War in the Pentagon: I. What's All the Shooting For?

Frequent references have been made by President Harry S. Truman and others, to the necessity of maintaining balance among the several services. It has been held that one cannot balance military categories which are unlike in character and in function except in terms of specific predicted needs. There are indeed strong reasons for suspecting that a sound allocation of military appropriations would mean for a long time to come much larger funds for the air force than for the navy. The controversy took the form of a dispute over the carrier versus the B-36 partly because military appropriations are not handed out to each service to do with as its wisdom and technical knowledge direct.