The Army in the Modern Day

During the 1990’s, issues in the Middle East began with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Then, American forces had to quickly go over to help protect Saudi Arabia. Early in 1991, Operation Desert Storm was organized to push Iraqi forces out of the other Middle Eastern countries; the operation was a US-led coalition, built mostly of the American forces but including other countries’ militaries as well. The operation was a success, and there were no other major conflicts during the 1990’s, yet the Army did commit a fair amount of soldiers to a NATO force that helped to keep peace in the former Yugoslavia in the middle of the 90’s.

Then, in 2001, after the attack on the Twin Towers, the United States Army joined forces with NATO in the Global War on Terror; they invaded Afghanistan and then took down and replaced the Taliban Government that had been suppressing the people. Then, in 2003, they helped Allied forces invade Iraq, but the fighting quickly changed from typical warfare to a very chaotic and unpredictable form of warfare, due to a mass amount of suicide bombers that caused the deaths of more than 4,000 American soldiers by March 2008, and that injured many more. The instability of the conflict led to longer deployment of soldiers of the Regular Army, as well as Reserve and National Guard troops.