Welcome!

The ICAF mission states that the role of the college is “to prepare selected military and civilians for strategic leadership and success in developing our national security strategy and in evaluating, marshalling, and managing resources in the execution of that strategy.” ICAF is part of the Senior Joint Professional Military Education system (also known as the “war college” system) designed to prepare those senior military officers identified as having the potential for advancement to flag/general officer, and senior U.S. government (USG) civilians having the potential for advancement to the Ambassadorial or Senior Executive Service (SES) levels for positions at the strategic policy level. Students generally have approximately 20 years of experience in the military or civilian agencies, and have proven themselves as very high-level performers at the operational level.

The war college system is designed to provide an educational experience that will develop your abilities to think and operate at the strategic policy level. Similar to all the war colleges, ICAF emphasizes education on strategic national security affairs, overall strategy, and policymaking (more on how we do this below). In addition, ICAF has a specific mission to focus on the resource dimension of national security strategy. This means not only helping students to understand how to craft a national security strategy, but also to understand resource constraints, trade-offs, and usability issues that significantly affect the government’s ability to advance its national interests and achieve its strategic goals. A marvelous national security strategy isn’t worth the paper upon which it is printed if the country is unable to adequately resource its execution. Mismatches between strategic goals and having the resources necessary to achieve those goals usually result in partial attainment of objectives, if not policy failures.

During the fall semester students take a series of courses that critically examine many of the policy areas crucial for national security. Areas of study include the nature of strategy, the Washington policy process and the interagency system, international affairs and foreign policy, and resourcing and integrating the military instrument of power into national processes for strategy development (and the challenges of implementing a strategy at both the international and theater level).

Increasingly in the 21st century, if you don’t understand economics, you can’t fully understand the dynamics of domestic and international politics. ICAF is especially proud of the fact that it is the only war college with a Department of Economics and a full course on National and International Economic Policy covering macroeconomic and microeconomic topics such as monetary and fiscal policies, growth and technology (including the emergence of regional economic competitors), trade and finance, and the economics of industry.

ICAF also firmly believes that leadership at the strategic level is significantly different than leadership at the tactical or operational levels. The skill set required to be effective at senior levels is different when working with other services, agencies, countries, industry, and international actors. This includes critically understanding the complexities and interrelationships of the strategic (domestic & international) environment, as well as the essential requirement of being able to assess and address complex, multi-dimensional environments from multi-dimensional (i.e., interagency, inter-service, international, multi-cultural) perspectives. Strategic leadership further requires the ability to plan and lead organizational change in complex systems of systems in an ever-changing strategic environment.

ICAF students also are given the opportunity to choose courses according to their own interests in several study areas. They may choose their Regional Security Studies area as well as their Industry Studies field of study for the spring term. Students also may select elective courses in accordance with their own professional interests from a catalogue of over 150 offerings from across the university.

Following the fall’s focus on issues, challenges, and trends that influence the development of a national security strategy, the spring semester of the year turns to delving deeply into analyzing and assessing resources which constrain or enable instruments of policy, and the current and long-term viability of the resource base underlying any U.S. national security strategy. Areas of study include international regional studies (Regional Security Studies), in-depth analysis of a range of U.S. and international industry sectors (Industry Studies), and microeconomics, the economics of industry, and business strategy models (including those applicable to USG practices). Students also study the defense acquisition process and its relationship to the industrial base, the nation’s economic well-being, and the nation’s security strategy. ICAF is the only war college that emphasizes study of the resource aspects of national security in addition to traditional national security strategy.

All qualified students who successfully complete a war college program graduate with a Master’s degree. Completing a Master’s degree in only ten months means that there is a lot of work to do during the academic year—you will be busy. Moreover, because ICAF combines both the study of national security affairs and national security strategy with an extensive look at resource issues related to national security, ICAF requires slightly more coursework than most of the other schools (on the order of perhaps one or two class sessions a week). The strategic challenges of the 21st century are many and complex with increasing resource constraints—there is a lot to learn. You can expect to be in class every weekday morning. With a few exceptions, classes start at 0815 Monday through Friday. Electives are held on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and many last until 1730 hrs. Monday, Thursday and Friday afternoons you either will have class or time allocated for research, paper writing, and classroom preparation. “Research and Study” periods may be used according to your own needs. Generally, you have about 500 pages per week of assigned reading, and most courses require at least one written paper. Data from previous ICAF classes indicate that most students spend about 16-25 hours each week in study time outside of classroom sessions.

As should be evident from #3 above, you will be pretty busy keeping up with your assignments, reading a wide range of analytical and policy material, attending class, and writing papers. Nevertheless, when you are not required to be present at ICAF (e.g., Research and Study periods), you may study, do research, and write papers at home. Also, typically, you will not be working long hours at ICAF similar to what most of you have experienced in the assignments you are just leaving. You should have more time at home with your families, and you will not be on call for weekends and odd hours except for short periods associated with field studies trips in some programs. Be sure to read the ICAF Student Handbook carefully regarding student requirements. Students are expected to be at ICAF (as their assigned duty station) for scheduled academic activities. You can’t cut classes like you may have done in undergraduate school (unless you were an academy grad)!

Nearly two-thirds of the students at ICAF are military officers (including about 20 officers, called International Fellows, from foreign countries). Civilians come from a range of DOD offices and other executive branch agencies (such as State Department, USAID, CIA, NSA, DIA, Homeland Security, Energy, Commerce, GAO, etc.). ICAF also usually has ten Industry Fellows from corporations who are fully incorporated into the program and provide insights from the private sector on resource issues. Although ICAF is a “war college,” more appropriately it should be considered an inter-service, inter-agency program of study. DOD’s war college system has built upon its original mission to prepare military officers for senior positions and includes a broader program that emphasizes learning about the roles and missions of other departments and agencies of the executive branch and the interagency policy process. Civilian students will find their military and civilian classmates keenly interested in learning about the organization, mission, processes, and policies of their department or agency (or company) and what equities it has in the development and execution of national security policy.

ICAF also conducts a three-day orientation program for incoming non-DOD civilian students just prior to the start of the academic year. This program is designed to provide background about ICAF as a DOD supported college, the different military services, the Joint Staff, and other basic information about DOD. Contact the Dean of Students office for more details.

Bottom line, if you are serious about taking advantage of the learning opportunity at ICAF, put forth a good faith effort to do the work, act professionally and are mindful of the rules (i.e., be on time for class and academic functions, avoid plagiarism problems in your writing, etc.) you will graduate from ICAF. Beyond that, you are entering into a very interesting, very complex realm of strategic national security affairs. ICAF’s job is to support your development as a strategic leader, and our primary emphasis is to teach you how to think at the strategic level, not what to think. As you will see, there are no easy or “correct” answers at the strategic level—there are only judgments. As such, we don’t give tests, but evaluate you on the development of your strategic thinking capabilities. Our job is to help you develop the ability to craft sound, high quality, critically based judgments and achieve the ability to think in truly strategic terms. The onus is on you to push yourself to maximize the development of your abilities. The faculty understands that we are dealing with a very diverse student population with varying degrees of expertise in the subject areas of the college. We know from your predecessors that if you put significant effort into your reading, writing, and classroom discussions, you will develop your strategic knowledge and critical thinking abilities. If you put little effort into these areas, you will achieve a commensurate level of development. Failure to complete the requirements of the program can lead to dis-enrollment and being returned to your service or agency before the end of the academic year.

Your 10 months at ICAF will be very intellectually rewarding along with a great school experience. It will be a welcome change for many of you from 14-16 hour operational days. You will have the opportunity to explore strategic problems and concepts, and reflect upon and discuss the strategic challenges faced by the United States and the world at large with smart, experienced professionals as classmates, and a terrific faculty (with real world experience) interested in helping you have a terrific year. You have been assigned to ICAF by your service or agency for the express purpose of changing the way you think and developing intellectual capital that will provide the foundation upon which you can build your career as a strategic leader at the most senior levels of the government. You will never look at the world the same way again after graduation in June 2010. We guarantee it!

(And, GO TIGERS!)