United States Army Command and General Staff College


The United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is a graduate school for United States Army and sister service officers, interagency representatives, and international military officers. The college was established in 1881 by William Tecumseh Sherman as the School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry, a training school for infantry and cavalry officers. In 1907 it changed its title to the School of the Line. The curriculum expanded throughout World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War and continues to adapt to include lessons learned from current conflicts.
In addition to the main campus at Fort Leavenworth, the college has satellite campuses at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Fort Lee, Virginia; Fort Gordon, Georgia; and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

Mission statement

The United States Army Command and General Staff College educates and develops leaders for full spectrum joint, interagency and multinational operations; acts as lead agent for the Army's leader development program; and advances the art and science of the profession of arms in support of Army operational requirements.

Schools

The college consists of four schools: the Command and General Staff School, the School of Advanced Military Studies, the School for Command Preparation, and the School of Advanced Leadership and Tactics.
During World War I, the CGSC at Ft. Leavenworth was closed, from 1916 until 1920. Most of the school staff was sent to Langres, France, to open and conduct the Army General Staff College, which operated from November 1917 to December 1918. This compressed-curriculum school was needed to provide command and staff officers for the exponentially growing number of Army units; divisions, regiments, brigades, and battalions.

Master of Military Art and Science degree

The Command and General Staff College confers a Master of Military Art and Science professional degree to graduates of the School of Advanced Military Studies as well as graduates of the Command and General Staff School who complete a thesis-level research paper. The degree is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission for collegiate institutions in the midwestern United States.
Military art and science is an interdisciplinary field of study. It encompasses many academic disciplines insofar as they relate to war, peace, and the employment of military forces; they include established academic fields of study such as sociology, history, engineering, psychology, politics, geography, science, ethics, economics, anthropology, and others. It may also include other professional fields of practice such as medicine and the law insofar as they interact with the military or are applied to military matters. It provides intellectual and theoretical depth to the military profession and its practitioners. Thus, a large proportion of research in the field of military art and science is done to address practical problems faced by practitioners. Purely academic research, however, is also an integral part of the field and is essential to ensure its continued intellectual vitality. The results of scholarship and research in the field may be of interest and may be helpful to political leaders and policymakers, military officers, as well as to scholars and the interested public.
Military art generally deals with the human dimensions of war and military operations. Military art is generally subject to qualitative rather than quantitative investigation, although it does not exclude the use of quantitative methods when appropriate. It includes such areas as psychology, leadership, individual and collective behavior, culture, ethics, and problem-solving. History provides the context and depth for the study of military art. Military art also includes such specifically military subjects as strategy, operational art, and tactics. Military science generally deals with the technical dimensions of war and military operations. Military art is generally subject to quantitative rather than qualitative investigation, although qualitative methodologies are used when appropriate. It includes such areas as the technological military applications and equipment made possible by the physical sciences, various engineering disciplines, industrial management, logistics, electronic simulations, communications technologies, and transportation technologies. Mathematics is an important tool in the practice of military science and associated disciplines. Specific military applications include gunnery and ballistics, materials science technology for soldier protection, transportation technologies, and communications technologies. The interdisciplinary field of military art and science may be pictured as a "big umbrella" which encompasses other academic disciplines and fields of professional practice.

Notable people

Notable alumni

The college reports that 7,000 international students representing 155 countries have attended CGSC since 1894 and that more than 50 percent of CGSC International Military Student graduates attain the rank of general.
Since 1976, the commandant of the college has been a lieutenant general. David Petraeus was the commandant between 2005 and 2007, immediately before going to command the Multi-National Force – Iraq.

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