Credit” in January 1790.

  • Hamilton's Legacy

    • Alexander Hamilton's broad interpretation of Constitutional powers has influenced multiple generations of political theorists.
    • Alexander Hamilton was President Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury and was an ardent nationalist who believed a strong federal government could solve many of the new country’s financial ills.
    • In the aftermath of ratification, George Washington became the first President of the United States in 1789 and appointed Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury.
    • In response to the debate over whether Congress had the authority to establish a national bank, for example, Hamilton wrote the Defense of the Constitutionality of the Bank, which forcefully argued that Congress could choose any means not explicitly prohibited by the Constitution to achieve a constitutional end—even if the means to this end were deemed unconstitutional.
    • Hamilton's economic policies as the Secretary of the Treasury influenced the development of the U.S. federal government from 1789 to 1800.

  • Postwar Isolationism

    • A group of Senators known as the Irreconcilables, identifying with William Borah and Henry Cabot Lodge, two prominent Republican politicians known for their commitment to isolationism, had objected the clauses of the treaty which compelled America to come to the defense of other nations.
    • In August 1928, Germany, France and the United States signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, brainchild of American Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand (following the original signatories, other nations joined, eventually reaching the number of 62).
    • However, it did not hold the United States to the conditions of any existing treaties, it still allowed European nations the right to self-defense, and it stated that if one nation broke the Pact, it would be up to the other signatories to enforce it.
    • The Kellogg-Briand Pact was more of a sign of good intentions on the part of the US, rather than a legitimate step towards the sustenance of world peace.
    • The act allowed the President "to lend, lease, sell, or barter arms, ammunition, food, or any 'defense article' or any 'defense information' to 'the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.'"