War Cabinet A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war . It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers . It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members . United Kingdom . First World War . During the First World War , lengthy Cabinet discussions came to be seen as a source of vacillation in Britain ' s war effort . In December 1916 it was proposed that the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith should delegate decision - making to a small , three - man committee chaired by the Secretary of State for War David Lloyd George . Asquith initially agreed ( provided he retained the right to chair the committee if he chose ) before changing his mind after being infuriated by an article in " The Times " which portrayed the proposed change as a defeat for him . The political crisis grew from this point until Asquith was forced to resign as Prime Minister ; he was succeeded by David Lloyd George who thereupon formed a small War Cabinet . The original members of the War Cabinet were : Lloyd George , Curzon and Bonar Law served throughout the life of the war cabinet . Later members include : Unlike a normal peacetime Cabinet , few of these men had departmental responsibilities - Bonar Law , and then Chamberlain , served as Chancellors of the Exchequer , but the rest had no specific portfolio . Among others , the Foreign Secretary , Arthur Balfour , was never a member of the War Cabinet , nor were the service ministers Lord Derby and Sir Edward Carson . From the northern spring of 1917 , the Imperial War Cabinet was formed . It had representation from the Dominions . Its members were : Second World War . Germany invaded Poland early on 1 September 1939 , and after to - ing and fro - ing with French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet , an ultimatum was presented to the Germans and on its expiry war was declared at 11am on 3 September 1939 . Chamberlain War Cabinet . On 3 September 1939 , Neville Chamberlain announced his War Cabinet . Dominated largely by Conservative ministers who served under Chamberlain ' s National Government between 1937 and 1939 , the additions of Lord Hankey ( a former Cabinet Secretary from the First World War ) and Winston Churchill ( strong anti - appeaser ) seemed to give the Cabinet more balance . Unlike Lloyd George ' s War Cabinet , the members of this one were also heads of Government Departments . In January 1940 , after disagreements with the Chiefs of Staff , Hore - Belisha resigned from the National Government , refusing a move to the post of President of the Board of Trade . He was succeeded by Oliver Stanley . It was originally the practice for the Chiefs of Staff to attend all military discussions of the Chamberlain War Cabinet . Churchill became uneasy with this , as he felt that when they attended they did not confine their comments to purely military issues . To overcome this , a Military Coordination Committee was set up , consisting of the three Service ministers normally chaired by Lord Chatfield . This together with the Service chiefs would co - ordinate the strategic ideas of ' top hats ' and ' brass ' and agree strategic proposals to put forward to the War Cabinet . Unfortunately , except when chaired by the Prime Minister , the Military Co - ordinating Committee lacked sufficient authority to override a Minister " fighting his corner " . When Churchill took over from Chatfield , whilst continuing to represent the Admiralty , this introduced additional problems , and did little to improve the pre - existing ones . Chamberlain announced a further change in arrangements in the Norway debate , but this ( and the Military Co - ordination Committee ) was overtaken by events , the Churchill War Cabinet being run on rather different principles . Churchill war ministry . When he became Prime Minister during the Second World War , Winston Churchill formed a War Cabinet , initially consisting of the following members : Churchill strongly believed that the War Cabinet should be kept to a relatively small number of individuals to allow efficient execution of the war effort . Even so , there were a number of ministers who , though they were not members of the war cabinet , were " Constant Attenders " . As the War Cabinet considered issues that pertained to a given branch of the service or government due input was obtained from the respective body . The War Cabinet would undergo a number of changes in composition over the next five years . On 19 February 1942 a reconstructed War Cabinet was announced by Churchill consisting of the following members : This War Cabinet was consistent with Churchill ' s view that members should also hold " responsible offices and not mere advisors at large with nothing to do but think and talk and take decisions by compromise or majority " The War Cabinet often met within The Cabinet War Rooms , particularly during The Blitz of London . Falklands War , 1982 . Margaret Thatcher chose not to include any representation of Her Majesty ' s Treasury on the advice of Harold Macmillan , that the security and defence of the armed forces and the war effort should not be compromised for financial reasons . Australia . At the Imperial Conference in London in 1937 , the Australian government had agreed to form a War Cabinet on the outbreak of war . The Full Cabinet approved the formation of the War Cabinet on 26 September 1939 . As neither Earle Page ' s Country Party nor John Curtin ' s Australian Labor Party would join in a coalition government with Menzies ' United Australia Party , the War Cabinet initially consisted of : In November 1939 , the Department of Defence was split up . Street became Minister for Army , Menzies also became Minister for Defence Coordination , and three more ministers joined the War Cabinet : Following the deaths of Fairbairn , Stewart and Gullett in Canberra air disaster , 1940 and the loss of seats in the Australian federal election , 1940 the War Cabinet of October 1940 consisted of : The government was replaced by a Labor one on 3 October 1941 . A new War Cabinet was formed , consisting of : Frederick Shedden , the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Defence , served as secretary of the War Cabinet , which met regularly throughout the war . It held its last meeting in Canberra on 19 January 1946 . United States . In response to the 11 September 2001 attacks , United States President George W . Bush created a War Cabinet . They met at Camp David on the weekend of 15 September to shape what became the War on Terrorism . The membership was mostly , but not entirely , identical to that of the United States National Security Council . The Cabinet comprised During the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis , President John F . Kennedy ' s EXCOMM had some characteristics of a War Cabinet .