Headquarters, Department of the Army
April 2005
Chapter 1
Operational Threats of the Civil Disturbance Environment
As the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism in 1989, the Army was no longer concerned with containing the aggressive Soviet Union. The US Army began to transform because the battlefield on which it would fight had changed. Operations Just Cause, Joint Endeavor, Desert Shield, and Desert Storm have all been recognized as containing nontraditional battlefields. Following these operations, the Army was called upon to conduct peacekeeping, peace
enforcement, and humanitarian assistance operations. These operations required US forces to protect refugees and humanitarian workers and keep hostile factions separate to enforce peace.