United States
According to Article II, Section 2, Clause I of the Constitution, the President of the United States is commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The current commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces is Barack Obama, the 44th President.
The amount of military detail handled by the President in wartime has varied dramatically. Abraham Lincoln was deeply involved in overall strategy and in day-to-day operations during the American Civil War, 1861–1865; historians have given Lincoln high praise for his strategic sense and his ability to select and encourage commanders such as Ulysses S. Grant. On the other hand, Woodrow Wilson paid very little attention to operational military details of World War I and had very little contact with General John J. Pershing, who commanded the armies in the field. As President throughout much of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt on the domestic front used his fireside chats and the press to explain and justify his difficult wartime decisions abroad. Harry S. Truman believed in a high amount of civilian leadership of the military, making many tactical and policy decisions based on the recommendations of his advisors— including the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan, to commit American forces in the Korean War, and to terminate Douglas MacArthur from his command. President Lyndon B. Johnson kept a very tight personal control of operations during the Vietnam War, which historians have sharply criticized.
Since 1949, the Secretary of Defense, a civil officer appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is by statute second in command over those armed forces which are part of the Department of Defense, i.e. the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Marine Corps. The operational branch of the chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense, and from the Secretary of Defense down to the combatant commanders of the unified combatant commands. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. chief of defense equivalent, may assist the President and Secretary of Defense in the exercise of their command functions, but the Chairman himself does not independently exercise command over any combatant forces.
As of 2011, there are nine combatant commanders: six have regional responsibilities, and three have functional responsibilities. Before 2002, the combatant commanders were referred to in daily use as "commanders-in-chief" (for instance: "Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command"), even though the offices were in fact already designated as "combatant commander" in the law specifying the positions. On October 24, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld announced his decision that the use of "commander-in-chief" would thereafter be reserved for the President only.
Read more about this topic: Commander-in-chief
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Steal away and stay away.
Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any.
Join the United States and join the family
But not much in between unless a college.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“In the United States there is more space where nobody is is than where anybody is.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn’t he an archetype? Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can’t do with him. What’s wrong with him then? Or what’s wrong with us?”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)