Framework Chapter I - The Problem of Hemisphere Defense

Immediately after the Munich crisis of September 1938, the United States moved toward a new national policy of hemisphere defense. After World War I the American people, influenced by the overwhelming preponderance of friendly naval and military power in western Europe, became increasingly isolationist and increasingly indifferent toward maintaining enough military strength to defend even their own continental and outlying territory against a strong adversary. The rise of aggressive dictatorships in Europe during the pre-World War II decade found the United States Army defend the continental United States, Oahu, and the Panama Canal Zone. The Navy, in the Pacific by Japan's naval expansion and aggressive action in China. Therefore, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, six weeks after the Munich settlement, that "the United States must be prepared to resist attack on the western hemisphere from the North Pole to the South Pole, including all of North America and South America," [1] the Army and Navy were presented with a much bigger mission than they were then prepared to execute.


[1] Report, n.d., written by Maj Gen Henry H. Arnold, of conference at White House, 14 Nov 38, OCS Conf Binder 1, Emergency Measures, 1939-40.