It was founded in response to a need for professional soldiery in the American Revolutionary War in order to fight the invading British Army. The Army was quite small in peacetime down to the 1940s. The Air Force became practically independent in World War II, and completely so in 1947. The Army was under the control of the War Department until 1947, and the Defense Department since then. The U.S. Army fought the War of 1812 (1812–15), American Civil War (1861–65), Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1917–18), World War II (1941–45), Korean War (1950–53) and Vietnam War (1965–71). After the Cold War ended in 1991, the Army has focused on insurgencies in the Middle East, such as the Gulf War, and the recent War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan.