School of Advanced Military Studies

School of Advanced Military Studies
Name	School of Advanced Military Studies
Established	1984
Type	Professional military education
Parent	United States Army Command and General Staff College
Location	Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States
Colors	Black and Gold
Website	(official site)

School of Advanced Military Studies

The School of Advanced Military Studies is a graduate-level professional institution founded to develop operational planners and strategic thinkers for the United States Army and allied services. It operates within the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and has influenced campaigns, doctrine, and theater-level staff work across conflicts such as Operations Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom. Alumni have served in commands and staffs from corps headquarters to joint and coalition headquarters, contributing to doctrine debates alongside institutions like the United States Military Academy, National War College, and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

History

The school traces origins to reforms after the Vietnam War and the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s, shaped by debates involving figures associated with the Falklands War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo Campaign, and Cold War-era planning such as NATO exercises and the Reforger series. Early development drew on intellectual currents from the likes of Basil Liddell Hart, Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Thayer Mahan, John Boyd, and William Lind, while institutional antecedents included the Command and General Staff College, the Army War College, the National Defense University, and the School of Advanced Military Studies’ counterparts in allied services such as the Canadian Forces College and the Australian Defence College. The creation in 1984 responded to operational shortfalls highlighted by studies after the Lebanon intervention, Grenada, and analysis of campaign planning in the Vietnam War and Korean War. Through the 1990s and 2000s the school adapted curricula in response to operations involving CENTCOM, EUCOM, and ISAF, and in dialogue with doctrine promulgated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and publications from RAND Corporation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mission and Curriculum

The school's mission emphasizes producing planners capable of operational art informed by history, theory, and practice relevant to campaigns such as the Normandy Campaign, Operation Overlord, and the Battle of Stalingrad. Courses integrate case studies from World War II generals, Napoleonic campaigns, and the campaigns of Frederick the Great, and draw on works by Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini, and military theorists like B. H. Liddell Hart and Julian Corbett. The curriculum blends seminars on campaign design and operational art with practical exercises using scenarios from the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the Global War on Terror; students study operations under commanders such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov, Erwin Rommel, and Ulysses S. Grant. Instruction crosses boundaries with joint doctrine from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, doctrine contributions from the Marine Corps University, Air University, and Naval War College, and analyses by scholars at Harvard Kennedy School, Princeton, and Stanford.

Admissions and Selection

Admission is competitive and typically follows completion of intermediate service college prerequisites, often involving officers recommended by commands such as US Army Training and Doctrine Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Central Command, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Selection boards consider performance evaluated against benchmarks set by the Army Personnel Command, O-4 and O-5 grade expectations, and prior schooling including the Command and General Staff College and service-specific staff courses at institutions like the School of Advanced Military Studies’ allied equivalents in the British Army and French Army staff colleges. Candidates often possess combat experience from operations like Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Allied Force, and peacekeeping missions under United Nations and NATO mandates.

Notable Alumni and Influence

Graduates have shaped campaigns and policy in positions ranging from brigade command to staff directorates in theater headquarters, joint task forces, and multinational staffs, influencing operations similar to Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Afghanistan Campaign, and NATO Response Force deployments. Alumni have advised senior leaders including Secretaries of Defense, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Combatant Commanders, and service chiefs, and have contributed to doctrine updates for Joint Publication series, Army Field Manuals, and coalition doctrine. Notable personnel connected by association or influence include planners and commanders from the eras of George C. Marshall, Omar Bradley, Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal, Martin Dempsey, and Raymond Odierno, as well as scholars and practitioners from RAND, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and think tanks such as the Brookings Institution and Heritage Foundation.

Organization and Faculty

The school is organized into academic departments and seminar groups led by faculty drawn from active-duty officers, civilian academics, and visiting scholars from institutions like Georgetown University, Columbia University, the Fletcher School, and the Naval War College. Faculty expertise spans military history, operational art, international relations, logistics, and civil-military relations, with contributions from researchers affiliated with the Hoover Institution, the Belfer Center, and the Institute for the Study of War. Organizationally, it reports through the Command and General Staff College and coordinates with U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Army Training and Doctrine Command, and joint education authorities under the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Facilities and Locations

Located on Fort Leavenworth, the school shares facilities with the Command and General Staff College and occupies classroom, seminar, and wargaming spaces equipped for staff planning exercises and model-driven simulations similar to those used in professional military education at the Naval Postgraduate School and the Air Force Institute of Technology. The campus is proximate to the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery and interacts with academic repositories such as the Combined Arms Research Library, National Archives holdings related to World War II, the Civil War, and other campaign papers, enabling student access to primary sources like operational orders, staff studies, and campaign maps.

Category:United States Army education and training