Basic Strategic Arts Program


The Basic Strategic Art Program is a specialized academic program taught at the U.S. Army War College. In the late 1990s when the Army created Functional Area 59, the United States Army War College was chosen as the institution to host the program. The first BSAP class was in 2003. FA 59 Officers were used in combat for the first time beginning in 2001 with the onset of the Global War on Terror. Graduates of this program have served in key positions in Iraq, Afghanistan, at all combatant commands, Army Service Component Commands, and at the Pentagon. The program is the qualification course for Officers selected for FA59. It provides an introduction to strategy, art and practice, and establishes a base of the unique skills, knowledge, and attributes required for an Officer's development as a strategist. The course is taught to rigorous academic standards, failure to achieve and maintain these standards is cause for disenrollment from the program and loss of the Functional Area identifier.

Faculty

An FA59 Lieutenant Colonel serves as the BSAP director and an FA59 Major serves as deputy director. The course employs two full-time instructors to serve as primary educators and mentors and one civilian technician to provide administrative support. The Director of BSAP is responsible for the execution of the program and is the primary liaison to the Proponent Office at Headquarters, Department of the Army in Washington, DC. The two civilian professors, a PhD historian and a professor of practice, develop and implement the curriculum and an educational technician provides administrative and program support. BSAP draws upon the entire faculty of the Army War College to support instruction. In addition, the BSAP curriculum makes full use of additional academic and professional opportunities available during the resident and non-resident courses at the U.S. Army War College. BSAP students will sit in seminar with many of the same renowned subject matter experts who lecture for the Advanced Strategic Art Program, the U.S. Army War College resident program, and the other Senior Service Colleges.

Curriculum

The BSAP curriculum is based on six modules of study that provide the officers with the unique skills, knowledge, and attributes needed as a foundation for their progressive development as Army strategists.

Strategic Theory

This module provides a foundation in strategic and operational theory. This course of study provides the officer with the theoretical tools to enable him or her to evaluate doctrine and strategy. It begins with a survey of classical strategic theory from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz. Next the course examines modern strategic theory, including modern theories that underpin current service and joint doctrine. The module also looks at the notion of strategic culture and ends with a discussion of current operational theory and the role of theory and doctrine in practice.

Strategic Art

In this module students study the practice of the strategic art from the Peloponnesian Wars to the Global War on Terrorism. Students will discuss critical themes, which help explain victory or defeat. Among these themes are: strategy and policy match, theories of victory, mirror imaging, civil-military relations, pre-war plans and wartime realities, and coalition warfare.

National Security and Decision-making

This module will acquaint students with the nature of decision-making on national security matters in the executive branch of the U.S. Government. This module includes an examination of the national security organization and policy development. It covers the theory and reality of the interagency process and an analysis of the main agencies engaged in national security. The students will look at real world case studies which will illustrate both the formal and informal processes at work. This module will also include a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit the State Department, the NSC, JCS, CIA, and the Army G-3.

Contemporary Strategic Challenges

This module uses assigned readings, guest lecturers and a program of study to familiarize students with the strategic environment for Northeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Western Hemisphere, and Europe. The course examines U.S. regional interest, objectives, trends, and factors which impact on them. The module concludes with an examination of the homeland security.

Institutional Strategy and Planning

This module will familiarize students with how the nation raises and maintains the Army. Specifically, students will develop an appreciation for Army resource and force management, readiness, and transformation.

Joint and Army Planning

This module familiarizes students with the strategic value of landpower and the strategic role of the U.S. Army. Key to this module is the study of campaign planning. Students learn about the structure and employment of Army forces in theater. At the conclusion of this module, students should be able to articulate appropriate Army roles and Army Forces, Joint Forces Land Component, and Army theater planning for a given strategy.

Staff rides and staff visits

BSAP students participate in three staff rides. The first is an introduction to the course by examining the Battle of Gettysburg. Next, the interagency staff ride includes visits to the Department of State, National Security Council, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, the Army Staff, and other relevant entities in Washington, DC. BSAP concludes with a staff ride of Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign. This staff ride serves as review for the entire course and as a vehicle for additional insights as the students look at the operational, theater strategic, and strategic insights from the Battle of the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House.

Reading List

2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy, Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey Friedman
34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, David Kilcullen
American Civil - Military Relations, Edited by Suzanne C. Nielsen and Don M. Snider
American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Allan C. Cigler
American Way of War, Russell F. Weigley
An Unknown Future and A Doubtful Present, Writing the Victory Plan of 1941, Charles E. Kirkpatrick
And Keep Moving On, Mark Grimsley
Art of War, trans. by Samuel Griffith
Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, M Neil Browne and Stuart Keeley
Austro-Prussian War, Geoffrey Wawro
Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, Robert A. Pape
Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It, James Q. Wilson
Carrying the War to the Enemy: American Operational Art to 1945, Michael R. Matheny
Cobra II, Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor
, David Mayhew
Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities, Perspectives on Warfighting, Dr. Joe Strange
Confederate War, The Gary W. Gallagher
Conflict After the Cold War, Richard K. Betts
Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian
Dereliction of Duty, H.R. McMaster
Elements of Style, William Strunk and E.B. White
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow
Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy, Colin S. Gray
Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871, Geoffery Wawro
Grand Strategies in War and Peace edited by Paul Kennedy
Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, Edward N. Luttwak
Great Civil War: A Military and Political History 1861–1865, A Russell F. Weigley
Landmark Thucydides R.B. Stassler
Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman
Making of Peace: Rulers, States, and the Aftermath of War, Williamson Murray
Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War, Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, Alvin Bernstein
Modern Strategy, Colin S. Gray
Obama's Wars, Bob Woodward
On Point: US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Gregory Fontenot, E.J. Degen, David Tohn
On point II : the United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003 – Jan 2005 : transition to
the new campaign, Donald P. Wright
On War, Clausewitz
Paths of Heaven, Evolution of Airpower Theory, Phillip S. Meilinger
Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century, Larry H. Addington
Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle
East, David Fromkin
Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward
Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, Mao Tse-tung
Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War, David Gates
Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914, William C. Fuller, Jr.
Strategy in the Contemporary World, John Baylis, James Wirtz, Eliot Cohen, Colin Gray
Supreme Command, Eliot A. Cohen
Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decisionmakers, Neustadt and May
This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War, James McPherson
The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggles for Iraq, from George Bush to Barack Obama, Gordon and Trainor
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John Mearsheimer
Transformation of War, Martin Van Creveld
Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular Force, 1993–2005, William M. Donnelly
War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History, Colin Gray
War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, Bob Woodward
Why the Allies Won, Richard J. Overy