AirLand Battle does not reflect a mere change in fashionable thought. Rather it is a reflection of the profound changes that have occurred in the U.S. Army during the post-Vietnam era. In spite of the many criticisms that have been leveled at the course these changes have taken, the U.S. Army over this period found itself tasked with the monumental job of resurrecting an effective fighting force from the ashes of physical depletion and psychological defeat at a time when the Soviets had made huge gains in their conventional and nuclear forces. When the Army finally did begin to lift its head from the smoky confusion of Vietnam and turn its attention to Central Europe, it found the situation there daunting—to say the least.