Though martial arts--including bayonet and sword thrusts and unarmed close combat techniques--have been employed by members of the U.S. Marine Corps since its inception during the Revolutionary War period, a new era began in 2000, with the creation of the U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the U.S. military--specifically the Army and the Marine Corps--began to concentrate on training its special operations soldiers in techniques that could be used in international peacekeeping missions and other military operations other than war (MOOTW), where close combat would be necessary but force was not required to be lethal.

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