Editing United States Army (section)

====Cold War====
=====1945–1960=====
[[File:Exercise Desert Rock I (Buster-Jangle Dog) 003.jpg|thumb|upright|U.S. Army soldiers observing an atomic bomb test of [[Operation Buster-Jangle]] at the [[Nevada Test Site]] during the [[Korean War]]|alt=]]

The end of World War II set the stage for the East–West confrontation known as the [[Cold War]]. With the outbreak of the [[Korean War]], concerns over the defense of Western Europe rose. Two corps, [[V Corps (United States)|V]] and [[VII Corps (United States)|VII]], were reactivated under [[Seventh United States Army]] in 1950 and U.S. strength in Europe rose from one division to four. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops remained stationed in West Germany, with others in [[Belgium]], the [[Netherlands]] and the [[United Kingdom]], until the 1990s in anticipation of a possible [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] attack.<ref name=PerkinsAOC>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-46HlgVPYDQ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/-46HlgVPYDQ |archive-date=11 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=Perkins discusses operationalizing the Army Operating Concept|last=US Army TRADOC|date=16 September 2015|publisher=[[YouTube]]|access-date=2 November 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref>{{rp|minute 9:00–10:00}}

[[File:US Army tanks face off against Soviet tanks, Berlin 1961.jpg|thumb|right|US tanks and Soviet tanks at [[Checkpoint Charlie]], 1961]]
During the Cold War, U.S. troops and their allies fought [[Communism|communist]] forces in Korea and [[Vietnam]]. The Korean War began in June 1950, when the Soviets walked out of a UN Security Council meeting, removing their possible veto. Under a [[United Nations]] umbrella, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops fought to prevent the takeover of [[South Korea]] by [[North Korea]] and later to invade the northern nation. After repeated advances and retreats by both sides and the Chinese [[People's Volunteer Army]]'s entry into the war, the [[s:Korean Armistice Agreement|Korean Armistice Agreement]] returned the peninsula to the status quo in July 1953.

=====1960–1970=====
{{main|United States Army during Vietnam War}}
The [[Vietnam War]] is often regarded as a low point for the U.S. Army due to the use of [[The Draft|drafted personnel]], the unpopularity of the war with the U.S. public and frustrating restrictions placed on the military by U.S. political leaders. While U.S. forces had been stationed in [[South Vietnam]] since 1959, in intelligence and advising/training roles, they were not deployed in large numbers until 1965, after the [[Gulf of Tonkin Incident]]. U.S. forces effectively established and maintained control of the "traditional" battlefield, but they struggled to counter the [[guerrilla war|guerrilla]] hit and run tactics of the communist [[National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam|Viet Cong]] and the [[People's Army of Vietnam|People's Army of Vietnam (NVA)]].<ref>Woodruff, Mark. ''Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the [[North Vietnamese Army]] 1961–1973'' (Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, 1999).<!--page#?--></ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Shidler|first=Derek|title=Vietnam's Changing Historiography: Ngo Dinh Diem and America's Leadership|url=https://www.eiu.edu/historia/Historia2009Shidler.pdf}}</ref>

[[File:DakToVietnam1966.jpg|thumb|left|A U.S. Army infantry patrol moving up to assault the last [[North Vietnamese Army]] position at Dak To, South Vietnam during [[Operation Hawthorne]]]]
During the 1960s, the Department of Defense continued to scrutinize the reserve forces and to question the number of divisions and brigades as well as the redundancy of maintaining two reserve components, the [[Army National Guard]] and the [[United States Army Reserve|Army Reserve]].<ref>Wilson, John B. (1997). ''Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades''. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, Chapter XII, for references see Note 48.</ref> In 1967, Secretary of Defense [[Robert McNamara]] decided that 15 combat divisions in the Army National Guard were unnecessary and cut the number to eight divisions (one mechanized infantry, two armored, and five infantry), but increased the number of brigades from seven to 18 (one airborne, one armored, two mechanized infantry and 14 infantry). The loss of the divisions did not sit well with the states. Their objections included the inadequate maneuver element mix for those that remained and the end to the practice of rotating divisional commands among the states that supported them. Under the proposal, the remaining division commanders were to reside in the state of the division base. However, no reduction in total Army National Guard strength was to take place, which convinced the governors to accept the plan. The states reorganized their forces accordingly between 1 December 1967 and 1 May 1968.

=====1970–1990=====
[[File:Operation Just Cause Rangers 3rd sqd la comadancia small.jpg|thumb|right|U.S. Army soldiers preparing to take ''La Comandancia'' in the El Chorrillo neighborhood of [[Panama City]] during [[United States invasion of Panama|Operation Just Cause]]]]

The Total Force Policy was adopted by Chief of Staff of the Army General [[Creighton Abrams]] in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and involved treating the three components of the army – the [[Regular Army (United States)|Regular Army]], the [[Army National Guard]] and the [[United States Army Reserve|Army Reserve]] as a single force.<ref name="Army National Guard Constitution">{{cite web|url=http://www.arng.army.mil/aboutus/history/Pages/ConstitutionalCharteroftheGuard.aspx |title=Army National Guard Constitution |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521130934/http://www.arng.army.mil/aboutus/history/Pages/ConstitutionalCharteroftheGuard.aspx |archive-date=21 May 2013}}</ref> General Abrams' intertwining of the three components of the army effectively made extended operations impossible without the involvement of both the Army National Guard and Army Reserve in a predominantly combat support role.<ref>Carafano, James, [http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20050203.military.carofano.totalforcepolicyabramsdoctrine.html ''Total Force Policy and the Abrams Doctrine: Unfulfilled Promise, Uncertain Future''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100410064613/http://www.fpri.org///enotes/20050203.military.carofano.totalforcepolicyabramsdoctrine.html |date=10 April 2010}}, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 3 February 2005.</ref>  The army converted to an all-volunteer force with greater emphasis on training to specific performance standards driven by the reforms of General [[William E. DePuy]], the first commander of [[United States Army Training and Doctrine Command]]. Following the Camp David Accords that was signed by Egypt, Israel that was brokered by president [[Jimmy Carter]] in 1978, as part of the agreement, both the United States and [[Egypt]] agreed that there would be a joint military training led by both countries that would usually take place every 2 years, that exercise is known as [[Exercise Bright Star]].

The 1980s was mostly a decade of reorganization. The [[Goldwater-Nichols Act]] of 1986 created [[Unified Combatant Command|unified combatant commands]] bringing the army together with the other four [[United States Military|military services]] under unified, geographically organized command structures. The army also played a role in the invasions of [[Grenada]] in 1983 ([[Invasion of Grenada|Operation Urgent Fury]]) and [[Panama]] in 1989 ([[Operation Just Cause]]).

By 1989 [[German reunification|Germany was nearing reunification]] and the Cold War was coming to a close. Army leadership reacted by starting to plan for a reduction in strength. By November 1989 Pentagon briefers were laying out plans to reduce army end strength by 23%, from 750,000 to 580,000.<ref>An Army at War: Change in the Midst of Conflict, p. 515, via [[Google Books]]</ref> A number of incentives such as early retirement were used.