The creation of the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defense: Power, politics and agenda, a new history

For centuries navies grew to dominate the defence political policy-scape in Britain and the United States. The Royal Navy and US Navy grew to reflect the national and global circumstances they had to operate. Their centrality to national defence was challenged but rarely overcome by the agendas of armies and later Air Forces.

As a result, the Admiralty and US Department of Navy became accustomed to their power and influence over defence policy. However, as they reached the pinnacle of wartime skill and attempted to reflect on the experience of hard-fought victories around the world, after 1945, challenges to their dominance were able to overcome their centrality. For decades, scholars and supporters of navies battled to understand how these once-respected national institutions could no longer influence policy like they once could, resorting to excuses of a ‘Golden Age of navies’ and misplaced sentimentality.

After 1945, decision and policy-makers no longer dwelled on the close-run events of war at sea but instead of images of land-based bombing aircraft and mushroom clouds over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and potentially London and Washington DC. At the same time, defence doctrine and policy reflected military land and air forces ideological dedication to land-based continental commitments in perpetuity.

In this new history of 1945-1964, James explores how the process of abolishing the free-standing Admiralty and US Department of the Navy saw the Royal Navy and US Navy’s dominance collapse. At the same time, a new order arose that devalued strategy favouring everlasting unsettled defence policy and saw a new rubric via unified defence organisation that discarded hard-fought longer-term national experience.

This event will take place both online and in person in the Dockrill Room at King's College London.

About the speaker

James is a post-doctoral candidate in the Department of War Studies. He completed his PhD in the Department in 2021. This maritime seminar is based on a small part of the research completed towards his recently awarded PhD. He is involved in various research fields and project at King’s such as naval history, strategic theory, strategic space research and helped found King’s Wargaming Network.