As the war in Southeast Asia wound down, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began a slow and sometimes uncomfortable reassessment of their military plans and policies. Similar reassessments had followed previous wars and invariably had given rise to passionate inter-Service rivalries and intense competition for resources. Some of these elements, to be sure, were present in the aftermath of Vietnam. But compared to the build-downs that followed World War II and Korea, the transition following Vietnam was relatively smooth and easy. Indeed, the most serious problems that arose were in developing military policies and a force posture compatible with a rapidly changing international environment dominated by the prospect of a new era in Soviet-American relations known as "détente.”