The School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) is one of four United States Army schools that make up the United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The "enormously rigorous"Scales 2009. p. 24. graduate school consists of three programs: the larger Advanced Military Studies Program (AMSP); the Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies Program (ASLSP), a Joint Military Professional Education II (JPME II) certified senior service college program for senior field-grade officers, and the Advanced Strategic Planning and Policy Program (ASP3), which supports officers in obtaining doctorates from civilian schools.

The school educates future leaders of the United States Armed Forces, its allies, and the Interagency at the graduate level to be agile and adaptive leaders who think critically at the strategic and operational levels to solve complex ambiguous problems.United States Army Command and General Staff College: School of Advanced Military Studies The student body is small but diverse and comprises members of each of the US armed forces, various US government agencies, and allied military forces. Graduates of AMSP are colloquially known as "Jedi Knights".Huntoon 2009. p. 4; United States Army Command and General Staff College Public Affairs 2010.

The school issues a master's degree in Military Art and Science,Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library 2011. and provides its graduates with the skills to deal with the disparate challenges encountered in contemporary military and government operations. The modern course produces "leaders with the flexibility of mind to solve complex operational and strategic problems in peace, conflict, and war".CGSC Circular 350-1. p. 21. Various senior military leaders have recognized the contributions of SAMS graduates in supporting global contingency operations.

The first class began at the school in mid-1983 and 13 students graduated the following year.Benson 2009. p. 2; United States Army Command and General Staff College (SAMS Tri-Fold) 2012. p. 2. Due to increasing requirements for SAMS graduates in the US military, the army expanded the school in the 1990s, and in 2010 over 120 students graduated.Liewer 2010. Since the school's inception, SAMS planners have supported every major US military campaign, providing the army "with many of its top campaign planners for the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries".Huntoon 2009. p. 2; Stewart 2010. p. 394.

History

The SAMS course was designed to fill a gap in US military education between the CGSC's focus on tactics and the War College's focus on grand strategy and national security policy.Naylor 1991. pp. 10, 16. In 1981, Colonel Huba Wass de Czege convinced Lieutenant General William R. Richardson, who was serving as Commander of the Combined Arms Center and Commandant of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth from 1979 to 1981, that a second year of military education was needed for select officers.Wass de Czege 2009. p. 103. After receiving final approval, Wass de Czege helped plan and develop the school, which would open in mid-1983.Benson 2009. p. 2; Swain 1996. p. 160. According to Swain, this information was described in U.S. Army Combined Arms Center 1982–83–84, (1989) Annual Historical Review, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Combined Arms Center History Office. Although there was some disagreement about the purpose of the course, army leaders and the course designers settled on a plan to provide officers with a "broad, deep military education in the science and art of war."Benson 2009. p. 3.

In June 1983, the first class of 13 US Army students began in the basement of Bell Hall at Fort Leavenworth.Benson 2009. p. 2, 15; United States Army Command and General Staff College (SAMS Tri-Fold) 2012. p. 2. Initially, there were some internal problems with facilities and scheduling,Benson 2009. p. 14–15; US Army Military History Institute, Senior Officer Oral History Program, LTC Harold R. Winton, USA, Retired. Conducted by LTC Richard Mustion, 5 April 2001 at Carlisle Barracks, PA, 17, quoted in Benson 2009. p. 14. and in the school's early years there was uncertainty whether its graduates would be accepted and how they would perform in the force. When the first class graduated in 1984, SAMS had already become "the symbol for intellectual renaissance in the officer corps".Stewart 2010. p. 291. When the first director, Wass de Czege, was succeeded by Colonel Richard Sennreich in 1985, the school was already beginning to produce results and the US Army and the college regarded SAMS as a "useful experiment".Benson 2009. p. 21. By 1987, enrollment of high-quality officers had risen and sister services were becoming interested in sending students to SAMS.Benson 2009. pp. 25, 27. The program's growing popularity and reputation also began attracting students from allied countries.

SAMS graduates first were in active service in December 1989 during Operation Just Cause in Panama.Benson 2009. p. 35. A core planning cell of seven SAMS graduates "crafted a well rehearsed and well executed plan that simultaneously struck some roughly 50 objectives in a single coordinated blow".Benson 2009. p. 36. According to Colonel Kevin Benson, the tenth director of the school, "The Army and SAMS faced a test of battle and the new group of highly-educated planners appeared to have passed the test with flying colors."Benson 2009. p. 38. After its mission in Panama, the army's leaders began to draw on SAMS to assist in additional ways. In the early 1990s, US Army leaders called upon the school to help develop army doctrine. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas E. Mitchell, Colonel James McDonough (the fifth SAMS director), and other members of the SAMS team helped revise the US Army Doctrinal Manual 100-5 Operations in 1990–1993.Romjue 1996. pp. 27–28, 31–33, 39–40, 44, 46, 51, 109.

Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan said that SAMS graduates were indispensable in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.Bower 2010. They were expected to "re-engineer the decades of planning that had gone into the GDP [General Defense Plan] almost overnight". Swan said that this was "the first true test of SAMS on a large scale". SAMS graduates served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and were "remembered most famously in the early days for producing the 'Jedi Knights' employed by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf in developing the famous 'left hook'".United States Army Command and General Staff College Public Affairs 2010. SAMS graduates also served in roles beyond the initial planning, with 82 graduates participating in diverse theater tasks by February 1991.U.S. News and World Report 1992. p. 288. As a result, US Army leadership regarded SAMS as being a source of "superb planners".Benson 2009. p. 42.

After Desert Storm, the army struggled with military operations other than war, such as peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations.Benson 2009. p. 44. The school and its graduates examined the situations in Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. Graduates also participated in Defense Support of Civil authorities missions. The course continued to change in the 1990s. Under Colonel Gregory Fontenot, the school moved from Fort Leavenworth's Flint Hall to Eisenhower Hall in October 1994. In later years, the school's leadership expanded the number of seminars and the civilian faculty.Benson 2009. pp. 46–47, 50–51, 53. The military continues to draw heavily on SAMS in the twenty-first century. SAMS planners have played a significant role in the Global War on Terror. Beginning in 2002, the United States Central Command requested planners from SAMS and its sister schools,Benson 2009. pp. 48–49. the United States Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS), which was designed to be similar to SAMS,West 1991. p. 10. and the United States Marine Corps's School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW). SAMS students from the 2002 and 2003 classes participated as planners in the preparations for the invasion of Iraq and the plan for the post-combat occupation.Benson 2009. pp. 49.

The school continued to change and develop, and an additional faculty expansion occurred in 2005–2006. Also, the Fellows' curriculum shifted further away from that of the AMSP program.Benson 2009. pp. 50–51. To keep pace with increasing demand for SAMS planners, the commander of the army's Training and Doctrine Command directed an expansion that was approved by the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the school's 11th director, Colonel Steve Banach, began a winter-start course in 2007.Benson 2009. pp. 53. During this period, SAMS provided planners to help forward-deployed headquarters plan operations and contingencies.Benson 2009. pp. 52. The school moved to new premises in the newly renovated Muir Hall at Fort Leavenworth on 30 August 2011.Erickson 2011.

Contributions

SAMS graduates have supported every major US military campaign between 1984 and 2009.Huntoon 2009. p. 2. SAMS graduates are known for their "critical thinking skill sets",Bower 2010. p. 1. and are consistently called for by combatant commanders around the world.Huntoon 2009. p. 4. In 2010, Brigadier General Sean MacFarland said, "In a crisis, the president always asks, 'where are the aircraft carriers?' In the Army, leaders ask, 'Where are the SAMS graduates?' Just as the aircraft carrier was a game changer in naval warfare, SAMS graduates and practitioners of operational art have been game changers in land warfare."

The school has won praise by senior US military leaders. According to Major General David Hogg, "SAMS has a reputation for producing skilled planners that can take complex ideas and develop cohesive plans."Bower 2011. In 2010, army Vice Chief of Staff Peter W. Chiarelli said that SAMS was "at the forefront of the effort to remake strategic military planning for the 21st century".

Facilities and student body

, the SAMS teaching facilities are mainly housed in Muir Hall (image right), which was once a stable, and Flint Hall. The AMSP courses are taught mostly in Muir Hall—the current SAMS headquarters—while Flint Hall houses additional AMSP seminars. Both buildings were renovated in 2011 and their classrooms accommodate seminars of about 16–18 students and an instructor. The renovations for Muir Hall cost $12.2 million, including $3 million in information systems that allow students to collaborate digitally, replicating a common practice seen in militaries today.

The application process includes an examination, an interview, and a supervisor assessment. Applicants must also complete the US Army's Command and General Staff School or an equivalent intermediate-level education course offered by another uniformed service. The student body of SAMS comprises mostly US Army field grade officers from combat, combat support, and combat service support branches.United States Army Command and General Staff College (SAMS Tri-Fold) 2012. p. 2. However, in 1987 the US Air Force graduated three officers and officers from the US Navy and US Marine Corps graduated in following years. US government agencies began sending students to SAMS in 2007. The Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have sent students to the school.Benson 2009. p. 51.School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS Tri-Fold). p. 1. Also warrant officers first attended SAMS in 2010.Bower 2011. p. A1.

Allied foreign militaries also provide students. In 1999, the school graduated its first international officers—Norwegian and Canadian. Argentina, Australia, Colombia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Jordan, Republic of North Macedonia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, South Korea, Brazil, Spain, and the United Kingdom have also sent students through the course.

Curricula