Publisher's Synopsis
For decades the United States organized, equipped and trained its military forces to defeat the conventional military forces of the Soviet Union. The world changed overnight with the fall of the Soviet Union and so did the United States' adversaries. Terrorists and religious extremists are the new threat to the United States. The Department of Defense continues to evaluate the type of military forces required to combat this emerging global threat and execute the National Security Strategy. As the United States Army undergoes transformation from a Division centric, armor heavy organization to a lighter, expeditionary Brigade Combat Team structure, this paper proposes that the Army needs to maintain the conventional combat capabilities it perfected during the Cold War, and that the Marine Corps, with its expeditionary nature and amphibious forcible entry capability, is the ideal military force to meet the future strategic needs of the United States to effectively combat rising global threats and to secure America's vital national interests.
