Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 78

would make ILE a true combined arms school for all,
not just for those at Leavenworth.
Additionally, spreading talent across the different
types of ILE would introduce diversity in the students
attending AMSPs. Graduates of those second-year programs have included officers from Leavenworth, graduates of other service and allied CSCs, and officers who
completed ILE entirely by distance education. The distribution of AMSP graduates, at first only to divisions
and corps, expanded commensurate with expansion of
SAMS in the early 2000s. Present-day distribution of
AMSP graduates includes almost forty additional requisitions, most of which are individual augmentee positions for joint task forces and theater-level commands.
The sustained demand for AMSP graduates, combined
with the fact that not all Leavenworth ILE students
apply to AMSPs, suggests that AMSPs would continue
to draw applicants from all types of ILE.22
Instituting a baseline quality cut through an entrance examination and then identifying the greatest

talent in the candidate pool through a selection board
would pay long-term dividends. Increasing rigor in this
manner would distinguish superior officers from the
merely competent, while serving notice on officers unprepared to serve above the tactical level. Disenrolling
underperforming students from ILE quickly without
prejudice would provide a catalyst for students who required remediation to seek it, while debriding from the
ranks those who could not meet standards. The longterm return on investment to the Army, in the form
of greater intellectual capacity being returned to the
force from a more rigorous CGSC, would far outweigh
whatever opportunity costs might be incurred in the
short term. Implementation would instill a standard of
intellectual capability that would benefit the entire force
and educate officers to build upon but not be prisoners
of their immediate experiences. The true benefit would
come over time as graduates of this revamped ILE
applied the rigors of their education to lead their units
through the challenges of an uncertain future.

Biography
Col. Francis Park, U.S. Army, is a strategist assigned to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army, Operation
Enduring Freedom Study Group, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the nonresident Command
and General Staff Officer Course, the U.S. Army War College Basic Strategic Art Program, and the School of
Advanced Military Studies. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Kansas. His previous assignments include strategic plans and policy assignments at the division and joint task force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan and at
the U.S. Army Special Operations Command; intermediate-level education instructor at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas;
strategy branch chief, Strategic Plans, Concepts, and Doctrine Division, Headquarters, Department of the Army
G-3/5; and deputy director, Commander’s Action Group, International Security Assistance Force.

Notes
1. Lt. Gen. Robert B. Brown, “The Army University: Educating
Leaders to Win in a Complex World” Military Review 95(4) ( July–
August 2015): 19.
2. Ibid., 22.
3. Ibid., 19–22.
4. Hanson W. Baldwin, “Army College Expands: Leavenworth
Broadens Scope, Has 496 U.S. Officers and 52 From Abroad,” New
York Times, 17 January 1949, 8, as cited in Michael D. Stewart,
“Raising A Pragmatic Army: Officer Education at the U.S. Army
Command and General Staff College [CGSC], 1946–1986,”
(doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, 2010), 30; Army
Regulation (AR) 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 18 December
2009), 71.
76

5. Officer Personnel Management System [OPMS] XXI Task
Force, Officer Personnel Management System XXI Study (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army [HQDA], 1997),
4-12; OPMS XXI Task Force, “OPMS XXI Precursor Study Issue Paper: Nonselection for Resident CGSC and Its Career Implications,”
(issue paper, HQDA, Washington, DC, 9 April 1996).
6. U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, The Army Training and
Leader Development Panel Officer Study Report to the Army (Fort
Leavenworth, KS, 2003), OS-12–OS-13, ADA415810, Defense
Technical Information Center.
7. The need to refocus on previously neglected tasks was one of
the Army’s t raining challenges, as described in John M. McHugh and
Raymond T. Odierno, A Statement on the Posture of the United States
Army 2015, presented to the 114th Congress, 1st sess. (Washington,
May-June 2016  MILITARY REVIEW