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Although we must depend upon air, sea and land power, with proper coordination and cooperation between them if any rational defense plan is to be evolved, these factors are not usually considered as a whole in arriving at a general plan, and consequently the relative merits of each are not given proper consideration. The Army and Navy determine their needs without reference to each other and Congress leave to separate committees, who act without coordination, the question of deciding whether these needs are justified.
Before air power became a controlling factor to be considered in defense, this system, while hardly efficient, was more or less "foolproof". The line of demarcation between the functions of the Army and Navy was clear cut and defined - the Army being tied to the land and the Navy to the water, and only cooperation and coordination in the very broadest sense were necessary. But with both services now handling aircraft, this definite dividing line has ceased to exist. Consequently, if duplication of [[strikethrough]]effect[[/strikethrough]] effort and expense is to be avoided, the functions and responsibilities of each service in the air must be clearly defined, and based upon these responsibilities of each service in the air must be clearly defined, and based upon these responsibilities an equitable division of the total amount of money that the country can afford for all military air purposes must be made by Congress.
This situation was evidently fully appreciated by Secretary of War Weeks when he was in office. Appearing before the Select Committee of Inquiry into Operations of the United States Air Service on January 7, 1925, he stated that:

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