Secretary of War Elihu Root established the [War College] in 1901 to help the army develop officers who could manage the demands of global responsibilities.
Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George has tasked the United States Army to focus on warfighting, delivering combat ready formations, and strengthen the profession of arms while engaging in continuous transformation to the meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. The Army War College has heard that call and is about to engage in the biggest curriculum change in the seven decades since the college moved to Carlisle Barracks after the Second World War.
Of course, the Army War College has long had a similar mandate. Secretary of War Elihu Root established the school in 1901 Root to help the army develop officers who could manage the demands of global responsibilities. While the United States had won the Spanish-American War, its army had struggled to deploy forces across the globe and employ them wisely to accomplish national objectives. Secretary Root imagined the college as “a post-graduate course” where the best officers would “study and confer upon the great problems of national defense, of military science, and of responsible command.”
Originally located at what is now Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., the Army War College educated many of the senior officers who would serve with distinction in the First and Second World Wars. Moving to its current location at Carlisle Barracks in the wake of that great conflict, it has continued to research and teach the subjects of national defense, military science, and responsible command ever since, not just to army officers but to U.S. government civilians from different departments and agencies, officers of the joint force, and an increasing number of officers from our allies and partners around the globe ever since.
The curriculum has, of necessity, evolved over the century and a quarter since the college’s founding, increasing the variety of courses taught and the amount of student choice among those courses while remaining true to Secretary Root’s vision and to the needs of the most powerful country in the world. The college is now embarking on the most significant curricular changes in generations to better prepare officers for the tasks they will face upon graduation, a redesign titled “Assessment Based Tailorable Education” that will go into effect in academic year 2027, but that has already begun to shape what and how the faculty teaches our 375 resident students every year.
The motivation behind the changes comes from not just from General George but also from former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who expressed concern that the professional military education system had become stagnant. In response, the War College reexamined everything it does over the course of ten months to best prepare resident students for their responsibilities to lead American and allied military forces: “Not to promote war, but to preserve peace by intelligent and adequate preparation to repel aggression” in the words of Secretary Root.
ABTE begins with assessing the skills, knowledge, attributes, and experience of every U.S. student who attends the resident program of instruction. Assignment officers will have early, in-person conversations with students about where they are likely to serve next and what skills and knowledge, they should develop in preparation for that posting and for the remainder of their likely career.
While students are assessing themselves in the light of that conversation, directors of two of the Army War College’s special programs will get in touch with students they have screened for participation in their seminars based on attributes, such as of previous civilian and military education. The National Security Policy Program focuses on preparing students for high-level political/military jobs in offices like that of the Secretary of Defense. The Carlisle Scholars Program delivers the curriculum through a special learning methodology, and has students spend much of the second semester doing real-world projects for the Army and other national security organizations.
Whether they attend a special program or not, students will be incorporated into their assigned seminar, in which a faculty advisor will continue the assessment process. These faculty members work with the students to identify “holes in their swing” and provide them with information on the opportunities they will have during their year at Carlisle to better prepare them for what comes next. One of those opportunities is the Advanced Strategic Arts Program, which assesses students during the first semester and, beginning after the winter break, forms a special seminar that spends the spring semester engaging in historically-based learning that includes a number of battlefield staff rides.
The heart of ABTE is the creation of new “extended core” classes tied to the existing core curriculum requirements, some of which date back to the founding of the college.
All students selected to attend the resident Army War College program are already highly successful practitioners of some aspect of the management of violence to achieve political objectives, but in a common refrain at the college, they learn that “what got them here won’t get them where the nation needs them to go next” without additional skills, knowledge, and attributes. Under ABTE, they fill those gaps with a core curriculum during the first semester and a new tailored curriculum during the second that takes advantage of all that the faculty have learned about them, and they have learned about themselves, since their assignment to Carlisle Barracks.
The heart of ABTE is the creation of new “extended core” classes tied to the existing core curriculum requirements, some of which date back to the founding of the college. Courses in Strategic Leadership, Theories of War and Strategy, Military Strategy and Campaigning, Joint Warfighting, National Security Policy and Strategy, and Defense Management comprise the common core that all students will pursue in the first semester. The second semester allows students to specialize in areas of military science that may be unfamiliar to them from their service in tactical units, but that will be essential as they assume strategic responsibilities for the nation.
The extended core courses, directed electives, and free electives will be grouped into four tracks—Joint Warfighting, Strategic Leadership, National Security, and Building Defense Forces—to help students “tailor” a program that will best prepare them for the responsibilities they will soon shoulder out in the force. Many students will be able to choose two tracks within which to tailor their second semester education; a student who will leave the Army War College to assume command of a tank brigade might choose to pursue additional studies in Strategic Leadership and Joint Warfighting Tracks during the second semester, while one who will assume responsibility for the production of artillery ammunition for the joint force might be better served doing deeper learning in Building Defense Forces and National Security Tracks.
Assessment Based Tailorable Education makes it easier for faculty to assess and then advise students on how they should consider tailoring their education at the War College. It also provides more faculty opportunities for leadership of the many extended core curricular offerings and more flexibility for the dean and department chairs to better manage faculty workloads and schedules. While teaching loads will be unchanged for most faculty, more will be teaching courses that they have personally designed, which should increase both student learning and faculty satisfaction.
The Army War College consists of several centers and institutes, not just the School of Strategic Leadership, which carries the bulk of the education mission that is most commonly associated with the War College. ABTE has implications for these organizations as well, including tighter integration between the Strategic Studies Institute (the college’s research directorate) and the Center for Strategic Leadership with the SSL. Under ABTE, professors from SSI and CSL will teach both extended core and free electives during the second semester, giving students a deeper understanding of the many resources that the Army War College can provide to them on a reach back basis after graduation. One of the unsung contributions of the War College to the nation is the deep regional and subject matter expertise that its faculty regularly provides to the joint staff, the Department of the Army, and other federal and state organizations; building points of connection among the schools, centers, institutes, and programs that populate Carlisle Barracks may be one of the most significant benefits of ABTE over the long term.
With Assessment Based Tailorable Education, the Army War College is working hard to transform itself to meet the Chief’s requirements while remaining true to Elihu Root’s vision of more than a century ago. Today, as then, “Membership in the War College will mean honor and opportunity. In its confidential archives will be garnered the results of the best thought of the army, and in the continuous existence of the institution . . . will be found continuity of knowledge, of thought, and of military policy always available for practical uses.” Not to promote war, but to preserve peace. Strength and wisdom!
Ed Kaplan is the Dean of the School of Strategic Landpower and former Director of Aerospace Studies at the U.S. Army War College.
John Nagl is Professor of Warfighting Studies at the U.S. Army War College. He is the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.