United States Army Command and General Staff College

The Command and General Staff College
The Command and General Staff College
	Fort Leavenworth, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, and U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Device
Active	1881–present
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army
Garrison/HQ	Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Motto(s)	Ad Bellum Pace Parati
Commanders
Commandant	LTG Milford H. Beagle Jr.
Deputy Commandant	BG David C. Foley

The United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC or, obsolete, USACGSC) 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 (later simply the Infantry and Cavalry School), a training school for infantry and cavalry officers.^[1] 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 Gregg-Adams, Virginia; Fort Eisenhower, Georgia; and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. The college also maintains a distance-learning modality for some of its instruction.

Mission statement

The United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) educates, trains and develops leaders for Unified Land Operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational operational environment; and to advance the art and science of the Profession of Arms in support of Army operational requirements. ^[2]

Schools

The college consists of four schools:^[2] the Command and General Staff School, the School of Advanced Military Studies, the School for Command Preparation, and the Sergeants Major Academy.

Command and General Staff School (CGSS) delivers a ten-month Command and General Staff Officers Course (CGSOC) in residence at Fort Leavenworth, KS, to just over 1,200 U.S. military officers, international military officers, and interagency partners each academic year. Additionally, the School teaches CGSOC Common Core to 960 students at four satellite campuses, and the CGSOC Common Core and Advanced Operations Course (AOC) via distance learning (DL) to approximately 5,300 active and reserve component officers around the world. Resident CGSOC students are eligible to pursue the Masters of Operational Studies (MOS) or the Master of Military Art and Science (MMAS). Chapter 7 details CGSS delivery of CGSOC.

– The School of Professional Military Education at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) on Fort Benning, GA, offers the ten-month resident Command and General Staff Officer Course in Spanish to approximately 64 US and international officers each year. Since 2012, CGSOC students at SPME have been eligible to pursue the MMAS.

School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) provides the Advanced Military Studies Program (AMSP) to 144 officers – most of whom just graduated from CGSOC – and the Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies Program (ASLSP) for 16 Senior Service College-select U.S. officers, international officers, and U.S. agency partners. All graduates of AMSP receive the Master of Arts in Military Operations, while graduates of ASLSP receive a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies. SAMS also manages the Army’s Advanced Strategic Planning and Policy Program (ASP3) within which Army officers pursue PhDs in international relations, public policy, economics, and history from leading universities in the U.S. and United Kingdom. There are currently 103 carefully selected senior Army strategic planners and future leaders in this program.
School for Command Preparation (SCP) provides continuing education for future Army battalion and brigade commanders, command sergeants major, and spouses in ten 1-4 week courses offered multiple times during each academic year. SCP’s important mission and ten courses are characterized in Chapter 10.
The Sergeants Major Academy (SGM-A) on Fort Bliss, TX, became CGSC's fourth school and a branch campus in March 2018. Each year, SGM-A offers the ten-month Sergeants Major Course-Resident (SMC-R) to 720 senior U.S. and international noncommissioned officers, and the SMC via distributed learning to another 1,320 mainly Army Reserve and National Guard NCOs around the world.

Master of Military Art and Science degree

The Command and General Staff College confers a Master of Military Art and Science (MMAS) 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.^[3]

Notable people

Notable alumni

Notable foreign 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 (IMS) graduates attain the rank of general.^[4]

General Carlos Prats, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Interior and Defense Minister, Vice President of the Republic of Chile.
Minister of State General Mohammed F Abo Sak of Saudi Arabia
Prime Minister and General Kriangsak Chamanan of Thailand
General Alfredo M. Santos of the Philippines
Lieutenant General Rafael Ileto (former Secretary of the Department of National Defense) of the Philippines
Prime Minister and General Tran Thien Khiem of South Vietnam
General Do Cao Tri of South Vietnam
General Hau Pei-tsun of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda
General Katumba Wamala of Uganda
Brigadier General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Ugandan president
General Yahya Khan of Pakistan
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan
General Rahimuddin Khan of Pakistan
General Jehangir Karamat of Pakistan
General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani of Pakistan
General Eiji Kimizuka of Japan
General Hisham Jaber of Lebanon
General Krishnaswamy Sundarji of Indian Army
Brigadier-General Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, 3rd Prime Minister of Singapore
General Dieudonné Kayembe Mbandakulu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
President Gaafar Nimeiry of Sudan
Lt. Colonel Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero of the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua
General Nguyễn Hợp Đoàn of South Vietnam
General Nguyễn Khánh of South Vietnam
General Phạm Văn Đổng of South Vietnam
Ministry/Chief of Army General Staff and General Ahmad Yani of Indonesia
President and General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia
General Veljko Kadijević of Yugoslavia
General Antonio Domingo Bussi of Argentina
General Moeen U Ahmed of Bangladesh
General Amer Khammash of Jordan
General Arne Dagfin Dahl of Norway
General Gustav Hägglund of Finland
General Avigdor Kahalani of Israel
Lieutenant General David Tevzadze of Georgia
Major General Vladimer Chachibaia of Georgia
Colonel Nikoloz Janjgava of Georgia
Général d'armée René Imbot, Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Director of DGSE, France
King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain^[5]
General Abdulkadir Sheikh Dini of Somalia
Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali of Egypt
Lieutenant General Sean McCann of Ireland
General Mahesh Senanayake of Sri Lanka
General Bipin Rawat of India, Chief of Defence Staff
Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskyi of Ukraine

Notable faculty and deputy commandants

Robert Arter (Deputy Commandant 1977–79)
Richard E. Cavazos (faculty 1970–71)
Roger H.C. Donlon (1978–81)^[6]
Frederick M. Franks Jr. (Deputy commandant 1985–87)
Glenn K. Otis Deputy Chief of Staff 1976–78
Colin Powell Deputy Commanding General of the Combined Arms Combat Development Activity (1982–83)
Gordon R. Sullivan Deputy Commandant 1987–88
Adna R. Chaffee Jr. 1919–20
Clarence R. Huebner (1929–33)
Walter Krueger (1901–12)
Lucian Truscott 1934–40

Commandants

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.