The Combat Studies Institute (CSI) is pleased to present Long War
Occasional Paper 27, "The Challenge of Adaptation: The US Army in
the Aftermath of Conflict, 1953-2000," by CSI historian Mr. Robert
Davis. Using three case studies from the late twentieth century,
Davis examines the processes by which the US Army sought to prepare
itself for the future after the conclusion of a major conflict. It
is essentially a study of how, in the wake of major conflict, the
Army "learned its lessons." In each of these periods - post Korean
War, post Vietnam War, and post Cold War - the Army examined its
existing institutional structures and processes, force structure,
training and educational systems, and doctrine to prepare for an
uncertain future. Following the Korean War, the nation struggled to
define the role of ground forces in a Cold War era seemingly
dominated by airpower and nuclear weapons. The Army also wrestled
with the conceptual problem of creating a "dual-capable" force
which could fight on both nuclear and conventional battlefields.
President Kennedy's "Flexible Response" defense strategy and the
Vietnam War abruptly ended the Army's unsatisfactory Pentomic Era.
By contrast, after the Vietnam War the nation and the Army
re-emphasized a "threat based" approach to developing and measuring
its capabilities against the clearly defined military threats posed
by the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. During the seventeen years between
1973 and 1990, the Army implemented wide-ranging institutional,
doctrinal, training, educational and force structure changes which
yielded an Army of unprecedented capability by the first Gulf War
in 1991. After the end of the Cold War, however, the nation and the
Army faced a very uncertain national security situation without a
clearly definable threat. Like the advent of the nuclear era some
fifty years prior, the information age seemed to call into question
the role of ground forces in future military operations. Following
a decade of unconventional operations in the 1990s, the Army
launched another wide-ranging transformation effort in 1999 using a
new "capabilities based" model to prepare itself for uncertain
future military threats. The events of 9/11 and the declaration of
the war on terror in 2001 again refocused the nation and the Army
on the role of ground forces in the 21st century. This study
provides insights into how the US Army sought to prepare for the
future at the end of major conflicts, and suggests approaches which
Army leaders may wish to keep in mind as they continue to adapt to
evolving circumstances and realities.
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