School of Advanced Military Studies

School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS)
The School of Advanced Military Studies Crest
Active1981–present
CountryUnited States
AllegianceFederal
Garrison/HQFort Leavenworth, Kansas
Motto(s)The mind is the key to victory[1]
Commanders
Current
commander		Andrew Morgado
Notable
commanders		Wass de Czege

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. This "enormously rigorous"[2] graduate school comprises 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.[3] 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".[4][a]

The school issues a master's degree in Military Art and Science,[5] 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".[6] 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.[7] 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.[8] 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".[9]

  1. ^ Benson 2009. p. Foreword.
  2. ^ Scales 2009. p. 24.
  3. ^ United States Army Command and General Staff College: School of Advanced Military Studies
  4. ^ Huntoon 2009. p. 4; United States Army Command and General Staff College Public Affairs 2010.
  5. ^ Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library 2011.
  6. ^ CGSC Circular 350-1. p. 21.
  7. ^ Benson 2009. p. 2; United States Army Command and General Staff College (SAMS Tri-Fold) 2012. p. 2.
  8. ^ Liewer 2010.
  9. ^ Huntoon 2009. p. 2; Stewart 2010. p. 394.