ABSTRACT
All four of the enduring questions of US defense policy feature in debates about how the United States should organize its national security effort. The broad boundaries are contained in the Constitution, which limits and divides powers among the branches of government and between the state and federal governments, but the relationship between the President and the military, and among the armed services within the military, is defined in laws, the most important of which is the National Security Act of 1947. It established the Department of Defense to preside over the military after the end of World War II.
