Abstract
In 1948 and again in 1950, Congress made significant changes to the military criminal legal system in the U.S. armed forces. It abolished the army’s Articles of War (and the navy’s counterpart) and created a new criminal code that was uniformly applicable to all the services, including the newly created air force. This article examines the social and cultural factors that were the impetus for congressional reform and demonstrates that there was a definite link between the post-World War II changes to military criminal law and earlier reform efforts that occurred after World War I.
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Cite this article
Fred L. Borch, “Why did Congress Amend the Articles of War after World War II?,” The Journal of Military History 88, no. 4 (October 2024): 1002–1027.