  This chapter reviews the changes to service allowances in the immediate postwar period and considers whether the experience of administering these allowances during the Second World War resulted in any significant changes in the existing administrative systems. It discusses why the maintenance of a high military profile had political as well as economic implications. The chapter reflects upon the problems associated with retaining and recruiting career soldiers, such as the well-being of families of soldiers on active duty, financial issues, pension levels and dependent allowance. Further, it examines the changes in service allowances resulting from the introduction of national Family Allowances and the beginnings of the welfare state.  The conventional image of the United States from the end of World War II to President John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 0000, is of two febrile periods of heightened Cold War tensions, 