 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ministry of defence" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Aministry of defence ordefense (seespelling differences), also known as adepartment of defence ordefense, is the part of agovernment responsible for matters of defence andmilitary forces, found instates where the government is divided intoministries or departments. Such a department usually includes allbranches of the military, and is usually controlled by adefence minister orsecretary of defense.
The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in some theminister is only in charge of general budget matters and procurement of equipment, while in others they are also an integral part of the operational militarychain of command.
Historically, such departments were referred to as aministry of war ordepartment of war, although they generally had authority only over the army of a country, with a separate department governing other military branches. Prior toWorld War II, most "ministries of war" were army ministries, while the navy and the air force, if they existed as separate branches, had their own departments.[1] As late as 1953, for example, theSoviet Union had a "ministry of war" alongside a "ministry of the navy".
The tendency to consolidate and rename these departments, and to coordinate until then mostly separate components of defence (air, land, navy) arose after World War II.
