Mutual Defense Assistance Act

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Western arsenals experienced significant depletion and wear. Public funds were primarily allocated to reconstruction efforts. Even the U.S. arsenal exhibited noticeable signs of shortages and deterioration.^{[note 1]}

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 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 U.S. 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 First Indochina War.

The Mutual Defense Assistance Act created the "Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP^[11])," which became an integral component in the federal government's policy of containment of Soviet expansion. This program differed from the World War II-era Lend-Lease program in that it never needed refunding from the country that benefits any military assistance. Between 1950 and 1967, $33.4 billion in arms and services and $3.3 billion worth of surplus weaponry were provided under the program.

 

 

 

On 4 April 1949, the foreign ministers from 12 countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty at the Departmental Auditorium in Washington D.C.: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Provision for enlargement was, however, given by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that membership is open to any "European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area".

• Belgium and the Netherlands
• Denmark and Norway
• France

Massive support was negotiated with France from 1950 to 1954 when the French Union fought the Chinese and Soviet-backed Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. Support included substantial financial aid, material supply from the U.S. Army (uniforms, helmets, rifles, tanks), US Navy (aircraft carriers such as Belleau Wood/Bois Belleau), the U.S. Air Force (twelve Fairchild C-119, fighters, bombers, and maintenance crews) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (twenty four pilots of the Civil Air Transport) from which two pilots were killed in action during the battle of Dien Bien Phu.^{[citation needed]}

American military support to France's rearmament lasted well into the 1950s,^{[citation needed]} the French receiving furthermore equipment including M46 Pattons, F-84 Thunderjet, etc.^{[citation needed]} but the divergence between the United States and the Anglo-French alliance during the Suez crisis was to have decisive consequences on France-NATO relationships.^{[clarification needed]} Whereas the damage done to Anglo-American relations was quickly repaired, in the case of France, the situation remained more complex. France started to express reservations about the direction of Allied policy and U.S. leadership and, following his election as President in 1958, General Charles de Gaulle, in particular, made clear his dissatisfaction with aspects of this US prominent role, as well as, more specifically, with NATO's nuclear policy and NATO Military Command Structure.^{[citation needed]} Although France was one of the very founding members of the Atlantic Alliance, President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO's military structure in 1966 in protest over American dominance of the Atlantic Alliance.

• Germany
• Greece

• Italy
• Portugal

On 4 April 1949, José Caeiro da Matta, Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.

• Spain
• Turkey

 

• Indochinese Peninsula after independence : Vietnam, Laos, ..

• Iran
• Japan

On 8 September 1951, the United States and Japan signed the Mutual Security Treaty, which stationed U.S. troops on Japanese soil for the defense of Japan following the eruption of the Korean War. On 8 March 1954, both countries signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (activated on 1 May 1954), focusing on defense assistance. It allowed for the presence of U.S. armed forces in Japan for the purpose of peace and security while encouraging Japan to take on more responsibility for its own defense, rearming in a manner suited for defensive purposes.

• Pakistan:

 

 

During the Korean War, Pakistan sided with the West in their fight against communism. By joining the CENTO & SEATO alliances, Pakistan officially became a Major non-NATO ally of the US under which it received aid financially and militarily through the Mutual Defense Assistance program to defend herself from Afghanistan and India which were being supported by the Soviets.

 

The MDAA caused both a great deal of friction with the non-aligned countries^{[citation needed]} and opportunities to tighten geopolitical relations with the western free world and especially the United States.

• India

India refused to accept any American-imposed limits on its trade^{[citation needed]} and proceeded with shipments of Thorium nitrate to China. Realizing that cutting off all aid to India would do more harm than good, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles negotiated a solution.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]}

• Indonesia
• Yugoslavia:

see references ^[12][13]

Up to the early 1960s, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) had a large arsenal of German equipment, planes, and armor captured during the war, ^{[citation needed]} western materiel donated by the USA and Great Britain during the war, as well as Soviet equipment.^{[citation needed]}

Despite Josip Broz Tito's firm adherence to communism, because of the ideological^{[note 2]} and personal conflict with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union—and thereafter all the Warsaw Pact's pro-Soviet governments—denounced his treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia on September 27, 1949. During this period, Yugoslavia perceived a serious threat of intervention by its former allies and thus accepted American and British offers of assistance. Discussions even took place regarding Yugoslavia's possible inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Consequently, the Yugoslav armed forces received standard NATO military equipment and arms during this period, such as the F-86 Sabre and F-84 Thunderjet jet fighters, and M36 Jackson and M18 Hellcat tank destroyers.^{[citation needed]}After Stalin's death and the political and ideological reconciliation with the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav People's Army later exclusively imported their equipment from the USSR when not sourcing it internally.

• Lawrence S. Kaplan: A Community of Interests: NATO and the Military Assistance Program, 1948–1951 (1980);
• Chester J. Pach, Jr.: Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945–1950 (1991);
• Ronald E. Powaski: Toward an entangling alliance: American isolationism, internationalism, and Europe, 1901-1950 (1991);
• Collective: Organizing the world: the United States and regional cooperation in Asia and Europe Galia Press-Barnathan (2003):
• further related bibliography ( incl. texts, digests, extracts ) on US international politic and diplomacy at : 0-313-27274-3&id=ZDAoVZqHwocC&hl=en&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1 Books.google.be Library
• Vox the Belgian armed forces magazine
• Carlos Caballero Jurado and Nigel Thomas : Central American Wars 1959-1980 (illustrated by Simon McCouaig) Osprey Publishing MEN-AT-ARM Serie n°221, 1990
• Alejandro de Quesada : The Bay of Pigs - Cuba 1961 ( illustrated by Stephen Walsh ) - Osprey Publishing - Elite Serie n°166, 2009.

• Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Harry S. Truman: "Address on the Occasion of the Signing of the North Atlantic Treaty," April 4, 1949". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara.
• Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Harry S. Truman: "Statement by the President on the Coming Into Effect of the North Atlantic Treaty.," August 24, 1949". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara.
• Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Harry S. Truman: "Executive Order 10099—Providing for the Administration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949," January 27, 1950". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara.
• Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Harry S. Truman: "Statement by the President Upon Issuing Order Providing for the Administration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act.," January 27, 1950". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara. Archived from the original on August 29, 2016. Retrieved October 9, 2017.