Educating foreign officers

Joint Force Quarterly, Winter, 2002 by Douglas M. Gibler, Tomislav Z. Ruby

On the senior and intermediate levels, the Marine Corps War College and the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, are constituent institutions of the Marine Corps University, which is located at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia. Some two dozen international students are enrolled each year in the latter institution.

The Air War College and the Air Command and Staff College were both organized in 1946 and are administered by Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The former college is attended by foreign students from 45 nations and the latter enrolls some 80 officers from abroad.

The National Defense University was established in 1976 and is comprised of two senior-level institutions, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the National War College, which are located at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington. Approximately 36 international fellows attend these two colleges each year. The Industrial College of the Armed Forces is the successor to the Army Industrial College, which was organized in 1924; the National War College was founded in 1946.

The Joint Forces Staff College (formerly the Armed Forces Staff College) was incorporated into the National Defense University in 1981 and is located in Norfolk, Virginia. It enrolls approximately 50 foreign students each year in courses on joint planning and warfighting on the operational level, and traces its lineage to the Army-Navy Staff College, which was created during World War II.

NOTES

(1) George Monbiot, "Backyard terrorism," The Guardian (London), October 30, 2001.

(2) Edward D. Mansfield and Jack S. Snyder, "Democratization and the Danger of War," International Security vol. 20, no. 4 (Spring 1995), pp. 5-38.

(3) James T. Quinlivan, "Coup-Proofing: Its Practices and Consequences in the Middle East," International Security, vol. 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999), pp. 152-53.

(4) John A. Cope, "International Military Education and Training: An Assessment," McNair Paper 44 (Washington: National Defense University Press, October 1995), chapter 8.

(5) Jose C. D'Odorico, "Chief to Chief," Armed Forces Journal International, vol. 138, no. 10 (May 2001), p. 62.

(6) Neovi Karakatsanis, "Do Attitudes Matter? The Military and Democratic Consolidation in Greece," Armed Forces and Society, vol. 24, no. 2 (Winter 1997), pp. 289-313.

Douglas M. Gibler is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Kentucky and Lieutenant Colonel Tomislav Z. Ruby, USAF, has taught at the Air Command and Staff College.