Facilitating the US Army's Transition from War to Peace

“For the Common Defense, a military history of the United States from 1607-2012” is a military historic book written by Allan R. Millet, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis. Millet is a historian and a retired colonel of the Marine Corps. Maslowski is a professor at the University of Nebraska. Feis is a professor at Buena Vista University. This book was published in September 2012. It focuses on chronologically describing the changes of the United States military for over 400 years. Even though that is the main purpose, it does include political information. Although this book does not have an exact thesis, its purpose is to inform readers of the creation and enhancements of the US military. At almost 700 pages, this book educates about

Frequent deployments and changing times created a distraction in the Professional aspect of the Army. The distraction created a deficiency in maintaining the highest standards of the Profession of Arms. In an effort to refine their understanding of the Army Profession, the Secretary of the Army and the Army Chief of Staff directed that a review of the Army Profession be conducted, thus the creation of the Profession of Arms Campaign.

The concept of war as a static and unchanging occurrence is an outdated and dangerous miscalculation. More accurately, war is a fluidic, evolving and shifting phenomenon constantly reinventing itself, rendering stagnant, inflexible principles potentially disastrous. Consequently, as students of war and future players in this transforming theatre, the study of eras of significant development is an extremely relevant pursuit. Recognizing the need for adaptation and the creation of doctrine is now a prerequisite for any effective modern commander. War is unpredictable in nature and particularly so in current theatres of operation, in which change is rapid

Two years earlier, America’s military preparedness was not that of a nation expecting to go to war. In 1939, the United States Army ranked thirty-ninth in the world, possessing a cavalry force of fifty thousand and using horses to pull the artillery. Many Americans — still trying to recover from the decade-long ordeal of the Great Depression — were reluctant to participate in the conflict that was spreading throughout Europe and Asia. President Roosevelt did what he could to coax a reluctant nation to focus its economic might on military preparedness. If the American military wasn’t yet equal to the Germans or the Japanese, American workers could build ships and planes faster than the enemy could sink them or shoot them

The main idea of this publication is to create a collective understanding of the Army Profession by providing the Service members the guidelines and definitions of it and the Army Ethic. Fail to follow or even understand the concept of rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad have been the reason of studies, due to the consequences this could bring upon the service. This publication defines the membership and affiliation of competent individuals in character and commitment, five essential characteristics legitimize the Army as a military profession, trust, military expertise, honorable service, spirit de corps, and stewardship. Trust is vital in society at school, at work, at home, among the citizens, trust in the skills of those you depend on, and trust that the mail will be deliver to your home to give an example. American people perhaps have lost or are close to lose the trust in the highest level of government being this the direct orchestrator of the actions perform by the armed forces, after planning and rehearsals every move is directed and now that the population does not support or agreed with many of these actions government has to act to regain the support and reassurance of the masses. American people as society trust their arm forces to perform their duty to protect them and their country, support and defend the constitution society trust the strongest Army in the world due to the technology it possess and the will soldiers have

The U.S. military has been one of the major if not primary innovators of logistics in warfare since WW1, and particularly during and after WW2. In fact, during WW2 the Germans lacked mechanized transport to a stunning degree, and to further complicate matters, the Germans lacked standardization. The lack of standardization is shown by the Luftwaffe having over 425 models and variants of aircraft it relied on. Whereas the U.S. strove to rely on fewer models to streamline the requirements for spare parts. Additionally, 80 to 85 percent of the Wehrmacht was supplied by horses, in fact the Germans used more horses during WW2 than they had during WW1. Further complicating matters, to mechanize transport for 15 percent of their military they confiscated trucks, to the point of having 151 different types and models in service. By contrast the U.S. used one primary truck the “deuce and a half”, thus reducing the strain of having the correct spares in the correct place when needed (Tucker & Tucker, 2016, pp. 1034 - 1035). It should also be noted that it was the U.S. that provided mechanized transport to all allied armies, which was largely lacking prior to this. Thus the U.S. altered how all military forces view the role of not only logistics but of mechanized transport in warfare. One other important change brought on during WW2 was the use of air logistics. To a limited extent

The Values identified, manifested and espoused by the US Army are: Loyalty, Duty Respect, Service &Stewardship, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage. These are defined by our US Army as:

The quick evolving military environment, needs the US Army redouble its efforts to reduce the uncertainty associated with the downsizing. There are some predominant principles that can guide the Army’s efforts in minimizing the impact of uncertainty during the force reduction. Even with major political and legislative challenges, keeping balance among the different proportions of readiness is a goal of US defense policy. During the budgetary preparation, downsizing of the armed forces often becomes one of the first victims of fiscal reduction. This was true of the years between World War I and World War II, when the Great Depression made military preparedness a very low national priority. The Army’s downsizing effect put its readiness

After major conflicts, the government downsizes its military numbers significantly, losing the best-qualified leaders to lead the future’s military. This drastic method of downsizing the military after major conflicts harms our troops and could harm the future of our great nation. If the nation really needs to downsize its military, then it should be done in a very careful manner and to pay extra attention to not losing the best qualified leaders it currently has.

The armies of the United States of America varied greatly from the beginning of America 's independence in 1775 to the end of the War of 1812 in 1815. Different presidents holding office during this period brought different political views towards managing the army. These views affected the size and capability of the army in war and peace, with varying effectiveness. Effective in this case refers to the ability of the army to perform tasks given to them by the government. Opinions differing from the actions performed by the government provide insight into alternative ideas for the military, which had varying degrees of viability.

Every four years when a president is elected into office, no matter the country, it is vital that the running is fair and follows the rules set out by the country. However, when writing about such a topic it is also important to view all sides of the potential argument and provide evidence that both discredits the opposing view and supports the point the author is attempting to prove. This allows the reader to know that every possibility has been researched and both sides have been viewed, but that the author is correct when stating their stance on the matter.

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

Force management, or what is really otherwise known as planned comprehensive change, is in reality a complex and interwoven process. Though it was designed within the confines of a systemic approach referred to as the DOTMLPF (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership & Education, Personnel and Facilities), in reality it is meant to enable both dutiful and well-thought out change as well as faster, more urgent adjustments in accordance with the evolving nature of war and information gathering tactics. The Army, as one branch involved in this initiative, focuses most of its attention in this regard on the organizational sector because of the way it facilitates an adequate and democratic step-by-step system of review (Student Reader, F102:2). But the fact is that even this initiative remains multi-faceted and appears to be rather bureaucratic in nature (it has five phases, which seems antithetical to an urgent change process), which might not be surprising since implementing the type of changes that are demanded can have major implications of all sorts. Still, it does appear that this concentration is being well received and that it will eventually serve its goal even if it does not appear that way when detailed on a point by point basis.

The purpose of Army maintenance is to preserve the required performance capabilities of Army materiel or to return those assets to their baseline performance capabilities. Maintenance is an enabling process to meeting Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) requirements. ARFORGEN is the process used to generate and regenerate combat power and preserve the capital investment of combat systems and equipment to enable training and mission accomplishment (Department of the Army, 2013). The Army’s doctrinal definition can be confusing to some and it does not make mention of efficiency, reducing non-value adding activities and the overall equipment effectiveness. This definition allow for commanders at all levels the flexibility to focus on other tasks, tasks not related to maintenance.

Van Creveld predicted that armed forces of the world would have to adapt to the frequency of involved conflict. This challenging book was too readily dismissed by some critics as reflecting Van Creveld?s personal proximity to the first intifada against Israel and a classic case of overgeneralization (1991, pg. 25). The massive mechanized assault conducted by an American-led coalition to pry Iraq?s invading force out of Kuwait in 1991 lent credence to those who did not want to contemplate the rise of new modes of combat. ?The Changing Face of War? represents van Creveld?s second attempt to flesh out the developments in military history and the rise of unconventional methods in book-length form.