School of Advanced Military Studies - History

History

The SAMS course was designed to fill a post-Vietnam War gap in U.S. military education between the CGSC focus on tactics and the war colleges' focus on "grand strategy" and national security policy. In 1981, Colonel Wass De Czege convinced Fort Leavenworth's Lieutenant General Richardson that a second year of military education was needed for select officers. After receiving the final approval, Wass de Czege and two other U.S. Army officers planned and developed the school for a summer start in 1983. Although there was some disagreement as to the course purpose, 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."

In June 1983, the first class of 13 U.S. Army students began in the basement of Bell Hall at Fort Leavenworth. Along with some initial internal challenges with facilities and scheduling, the school's early years were marked with uncertainty about how its graduates would be accepted and how they would perform in the force. But the initial results from the field were positive. By the time the first class graduated, SAMS had already become "the symbol for intellectual renaissance in the officer corps". And when Wass de Czege, as the first director, relinquished the school's reins to Colonel Richard Sennreich in 1985, the school was already beginning to produce results: the US Army and the College already saw SAMS as a "useful experiment". By 1987, there were additional positive signs. Enrollment of high-quality officers was up and sister services were showing interest in sending students to SAMS. The program's growing popularity and reputation also began attracting students from allied countries. Yet, regardless of the positive signs, prospective students still saw SAMS as a potentially risky endeavor—a second year away from the force to attend a school that had not yet proved its value in combat.

The "first test of battle" for SAMS graduates came in December 1989 during Operation Just Cause in Panama. 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". 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."

With its first combat test complete, the Army's leaders began to draw on SAMS to assist in additional ways. In the early 1990s, U.S. Army leaders called upon the school to help develop Army doctrine. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas E. Mitchell, Colonel James McDonough (the fifth SAMS director), and various other members of the SAMS team played a significant part in revising the U.S. Army Doctrinal Manual 100-5 Operations in 1990–1993.

SAMS began to have effects across the force. Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan noted that SAMS graduates were indispensable in Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. They were expected to "re-engineer the decades of planning that had gone into the GDP almost overnight". Swan stated that this was "the first true test of SAMS on a large scale".

Although the school's reputation was growing, its biggest test was still ahead—Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Indeed, SAMS graduates are "remembered most famously in the early days for producing the 'Jedi Knights' employed by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf in developing the famous 'left hook'  ". But the efforts of SAMS graduates were not limited to the initial planning effort. 82 graduates were participating in diverse theater tasks by February 1991. As a result, US Army leadership now saw SAMS as a source for "superb planners".

"The number one reason for the success of Desert Storm was General (H. Norman) Schwarzkopf. ... The number two reason was the air war, and the number three reason was the SAMS graduates who put together General Schwarzkopf's plan."

After Desert Storm, the school again looked ahead. The Army now had a new problem set: military operations other than war, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement operations. The school and its graduates examined the situations in Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia, and SAMS's "Jedi Knights" participated in operations worldwide, as well as domestic contingencies such as those in Los Angeles and Miami after Hurricane Katrina. The course itself continued to change in the waning hours of the twentieth century. Under Colonel Gregory Fontenot, the school moved from Fort Leavenworth's Flint Hall to Eisenhower Hall (image below) in October 1994. In later years, the school's leadership also expanded the number of seminars and the civilian faculty.

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. The United States Central Command requested planners from SAMS along with its "sister schools", the United States Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS), which was designed to be similar to SAMS, as well as the United States Marine Corps's School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW). SAMS students from the 2002 and 2003 classes participated as reachback planners in the preparations for the invasion of Iraq, and the plan for the post-combat occupation.

The school itself continued to morph to meet the demands of a changing world. An additional faculty expansion occurred in 2005–2006, and the Fellows' curriculum shifted further away from that of the AMSP program. To keep pace with increasing demand for SAMS planners in the force, 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. During this period, SAMS also provided planners to help forward-deployed headquarters plan operations and contingencies. By 2011, the school was ready for new quarters, moving into the newly renovated Muir Hall at Fort Leavenworth on 30 August 2011.