CARSLISLE, Pa (March 09 2016) -- U.S. Army War College (USAWC) and the Army Study Program Management Office (ASPMO) are currently working together to development a partnership to take advantage of the Army War College's intellectual capacity to perform internal Army strategic studies. The USAWC wants to offer its resources to assist other commands in meeting their analysis requirements.
The mission of the USAWC, located at Carlisle, PA since 1951, is to educate and develop leaders for all services at the strategic level, while advancing knowledge in the global application of Landpower. The War College provides high quality education that assists in this goal, ensuring that students are armed with the right balance of theory, history, practice, and communication skills to offer solutions to complex strategic problems upon return to their respective organizations. The USAWC's world-class faculty and centrally selected students offer the Army an invaluable resource for conducting strategic research.
Each of the six major components comprising the Army War College enhance research conducted and produced at Carlisle Barracks. The School of Strategic Landpower (SSL) is the core of the education program. The SSL develops strategic leaders through a strong foundation of wisdom grounded in mastery of the profession of arms, and by educating future leaders in the analysis, evaluation, and refinement of strategy, operations, and national security, among others. The Center for Strategic Leadership (CSL) has world class gaming capabilities to test theories and concepts in depth. The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is fielded by world-class research faculty, and the USAWC Press publishes and exposes studies to broad military and academic audiences. The U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) faculty have a wealth of real world experience and are strongly networked to the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations communities. The U.S. Army Garrison at Carlisle Barracks provides quality infrastructure and services to support the development of the nation's strategic leaders.
The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) provides students with a virtual universe of history to assist and supplement Army-related research on any number of topics. It houses the largest repository of Army history, with over 16 million items, from papers and books, to photographs, weapons, and other artifacts. AHEC offers historical analysis and provides reference materials to address the current challenges facing the Army. The team at AHEC developed their own search engine so that students, the general public, or any other interested party may search the millions of resources and find exactly what they need.
As a participant in the U.S. Army Study Program the USAWC is currently conducting five Fiscal Year 2016 (FY16) research projects funded by the Army Study Program Management Office. Topics of the five student-led research studies include competition in the Asia-Pacific, security in Eastern Europe, and hybrid warfare and gray zone conflict. All five of the USAWC's proposals competed with approximately 35 other commands' proposals and were voted to be funded by ASPMO by representatives from the participating commands.
Most commands propose studies to get in-depth research and analysis on issues that affect their command and the whole Army. The analysis piece is generally outsourced to either an internal Army asset such as the Center for Army Analysis, or contracted to outside sources for performance. However, the USAWC is able to propose and perform the studies internally, drawing from curriculum and frameworks used in seminars to explain strategic level processes, strategies, and policies, thereby saving scarce Army resources. This is what makes the Army War College approach unique; it does not simply sponsor the studies, it uses knowledgeable faculty and students' recent experience and educational opportunities to perform strategic level security and defense issue qualitative analysis in-house.
The teaming of faculty-student research provides a timely report conducted within the academic year, and relevance based upon the faculty's' depth and the students' current experience. The consequences of this approach are minimal, but include the time constraints of falling within the academic year compounded with the students' work load and the inability to perform staff action work on these projects.
The five approved FY16 research projects integrate students, faculty, and staff from several of these components into multidisciplinary teams, which will complete their work over the course of the FY. The first of the five projects addresses "U.S. Army General Officer Leadership." It seeks, through a four phase study, to identify successful attributes for Army Major and Brigadier Generals and determine recommendations to better prepare General Officers, thereby enhancing the leader development for this group of critical leaders.
The second effort, titled "Future of the Army," will analyze and provide a feasible strategic construct for the shape, size, availability, and mix of the Army that is innovative and timely. "Defense and Ground Force Implications of Hybrid and Gray Zone Threats," the third priority FY16 study for the USAWC, is examining hybrid/gray zone challenges from a strategic-level Department of Defense and Joint perspective. The intent is to identify the force shaping implications most relevant to U.S. ground forces, and explore both the hybrid/gray zone challenges universally to examine feasible strategic responses to them to provide senior leaders with a more sophisticated perspective on the context within which their forces will operate, and the capabilities necessary to do so effectively.
The fourth study that the USAWC is performing is a five phase effort titled "Responding to Crises in Europe: Is the Army Prepared to Execute the Full Range of Military Operations?" This analysis effort will address whether the Army is prepared to execute the full range of military operations in Europe, especially involving deterrence and reassurance with respect to Russia. The results of this study will benefit the Army as well as U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in many aspects, including providing recommendations for force posture in Europe.
The last of the War College's FY16 analysis efforts is "U.S.-China Competition: Asia Pacific Land Force Implications." The purpose of this study is to identify land force capabilities and initiatives necessary to advance U.S. national interests and achieve strategic objectives against 'Gray Zone' and disorder challengers in the Asia-Pacific region. This will provide rationale for resourcing and prioritizing U.S. Army capabilities and initiatives to advance U.S. interests and to counter Gray Zone competition and security disorder activities in the Asia-Pacific Theater.
The USAWC provides an additional resource for research and analysis, in addition to a wealth of knowledge, experience, and talent that is invaluable in the analytical community. Both the Army Study Program Management Office and the U.S. Army War College look forward to leveraging this beneficial partnership in the future.
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