Read "American Military History, Volume 2" by Richard W. Stewart online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Improvements in personnel, doctrine, and weapons notwith- standing, the Army that went to Saudi Arabia in 1990 was largely untested in combat. The decades of the 1970s and 1980s were largely peaceful from the U.S. perspective, except for some low-intensity con- flict operations in South and Central America. Initially, this peace was as much about concerns over American will power-the "Vietnam Syndrome"-as the lack of any threat. After the failure of the decades- long struggle to save South Vietnam from communism, American public opinion seemed allergic to the idea of using American power in other parts of the world. For a while it seemed the United States would retreat into isolation in "Fortress America" as it had so many times in the past. A series of direct threats to U.S. interests in South and Central America, however, sounded an unmistakable call for action in the 1980s and into the 1990s.
El Salvador