The modern US Army was largely created in the years between the two world wars. Prior to World War I, officers in leadership positions were increasingly convinced that building a new army could not take place as a series of random developments but had to be guided by military policy. In 1920, Congress accepted that idea and embodied it in the National Defense Act. In doing so it also accepted army leadership's idea of entrusting America's security to the Citizen Army, and tasked the nation's Regular Army with developing and training that force. Creating the Modern Army details the efforts of the Regular Army to do so in the face of austerity budgets and public apathy while simultaneously responding to the challenges posed by the new and revolutionary mechanization of warfare. In this book Woolley focuses on the development of what he sees as the four major features of the modernized army that emerged due to these efforts.

Disappointment and disillusionment : the Army and the nation, 1920-1925 --The heart of the policy creating the new citizen Army -- The Army in the era of stability, 1926-1929 : creating the branches -- Stabilizing the relationship : the Army and the nation in the era of stability -- The civilian components in the era of stability -- Creating orthodoxy and predictability : professional military education in the Army, 1919-1939 -- Building a throne for the queen : infantry branch organization and branch culture in the 1920s -- Branch stagnation : American field artillery in the interwar period -- End of the big guns : mission and branch identity crisis in the coastal artillery, 1919-1939 -- The Army besieged : the Army and the nation in the decade of the Depression, 1930-1939 -- Stability amidst crisis : the civilian components in the 1930s -- Modern weapons and traditional tactics, the infantry and tanks, 1920-1939 -- Mounts or motors? : the cavalry and the response to mechanization, 1920-1939.