The National War College Marking 70 Years of Strategic Education
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National War College (Katie Freeman) The National War College Marking 70 Years of Strategic Education By Janet Breslin-Smith eventy years ago, a war-weary Soviet aggression shattered postwar Washington struggled with dreams of peace. With the dawn of S uncertainty and alarm. Exhausted 1946 we entered a new strategic era— after years of global conflict and still the bipolar struggle with the Soviet Dr. Janet Breslin-Smith was Chair of the carrying memories of the Great Depres- Union. Department of National Security Strategy at the National War College (NWC) and taught sion, America yearned for home and The Nation responded. Testifying to at the college from 1992 to 2006. She is prosperity. Yet barely 6 months after the resilience and creative pragmatism of co-author of The National War College: A victory in World War II, Washington American leadership, Washington’s alarm History of Strategic Thinking in Peace and War (NWC Association, 2008). She is President of faced troubling signs of danger ahead. and uncertainty soon were replaced by Crosswinds Strategic Consulting. A past ally was becoming a threat. productivity and accomplishment. Key JFQ 84, 1st Quarter 2017 Breslin-Smith 59 that year, these men developed the first “joint” evolution in professional military education—the Army-Navy Staff College, a 12-week program for selected officers for command and staff duty in unified or coordinated com- mands. This idea caught on and by 1944 there was growing support, not only for enhanced joint senior officer education but also for a larger institu- tional reorganization cutting across the Executive Branch. Within months of war’s end, these military leaders, working with officials in the Truman administration and with Congress, began to develop the com- ponent parts of what was to become the National Security Act of 1947. There was an active give and take over suggestions to consolidate the Departments of War and the Navy, to create an independent Air Force, to centralize and improve national intelligence, and to create a co- Senior American commanders in Western Europe, 1945; seated, left to right, William Hood Simpson, ordinating National Security Council for George S. Patton, Carl A. Spaatz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Courtney Hodges, Leonard T. the President. Gerow; standing, left to right, Ralph Francis Stearley, Hoyt Vandenberg, Walter Bedell Smith, Otto P. Weyland, and Richard E. Nugent (U.S. Army/National Archives and Records Administration) Underlying these structural changes was a shared vision that the Nation political, military, and diplomatic leaders “Hap” Arnold, the experimental heritage needed a new and broader focus on strat- encouraged and embraced experimenta- of the Franklin D. Roosevelt years, and egy, grand strategy, the “interrelationship tion, and within a year of war’s end, they fresh opportunity presented by the new of military and nonmilitary means in the had created new institutions, formulated Harry Truman administration. There promulgation of national policy,” to meet new strategy, and developed new con- was also a special urgency to these years, the challenge posed by an aggressive gressional support. as dramatic new technologies disrupted Soviet Union and its economic ideology In today’s climate of bureaucratic the tried and true notions of war and of Marxism. This vision found its home as gridlock and institutional rigidity, it is peace. Atomic weapons, missile technol- the foundational concept for the National worth noting that the Nation’s capital ogy, breakthroughs in the speed of flight, War College, which celebrates its 70th an- once welcomed new ideas that challenged and new forms of communication jolted niversary this year. past assumptions, and worked across Washington into action. Today the United States, and indeed party lines with the Executive Branch. Any sense of complacency, “the the world, struggles with a different chal- Washington quickly set aside entrenched stovepipe” constraint in our current ter- lenge. We are confronted with a complex interests and readied itself for what was to minology, was replaced by a shared belief religious, political, and cultural struggle, a be called the Cold War. that this new threat required new national self-conflicted mass movement embracing Creativity did not emerge overnight. security thinking. The military, diplomats, terror tactics and an aggressive religious It was forged from years of executive and scholars had to work together. But ideology. We are not even sure what to and congressional engagement dur- first they had to study together. call it. ing the New Deal era, and benefited Indeed, Washington has been amaz- from national wartime unity and the First Attempts at Joint ingly slow at, if not incapable of, finding specific talents developed during the Professional Military Education new strategy and being open to new war, especially by the Army, for rigorous As early as 1943, in the midst of war, ideas. Given this prolonged failure, it may planning. The war had made Washington Generals Eisenhower, Arnold, and be useful to examine the late 1940s and a marketplace for fresh thinking and Marshall and Admiral Ernest King 1950s, the early years of the War College, institution-building. The history of the were looking ahead to redesign and for lessons that can be applied to today’s postwar period reflects the stature of mili- improve professional military educa- search for a new and more effective strat- tary leaders such as George C. Marshall, tion and, ultimately, create a new egy. It may also remind us of a time past, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Henry H. architecture of national security. In “when government worked.” 60 JPME Today / Marking 70 Years of Strategic Education JFQ 84, 1st Quarter 2017 The Idea for the National “it is the War Department opinion that All of these colleges would be collo- War College eventually graduation from the College cated at the tip of Greenleaf Point, the Old Eisenhower, Marshall, and Arnold’s should as a rule be a prerequisite for selec- Washington Army Arsenal in Southwest vision for the new War College was clear tion for higher commandant and staff Washington, now known as Fort Lesley from the beginning. They wanted to positions.”3 He believed the National J. McNair. However, the early promise of experiment with a 10-month program War College should be a unique joint joint and interagency education was not for military and Foreign Service Officers school for select graduates of the Service- to be. While the Industrial College and at the 20-year mark of their careers. specific colleges.4 He also looked beyond the War College held down two sides of They wanted to break down Service- the military to see the school as offering an imagined academic quadrangle at Fort culture barriers by educating officers professional executive education for the McNair, the other colleges—and thus together and they wanted a student newly imagined larger national security hope for coordinated professional devel- body that included the broader national community. opment—were postponed. security community. Eisenhower, Marshall, Arnold, The original mission statement of the and King had taken the first step for The Role of the State College reflects these early concerns: joint professional military education Department with the formation of the Army-Navy The State Department did not develop 1. to prepare senior military officers, Staff College (ANSCOL) in 1943. its own college, either for lack of funds foreign service officers and other Cementing this idea in a new institution or interest, much to the dismay of national security professionals for required political skill and attentiveness Eisenhower, Marshall, and Arnold. After higher levels of responsibility to Service sensibilities on the part of a year of inconclusive discussion, State 2. to foster greater understanding and General Eisenhower and Admiral Chester decided to simply be included with the cooperation between the services and Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations. The War College. A 1970 letter to National agencies.1 National War College would initially be War College historian James Stansfield But Eisenhower’s vision went beyond commanded by a naval flag officer, Vice recounted State’s quandary: the bureaucratic. He wanted to change Admiral Harry Hill, with deputy com- the way officers thought. Writing in mandants representing the other Services There were continuing efforts in January 1946, he stated his intentions for on rotation. A new Armed Services Staff 1945–1946 to obtain the participation of the school: College, for midlevel officers, would be the Department of State and its Foreign located at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Service Officers in the postwar ANSCOL. Since [the College] is at the top of the mili- Virginia, while the War College would We never could find anyone in State will- tary educational system, one of its primary be on an Army post. And it was not just ing to make a decision on this. Sheldon functions should be to develop doctrine any Army post. As the first annual report Chaplin, then Director of the Foreign rather than to accept and follow prescribed of the War College noted, “In February, Service, supported the idea in principle, doctrine. The War College approach to 1946, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, but could not move his superiors to make any problem should not be bound by any Chief of Staff of the Army, designated the a basic decision. Hence the new National rules or accepted teaching. If this is not done, Army War College, Washington, DC, as War College was organized primarily as a the War College loses one of its most valuable the site of the new college. The necessary military operated school.6 and essential assets. The course should be alterations were made possible through designed to develop officers for high staff and the contribution of $140,000 by the War In January 1946, both the Secretary command positions in both peace and war.2 and Navy Departments.”5 of War and the Secretary of the Navy In that same month, another panel on wrote to Secretary of State James Byrnes, As Eisenhower and Arnold discussed postwar education, chaired by Lieutenant advocating State participation.