Program
Joint Advanced Warfighting School provides combatant commands and sub-unified commands with planners who are experts in joint planning, capable of critical analysis in the application of all aspects of national power across the full range of military operations, and capable of synergistically combining existing and emerging capabilities in time, space, and purpose to accomplish a range of operational or strategic objectives. It is the only institution that has at its core purpose to produce officers who are masters at planning the employment of joint forces at the operational level of war. Joint Advanced Warfighting School graduates gain both the intellectual and practical skills that make them confident practitioners of joint warfare at the operational-strategic nexus. They are capable of building and leading effective joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational teams. They possess the ability, in either a command or staff position, to design, direct, coordinate, and execute military plans across the operational continuum in a joint and interagency environment in a multinational setting.
The Joint Advanced Warfighting School mission demands a rigorous curriculum. Three core Fields of Study, Theory & History of War, Strategy, and Operational Art & Campaign Planning, provide the developmental framework. The fourth Field of Study, Effective Communication, provides students with the skills to create and present relevant content in written, verbal, and visual form. The fifth Field of Study, Joint Synthesis, provides the students the opportunity to discover the linkages among the other courses. The fields of study and courses are carefully woven together with key thematic questions to demonstrate the relationships between the subjects and improve student learning. Student individual research, analysis, and writing comes together in a directed research paper as well as other research and writing requirements.
Thematic Questions
(1) What is war?
(2) What is strategy?
(3) What are operational art and design thinking?
(4) What is strategic leadership?
(5) What is the value of integrating joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational attitudes, perspectives, and capabilities?
Program Learning Outcomes
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 1800.01G, Officer Professional Military Education Policy, requires joint professional military education programs to use joint learning areas and policy guidance to develop mission-unique program learning outcomes. The Joint Advanced Warfighting School curriculum is designed to achieve six program learning outcomes.
(1) Program Learning Outcome 1 (Planning). The graduate can produce plans for the operational employment of joint and coalition forces in support of joint warfighting during peace and war.
(2) Program Learning Outcome 2 (Strategy). The graduate can propose a military strategy in support of joint warfighting that optimizes ends, ways, and means in concert with the other instruments of power.
(3) Program Learning Outcome 3 (Context). The graduate can synthesize historical, current, and future environments, domains, theories, and concepts as they apply to joint warfighting.
(4) Program Learning Outcome 4 (Communication). The graduate can compose clear and succinct communication based on critical analysis in written and oral form that is persuasive and appropriate to the audience and context.
(5) Program Learning Outcome 5 (Acculturation). The graduate represents the value of integrating diverse attitudes, perspectives, and capabilities based on an appreciation of the nature of the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment.