war college

war college, any one of five U.S. institutions of higher education that offer professional military education to senior officers in the U.S armed services, U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees, and foreign military officials. Four of the institutions—the U.S. Naval War College (NWC), the U.S. Army War College (AWC), the Air University, and the Marine Corps War College (MCWAR)—are linked to their respective service branches. The National Defense University (NDU) provides a joint educational program (one that promotes an in-depth understanding of subjects as they relate to multiple branches of the military) for senior military officers. Although their student bodies vary according to their missions, the colleges share similar goals: improving the professional education of the highest levels of military leadership and applying lessons learned during war.

U.S. Naval War College

The oldest military institution in the United States is the NWC, established in 1884 on Coasters Harbor Island, Newport, Rhode Island, to offer an advanced course of professional study for naval officers. The founding president, Commodore Stephen B. Luce, viewed the college as a place for senior officers to study strategy, tactics, and operations on the basis of the examination of history. He created a full-year program integral to the development of a naval officer’s career. The program grants its graduates either a diploma or a Master of Arts degree in national security and strategic studies.

The school gained international recognition when Luce’s successor, Alfred Thayer Mahan, published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890. Mahan’s writings and lectures greatly influenced Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and other world leaders, including German Emperor Wilhelm II, shaping global policy based on sea power at the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1887 the NWC introduced an elaborate program of war-gaming. The college soon emerged as an internationally recognized laboratory for war planning and military operations. Tactical, operational, and even technical problems were routinely submitted to the college for solution.

World War I interrupted studies at the NWC, and when the college reopened in 1919, its program focused on four major subjects: command, strategy, tactics, and policy. The NWC hosts an annual symposium, the Current Strategy Forum, and since 1948 has published a journal, the Naval War College Review (originally titled Information Service for Officers).

U.S. Army War College

The AWC, established at Washington Barracks (now Fort Lesley J. McNair) in Washington, D.C., in 1901, traces its roots to the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Although the United States easily defeated the Spanish in that conflict, the war revealed weaknesses in the U.S. military. As a partial remedy, the college was created to further the professional education of staff officers.

Henry Ball’s history of the AWC, Of Responsible Command (1983), identified a number of distinct incarnations of the institution on the basis of stages in its evolution. The first AWC sought to improve the professional preparation of the army’s general staff. The AWC was closed in 1916 as the United States prepared to enter World War I. It was reopened after the war in 1919 in its second incarnation, its purpose having been amended in response to the lessons of that conflict. The curriculum was expanded to include history and analysis of the political, economic, and social factors that influenced the conduct of World War I.

The AWC closed again during World War II and reopened at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1950 in its third form. The following year it relocated to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Its goals were shaped by the Cold War and by the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. To better prepare senior army officers, the third AWC expanded its scope to include global strategy, national military strategy, and international security. It continued to train its graduates for high-level staff and command positions. The AWC evolved again with the ending of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the appearance of new threats, such as international terrorism, regional conflicts, and drug lords. It provides its graduates with certification in various levels of joint professional military education. The AWC encompasses several research and training centres in the fields of strategic leadership, peacekeeping and stability, and physical fitness, as well as maintaining the Army Heritage and Education Center, whose resources are available to researchers.

Air University

Air University grew out of the Air Corps Tactical School, which relocated in 1928 from Langley, Virginia, to Maxwell Field (later Maxwell Air Force Base), near Montgomery, Alabama. The U.S. Army Air Corps (the present-day U.S. Air Force) established other facilities there, including, in 1941, an advanced flying school and, during World War II, a training school for pilots of four-engine warplanes. Air University was established in the same location after the war, in 1946, and became a major part of the U.S. Air Force system of education. Two main components of the university in its early years were the Air War College (the senior school in the air force’s professional military education system) and the Air Command and Staff College. Over time the air force moved all its professional continuing-education schools there. By the early 21st century those included the Air Force Institute of Technology and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Air University’s mission is to educate planners and leaders in air and space power for the air force, other branches of the armed forces, federal government civilians, and many international organizations. Its schools grant master’s and doctoral degrees in subjects related to military strategy and operations.