Historical Background : The World War II Aftermath and The Cold War
In the euphoria of the end of World War II, western arsenals dropped down to a dangerous level of weakness and worn-out, public funds were, by priority, allocated to reconstruction. Even the US arsenal showed obvious signs of shortages and decay.
Military officials began calling for the introduction of a new defense legislation in 1947, arguing that depleted inventories of surplus World War II-vintage armaments, piecemeal planning of new armaments and restrictions on presidential authority threatened current and future efforts to arm allied nations. New legislation became a necessity by mid‐1948 with the negotiation of the North Atlantic defense treaty and the necessity to provide military aid to strengthen the connectional defenses, having in mind a global resistance to Communist expansion of the signatories.
Truman sent a first bill to Congress on 25 July 1949, the day he ratified the North Atlantic Treaty but congressional opposition forced submission of a new legislation, which specified the recipients and the amounts of assistance. Administration planners believed the MDAA's immediate effects would be to raise the morale of friendly nations and prove US reliability and resolve to meet Communist worldwide threats. The MDAA also institutionalized the concept of specific military aid programs, a result ensured by adoption of similar legislation in 1950 and an increase in annual spending on military aid to $5.222 billion after the outbreak of the Korean War - the very first large scale test of the validity and practicability of the concept, if excepting the logistical support allowed to France during the Indochina War.
Read more about this topic: Mutual Defense Assistance Act
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