Editing United States Army (section)

=====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.