Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-307- A Historical Analysis of Cadre
3.4—THE STIMSON REPORT
In 1912, the U.S. War Department published the Report on the Organization of the Land
Forces of the United States. 129 Secretary of War Henry Stimson published the report but the
ideas in it came mainly from Captain John McAuley Palmer, assigned to the General Staff.
Palmer believed that National Guard officers were just as competent as Regular Army
officers based on his lineage. His grandfather had commanded in the Civil War as a Major
General and was regarded as “one of the successful citizen soldiers of the Civil War.” 130
Palmer rejected the cadre army because he was unable to reconcile the military needs (a large
peacetime nucleus) with the political constraints (a small peacetime force). 131 In the Report on
the Organization of the Land Forces of the United States, Palmer proposed: “the military
establishment in time of peace is to be a small Regular Army and that the ultimate war force
of the Nation is to be a great army of citizen soldiers.” 132 The Stimson report was the first
time that any prominent military professional had publicly rejected the idea of a cadre force.
John McAuley Palmer felt that his plan was consistent with the peacetime army proposed by
George Washington more than a century earlier: “the Stimson plan of 1912 is merely a
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129 United States War Department (1912)
130 Weigley (1984), p. 339
131 Palmer began his analysis by “working out the expansible scheme in detail.” However, he found that “the
results were discouraging.” Palmer wrote: “when I assumed a peacetime nucleus big enough to make a real
foundation for effective expansion for a great war, I found that the American people would be saddled with a
big standing army in time of peace. When I assumed a peacetime nucleus small enough to give any chance of
acceptance by Congress, it would result in too small a war army- unless, like Upton and Sherman, I also
assumed a rate of expansion that would be obviously absurd.” [Palmer (1941), p. 126] Like the arguments of
Calhoun and Upton, Palmer framed this problem as an either/or decision; either the army would depend on
the militia or it would depend on a cadre force. There was no discussion of force mix. This was true for nearly
all force structure debates involving cadre prior to World War I.
132 Kreidberg and Henry (1955), p. 183.