"nation-building Period" The U.s. Military Reform And Construction

The thirty years from 1783 to 1812 (from the victory of the Independence War to the breaking up of the second US-Britain War) is called by the history arena as the National Founding Period.In this period, the USA, just leaving the British colonial rule behind, is faced with unprecedented difficulties and challenges. In order to cope with the complicated international and domestic conflicts and surging crisis, consolidate the hard-earn independence and walk out of the crisis at a earlier date, the USA, under the leadership of Gorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and etc, carried out a series of successful military reforms and building, which played an unmatchable role in the military history of the USA and laid a solid foundation for it to become the most powerful military nation. These measures strengthened greatly its military power and its capacity of national defense, national stability and economic development. Under their help, USA walked out of the crisis and began to enjoy a conducive international environment for development.For decades, experts and scholars have produced a large number of publications on the American military, but mainly focusing on the Already Powerful US Military. There are not many accounts on the national founding period. Hence, the paper has a fair comprehensive account on the military reform and building in this period and the cause of the military growth and its way of development, which is relevant to our country in military and national defense building.In the first part, this paper focuses on the introduction of the background of the military reform in this period. Through the analysis of the traditional military mindset and the harsh domestic and international situations, this paper puts forward both the subjective and objective causes of such reforms and the history relevance.In the second part, the paper focuses on the important ideas on guiding and promoting such reforms and building. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton are three key leaders of the USA history on promoting and shaping the American military reforms and building. Military forms and building of later days are just following their ideas.The third part contributes to the achievement of such measures. In general, the following five achievements are obtained:1. Establishing the military institutional framework through the constitution; 2. Establishing the regular expandable army; 3. rebuilding its navy, and building a fair large scale naval in service; 4. perfecting the militia system, which becomes stable backup to the regular military forces; 5. Laid a solid foundation for the military education in the USA.The fourth part does general assessment on the military reform and building in this period from two aspects. The first aspect is on the significance and influence of the reform and building on the growth and development of the USA; the second one is on the problems and minuses of the military reforms, and also puts forward the in-depth analysis on the causes of these problems.