Author: Rick Swain

Submitted by Colonel (Ret.) Rick Swain, PhD, former Professor at the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic at West Point:

Although I was trained as a historian and taught military history at the Military Academy and Command and General Staff College, I found myself at the end of the Cold War wondering if I knew anything about strategy at all.  I began reading everything I could get my hands on in the traditional corpus and discovered the works of a number of contemporary Brits that were particularly useful.  However, the most helpful experience I have had in my strategic self-education involved participating for a number of years as a civilian consultant in the training of midgrade military students and higher level military staffs in the application of the procedure Joint Publication 5-0 calls Operational Design, and Army ADRP 5-0, The Army Design Methodology.