The Welfare and Warfare State

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In 2022, then-President Joseph Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that gives the president the authority to direct domestic industry in the name of national defense, to increase the supply of baby formula available to Americans. Three years later, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and associated products in the name of America’s national security. How did baby formula and kitchen cabinets come to be considered as crucial parts of America’s security? Andrew Preston’s important book, Total Defense, provides an answer to this question.

The origins of the US national security state are typically traced to World War II and the Cold War. In this telling, the National Security Act of 1947, which established the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and later the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a pivotal event, establishing the core institutions of the national security apparatus. Moreover, instead of demobilizing following World War II, US government leaders decided to maintain a permanent war economy to prepare for future wars. This was justified by the Cold War, an open-ended global conflict against the Soviet Union requiring nonstop preparation to ensure the security of both America and the world.

Preston does not deny the importance of these events, but argues that this widely accepted origin story starts too late. The US national security state, he argues, was not born with World War II or the Cold War, but rather during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. He convincingly shows that Roosevelt’s policies fused domestic economic management with international security issues. The result was an expansive vision of “total defense,” which included not just domestic economic security, but also security against international threats. Importantly, the Roosevelt administration and its supporters effectively redefined “threats” to include not just the possibility of immediate military invasion, which was minimal, but also a broad range of non-military cultural, economic, and social issues. The result was a broad menu of potential government interventions, as decided by those in power, undertaken in the name of the security of the American people.