Negating The Infantry: A Critical Study of Infantry Force Structure in the U.S. Army

摘要

Throughout the Cold War the U.S. Army relied upon mechanized infantry to meet the Soviet threat. The U.S. faced an enemy with the largest modem mechanized force in the world. That threat disappeared, nearly a decade ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed and military forces throughout the world significantly reduced their armed forces, The U.S. Army from 1989 until 1999 underwent its most dramatic downsizing since the end of World War II, as the global environment changed. The nature of conflict has changed too, but U.S. Army force structure, although smaller, has remained fundamentally a mechanized heavy force. This paper demonstrates that there is an increased need for basic infantry in the post Cold War world. As Sun-tzu stated, an army must know themselves and the enemy, to ensure success in conflict. U.S. Army doctrine stresses, in periods of rapid and fundamental change it is important to closely scrutinize previous assumptions made about the threat and factors impacting on the 2 During the Cold War the Army based its structure on some key assumptions about the future threat and the global security environment. Those assumptions drove U.S. Army force development and technological adaptations in accordance with the Concept Based Requirements System (CBRS).3.