The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist
of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.
The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the
military. While the President is the overall head of the military, the United States Department of
Defense (DoD), a federal executive department, is the principal organ by which military policy is carried out.
The DoD is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is
a civilian and a member of the Cabinet, who also serves as the
President's second-in-command of the military. To coordinate military action
with diplomacy, the President has
an advisory National Security
Council headed by a National Security
Advisor. Both the President and Secretary of Defense are advised by a
six-member Joint Chiefs of Staff, which includes the
head of each of Department of Defense service branches, led by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and the Vice Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Commandant of the Coast Guard is not a member of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
All of the branches work together during operations and joint missions, under
the Unified Combatant Commands, under the
authority of the Secretary of Defense with the exception the Coast Guard. The
Coast Guard falls under the administration of the Department of
Homeland Security and receives its operational orders from the Secretary of Homeland
Security. The Coast Guard may be transferred to the Department of the Navy by
the President or Congress during a time of war. All five armed services are among the seven uniformed services of the
United States; the others are the United
States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps.
From the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A
sense of national unity and identity was forged out of the victorious Barbary Wars, as well as the War of 1812. Even so, the Founders were suspicious
of a permanent military force and not until the outbreak of World War II did a large
standing army become officially established.
The National Security Act of 1947,
adopted following World War II and during the onset of the Cold War, created the
modern U.S. military framework; the Act merged previously Cabinet-level Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (renamed the Department of Defense in 1949), headed by the
Secretary of Defense; and created the Department of the Air
Force and National Security Council.
The U.S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of
personnel. It draws its manpower from a large pool of volunteers;
although conscription has been used in
the past in various times of both war and peace, it has not been used since
1972. As of 2010, the United States spends about $692 billion annually to fund
its military forces constituting approximately percent of world
military expenditures (As of 2009). The U.S. armed forces as a whole possess
large quantities of advanced and powerful equipment, which gives them
significant capabilities in both defense and power projection.
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