The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.[15] The Army is the oldest branch of the U.S. military and the most senior in order of precedence.[16] It has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed on 14 June 1775 to fight against the British for independence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).[17] After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army.[18][19] The United States Army considers itself a continuation of the Continental Army, and thus considers its institutional inception to be the origin of that armed force in 1775.[17]
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The U.S. Army is a uniformed service of the United States and is part of the Department of the Army, which is one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The U.S. Army is headed by a civilian senior appointed civil servant, the secretary of the Army (SECARMY), and by a chief military officer, the chief of staff of the Army (CSA) who is also a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is the largest military branch, and in the fiscal year 2022, the projected end strength for the Regular Army (USA) was 480,893 soldiers; the Army National Guard (ARNG) had 336,129 soldiers and the U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) had 188,703 soldiers; the combined-component strength of the U.S. Army was 1,005,725 soldiers.[20] As a branch of the armed forces, the mission of the U.S. Army is "to fight and win our Nation's wars, by providing prompt, sustained land dominance, across the full range of military operations and the spectrum of conflict, in support of combatant commanders".[21] The branch participates in conflicts worldwide and is the major ground-based offensive and defensive force of the United States of America.
Mission
editThe United States Army serves as the land-based branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Section 7062 of Title 10, U.S. Code defines the purpose of the army as:[22][23]
- Preserving the peace and security and providing for the defense of the United States, the Commonwealths and possessions, and any areas occupied by the United States
- Supporting the national policies
- Implementing the national objectives
- Overcoming any nations responsible for aggressive acts that imperil the peace and security of the United States
In 2018, the Army Strategy 2018 articulated an eight-point addendum to the Army Vision for 2028.[24] While the Army Mission remains constant, the Army Strategy builds upon the Army's Brigade Modernization by adding focus to corps and division-level echelons.[24] The Army Futures Command oversees reforms geared toward conventional warfare. The Army's current reorganization plan is due to be completed by 2028.[24]
The Army's five core competencies are prompt and sustained land combat, combined arms operations (to include combined arms maneuver and wide–area security, armored and mechanized operations and airborne and air assault operations), special operations forces, to set and sustain the theater for the joint force, and to integrate national, multinational, and joint power on land.[25]
History
editOrigins
editThe Continental Army was created on 14 June 1775 by the Second Continental Congress[26] as a unified army for the colonies to fight Great Britain, with George Washington appointed as its commander.[17][27][28][29] The army was initially led by men who had served in the British Army or colonial militias and who brought much of British military heritage with them. As the Revolutionary War progressed, French aid, resources, and military thinking helped shape the new army. A number of European soldiers came on their own to help, such as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who taught Prussian Army tactics and organizational skills.
The Army fought numerous pitched battles, and sometimes used Fabian strategy and hit-and-run tactics in the South in 1780 and 1781; under Major General Nathanael Greene, it hit where the British were weakest to wear down their forces. Washington led victories against the British at Trenton and Princeton, but lost a series of battles in the New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776 and the Philadelphia campaign in 1777. With a decisive victory at Yorktown and the help of the French, the Continental Army prevailed against the British.
After the war, the Continental Army was quickly given land certificates and disbanded in a reflection of the republican distrust of standing armies. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, except a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon considered necessary to field a trained standing army. The Regular Army was at first very small and after General St. Clair's defeat at the Battle of the Wabash,[30] where more than 800 soldiers were killed, the Regular Army was reorganized as the Legion of the United States, established in 1791 and renamed the United States Army in 1796.
In 1798, during the Quasi-War with France, the U.S. Congress established a three-year "Provisional Army" of 10,000 men, consisting of twelve regiments of infantry and six troops of light dragoons. In March 1799, Congress created an "Eventual Army" of 30,000 men, including three regiments of cavalry. Both "armies" existed only on paper, but equipment for 3,000 men and horses was procured and stored.[31]
19th century
editWar of 1812 and Indian Wars
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The War of 1812, the second and last war between the United States and Great Britain, had mixed results. The U.S. Army did not conquer Canada but it did destroy Native American resistance to expansion in the Old Northwest and stopped two major British invasions in 1814 and 1815. After taking control of Lake Erie in 1813, the U.S. Army seized parts of western Upper Canada, burned York and defeated Tecumseh, which caused his Western Confederacy to collapse. Following U.S. victories in the Canadian province of Upper Canada, British troops who had dubbed the U.S. Army "Regulars, by God!", were able to capture and burn Washington, which was defended by militia, in 1814. The regular army, however, proved they were professional and capable of defeating the British army during the invasions of Plattsburgh and Baltimore, prompting British agreement on the previously rejected terms of a status quo antebellum.[dubious – discuss] Two weeks after a treaty was signed (but not ratified), Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans and siege of Fort St. Philip with an army dominated by militia and volunteers, and became a national hero. U.S. troops and sailors captured HMS Cyane, Levant and Penguin in the final engagements of the war. Per the treaty, both sides (the United States and Great Britain) returned to the geographical status quo. Both navies kept the warships they had seized during the conflict.
The army's major campaign against the Indians was fought in Florida against Seminoles. It took long wars (1818–1858) to finally defeat the Seminoles and move them to Oklahoma. The usual strategy in Indian wars was to seize control of the Indians' winter food supply, but that was no use in Florida where there was no winter. The second strategy was to form alliances with other Indian tribes, but that too was useless because the Seminoles had destroyed all the other Indians when they entered Florida in the late eighteenth century.[32]
The U.S. Army fought and won the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), which was a defining event for both countries.[33] The U.S. victory resulted in acquisition of territory that eventually became all or parts of the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming and New Mexico.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was the costliest war for the U.S. in terms of casualties. After most slave states, located in the southern U.S., formed the Confederate States, the Confederate States Army, led by former U.S. Army officers, mobilized a large fraction of Southern white manpower. Forces of the United States (the "Union" or "the North") formed the Union Army, consisting of a small body of regular army units and a large body of volunteer units raised from every state, north and south, except South Carolina.[34]
For the first two years, Confederate forces did well in set battles but lost control of the border states.[35] The Confederates had the advantage of defending a large territory in an area where disease caused twice as many deaths as combat. The Union pursued a strategy of seizing the coastline, blockading the ports, and taking control of the river systems. By 1863, the Confederacy was being strangled. Its eastern armies fought well, but the western armies were defeated one after another until the Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862 along with the Tennessee River. In the Vicksburg Campaign of 1862–1863, General Ulysses Grant seized the Mississippi River and cut off the Southwest. Grant took command of Union forces in 1864 and after a series of battles with very heavy casualties, he had General Robert E. Lee under siege in Richmond as General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta and marched through Georgia and the Carolinas. The Confederate capital was abandoned in April 1865 and Lee subsequently surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House. All other Confederate armies surrendered within a few months.
The war remains the deadliest conflict in U.S. history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 men on both sides. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6.4% in the North and 18% in the South.[36]
Later 19th century
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Following the Civil War, the U.S. Army had the mission of containing western tribes of Native Americans on the Indian reservations. They set up many forts, and engaged in the last of the American Indian Wars. U.S. Army troops also occupied several Southern states during the Reconstruction Era to protect freedmen.
The key battles of the Spanish–American War of 1898 were fought by the Navy. Using mostly new volunteers, the U.S. forces defeated Spain in land campaigns in Cuba and played the central role in the Philippine–American War.
20th century
editStarting in 1910, the army began acquiring fixed-wing aircraft.[37] In 1910, during the Mexican Revolution, the army was deployed to U.S. towns near the border to ensure the safety of lives and property. In 1916, Pancho Villa, a major rebel leader, attacked Columbus, New Mexico, prompting a U.S. intervention in Mexico until 7 February 1917. They fought the rebels and the Mexican federal troops until 1918.
World Wars
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The United States joined World War I as an "Associated Power" in 1917 on the side of Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the other Allies. U.S. troops were sent to the Western Front and were involved in the last offensives that ended the war. With the armistice in November 1918, the army once again decreased its forces.
In 1939, estimates of the Army's strength ranged between 174,000 and 200,000 soldiers, smaller than that of Portugal's, which ranked it 17th or 19th in the world in size. General George C. Marshall became Army chief of staff in September 1939 and set about expanding and modernizing the Army in preparation for war.[38][39]
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The United States joined World War II in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Some 11 million Americans were to serve in various Army operations.[40][41] On the European front, U.S. Army troops formed a significant portion of the forces that landed in French North Africa and took Tunisia and then moved on to Sicily and later fought in Italy. In the June 1944 landings in northern France and in the subsequent liberation of Europe and defeat of Nazi Germany, millions of U.S. Army troops played a central role. In 1947, the number of soldiers in the US Army had decreased from eight million in 1945 to 684,000 soldiers and the total number of active divisions had dropped from 89 to 12. The leaders of the Army saw this demobilization as a success.[42]
In the Pacific War, U.S. Army soldiers participated alongside the United States Marine Corps in capturing the Pacific Islands from Japanese control. Following the Axis surrenders in May (Germany) and August (Japan) of 1945, army troops were deployed to Japan and Germany to occupy the two defeated nations. Two years after World War II, the Army Air Forces separated from the army to become the United States Air Force in September 1947. In 1948, the army was desegregated by order 9981 of President Harry S. Truman.
Cold War
edit1945–1960
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The end of World War II set the stage for the East–West confrontation known as the Cold War. With the outbreak of the Korean War, concerns over the defense of Western Europe rose. Two corps, V and VII, were reactivated under Seventh United States Army in 1950 and U.S. strength in Europe rose from one division to four. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops remained stationed in West Germany, with others in Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, until the 1990s in anticipation of a possible Soviet attack.[43]: minute 9:00–10:00
During the Cold War, U.S. troops and their allies fought communist forces in Korea and Vietnam. The Korean War began in June 1950, when the Soviets walked out of a UN Security Council meeting, removing their possible veto. Under a United Nations umbrella, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops fought to prevent the takeover of South Korea by North Korea and later to invade the northern nation. After repeated advances and retreats by both sides and the Chinese People's Volunteer Army's entry into the war, the Korean Armistice Agreement returned the peninsula to the status quo in July 1953.
1960–1970
editThe Vietnam War is often regarded as a low point for the U.S. Army due to the use of drafted personnel, the unpopularity of the war with the U.S. public and frustrating restrictions placed on the military by U.S. political leaders. While U.S. forces had been stationed in South Vietnam since 1959, in intelligence and advising/training roles, they were not deployed in large numbers until 1965, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. U.S. forces effectively established and maintained control of the "traditional" battlefield, but they struggled to counter the guerrilla hit and run tactics of the communist Viet Cong and the People's Army Of Vietnam (NVA).[44][45]
During the 1960s, the Department of Defense continued to scrutinize the reserve forces and to question the number of divisions and brigades as well as the redundancy of maintaining two reserve components, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.[46] In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided that 15 combat divisions in the Army National Guard were unnecessary and cut the number to eight divisions (one mechanized infantry, two armored, and five infantry), but increased the number of brigades from seven to 18 (one airborne, one armored, two mechanized infantry and 14 infantry). The loss of the divisions did not sit well with the states. Their objections included the inadequate maneuver element mix for those that remained and the end to the practice of rotating divisional commands among the states that supported them. Under the proposal, the remaining division commanders were to reside in the state of the division base. However, no reduction in total Army National Guard strength was to take place, which convinced the governors to accept the plan. The states reorganized their forces accordingly between 1 December 1967 and 1 May 1968.
1970–1990
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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, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve as a single force.[47] 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.[48] 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 commands bringing the army together with the other four military services under unified, geographically organized command structures. The army also played a role in the invasions of Grenada in 1983 (Operation Urgent Fury) and Panama in 1989 (Operation Just Cause).
By 1989 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.[49] A number of incentives such as early retirement were used.
1990s
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In 1990, Iraq invaded its smaller neighbor, Kuwait, and U.S. land forces quickly deployed to assure the protection of Saudi Arabia. In January 1991 Operation Desert Storm commenced, a U.S.-led coalition which deployed over 500,000 troops, the bulk of them from U.S. Army formations, to drive out Iraqi forces. The campaign ended in total victory, as Western coalition forces routed the Iraqi Army. Some of the largest tank battles in history were fought during the Gulf war. The Battle of Medina Ridge, Battle of Norfolk and the Battle of 73 Easting were tank battles of historical significance.[50][51][52]
After Operation Desert Storm, the army did not see major combat operations for the remainder of the 1990s but did participate in a number of peacekeeping activities. In 1990 the Department of Defense issued guidance for "rebalancing" after a review of the Total Force Policy,[53] but in 2004, USAF Air War College scholars concluded the guidance would reverse the Total Force Policy which is an "essential ingredient to the successful application of military force".[54]
21st century
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On 11 September 2001, 53 Army civilians (47 employees and six contractors) and 22 soldiers were among the 125 victims killed in the Pentagon in a terrorist attack when American Airlines Flight 77 commandeered by five Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed into the western side of the building, as part of the September 11 attacks.[55] In response to the 11 September attacks and as part of the Global War on Terror, U.S. and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, displacing the Taliban government. The U.S. Army also led the combined U.S. and allied invasion of Iraq in 2003; it served as the primary source for ground forces with its ability to sustain short and long-term deployment operations. In the following years, the mission changed from conflict between regular militaries to counterinsurgency, resulting in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. service members (as of March 2008) and injuries to thousands more.[56][57] 23,813 insurgents were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.[58]
Until 2009, the army's chief modernization plan, its most ambitious since World War II,[59] was the Future Combat Systems program. In 2009, many systems were canceled, and the remaining were swept into the BCT modernization program.[60] By 2017, the Brigade Modernization project was completed and its headquarters, the Brigade Modernization Command, was renamed the Joint Modernization Command, or JMC.[61] In response to Budget sequestration in 2013, Army plans were to shrink to 1940 levels,[62] although actual Active-Army end-strengths were projected to fall to some 450,000 troops by the end of FY2017.[63][64] From 2016 to 2017, the Army retired hundreds of OH-58 Kiowa Warrior observation helicopters,[65] while retaining its Apache gunships.[66] The 2015 expenditure for Army research, development and acquisition changed from $32 billion projected in 2012 for FY15 to $21 billion for FY15 expected in 2014.[67]
Organization
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Planning
editBy 2017, a task force was formed to address Army modernization,[68] which triggered shifts of units: CCDC, and ARCIC, from within Army Materiel Command (AMC), and Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), respectively, to a new Army Command (ACOM) in 2018.[69] The Army Futures Command (AFC), is a peer of FORSCOM, TRADOC, and AMC, the other ACOMs.[70] AFC's mission is modernization reform: to design hardware, as well as to work within the acquisition process which defines materiel for AMC. TRADOC's mission is to define the architecture and organization of the Army, and to train and supply soldiers to FORSCOM.[71]: minutes 2:30–15:00 [43] AFC's cross-functional teams (CFTs) are Futures Command's vehicle for sustainable reform of the acquisition process for the future.[72] In order to support the Army's modernization priorities, its FY2020 budget allocated $30 billion for the top six modernization priorities over the next five years.[73] The $30 billion came from $8 billion in cost avoidance and $22 billion in terminations.[73]
Army Components
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The task of organizing the U.S. Army commenced in 1775.[75] In the first one hundred years of its existence, the United States Army was maintained as a small peacetime force to man permanent forts and perform other non-wartime duties such as engineering and construction works. During times of war, the U.S. Army was augmented by the much larger United States Volunteers which were raised independently by various state governments. States also maintained full-time militias which could also be called into the service of the army.
*Seated are (from left to right) Generals William H. Simpson, George S. Patton, Carl A. Spaatz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Courtney H. Hodges, and Leonard T. Gerow
*standing are (from left to right) Generals Ralph F. Stearley, Hoyt Vandenberg, Walter Bedell Smith, Otto P. Weyland, and Richard E. Nugent
By the twentieth century, the U.S. Army had mobilized the U.S. Volunteers on four occasions during each of the major wars of the nineteenth century. During World War I, the "National Army" was organized to fight the conflict, replacing the concept of U.S. Volunteers.[76] It was demobilized at the end of World War I, and was replaced by the Regular Army, the Organized Reserve Corps and the state militias. In the 1920s and 1930s, the "career" soldiers were known as the "Regular Army" with the "Enlisted Reserve Corps" and "Officer Reserve Corps" augmented to fill vacancies when needed.[77]
In 1941, the "Army of the United States" was founded to fight World War II.[78] The Regular Army, Army of the United States, the National Guard and Officer/Enlisted Reserve Corps (ORC and ERC) existed simultaneously. After World War II, the ORC and ERC were combined into the United States Army Reserve. The Army of the United States was re-established for the Korean War and Vietnam War and was demobilized upon the suspension of the draft.[77]
Currently, the Army is divided into the Regular Army, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard.[76] Some states further maintain state defense forces, as a type of reserve to the National Guard, while all states maintain regulations for state militias.[79] State militias are both "organized", meaning that they are armed forces usually part of the state defense forces, or "unorganized" simply meaning that all able-bodied males may be eligible to be called into military service.
The U.S. Army is also divided into several branches and functional areas. Branches include officers, warrant officers, and enlisted Soldiers while functional areas consist of officers who are reclassified from their former branch into a functional area. However, officers continue to wear the branch insignia of their former branch in most cases, as functional areas do not generally have discrete insignia. Some branches, such as Special Forces, operate similarly to functional areas in that individuals may not join their ranks until having served in another Army branch. Careers in the Army can extend into cross-functional areas for officer,[80] warrant officer, enlisted, and civilian personnel.
| Branch | Insignia and colors | Branch | Insignia and colors | Functional Area (FA) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acquisition Corps (AC) | 
|
Air Defense Artillery (AD) | 
|
Information Network Engineering (FA 26) | |||
| Adjutant General's Corps (AG) Includes Army Bands (AB) |
 
|
Armor (AR) Includes Cavalry (CV) |
 
|
Information Operations (FA 30) | |||
| Aviation (AV) | 
|
Civil Affairs Corps (CA) | 
|
Strategic Intelligence (FA 34) | |||
| Chaplain Corps (CH) |      
|
Chemical Corps (CM) | 
|
Space Operations (FA 40) | |||
| Cyber Corps (CY) | 
|
Dental Corps (DC) | 
|
Public Affairs Officer (FA 46) | |||
| Corps of Engineers (EN) | 
|
Field Artillery (FA) | 
|
Academy Professor (FA 47) | |||
| Finance Corps (FI) | 
|
Infantry (IN) | 
|
Foreign Area Officer (FA 48) | |||
| Inspector General (IG) | 
|
Logistics (LG) | 
|
Operations Research/Systems Analysis (FA 49) | |||
| Judge Advocate General's Corps (JA) | 
|
Military Intelligence Corps (MI) | 
|
Force Management (FA 50) | |||
| Medical Corps (MC) | 
|
Medical Service Corps (MS) | 
|
Acquisition (FA 51)[80] | |||
| Military Police Corps (MP) | 
|
Army Nurse Corps (AN) | 
|
Simulation Operations (FA 57) | |||
| Psychological Operations (PO) | 
|
Medical Specialist Corps (SP) | 
|
Army Marketing (FA 58)[81] | |||
| Quartermaster Corps (QM) | 
|
Staff Specialist Corps (SS) (USAR and ARNG only) |
|
Health Services (FA 70) | |||
| Special Forces (SF) | 
|
Ordnance Corps (OD) | 
|
Laboratory Sciences (FA 71) | |||
| Veterinary Corps (VC) | 
|
Public Affairs (PA) | 
|
Preventive Medicine Sciences (FA 72) | |||
| Transportation Corps (TC) | 
|
Signal Corps (SC) | 
|
Behavioral Sciences (FA 73) | |||
| Special branch insignias (for some unique duty assignments) | |||||||
| National Guard Bureau (NGB) | 
|
General Staff | 
|
U.S. Military Academy Staff | 
| ||
| Chaplain Candidate | 
|
Officer Candidate | 
|
Warrant Officer Candidate | 
| ||
Aide-de-camp                
|
Senior Enlisted Advisor (SEA)   
| ||||||
Before 1933, members of the Army National Guard were considered state militia until they were mobilized into the U.S. Army, typically on the onset of war. Since the 1933 amendment to the National Defense Act of 1916, all Army National Guard soldiers have held dual status. They serve as National Guardsmen under the authority of the governor of their state or territory and as reserve members of the U.S. Army under the authority of the president, in the Army National Guard of the United States.[82]
Since the adoption of the total force policy, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, reserve component soldiers have taken a more active role in U.S. military operations. For example, Reserve and Guard units took part in the Gulf War, peacekeeping in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Army commands and army service component commands
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Headquarters, United States Department of the Army (HQDA):
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