Hey everyone, and welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am sitting here in our living room in Jerusalem with my brother. It is February twentieth, twenty twenty-six, and the air outside is crisp, but the atmosphere in the city remains, as always, deeply layered with history and the weight of current events.
Herman Poppleberry, reporting for duty. Although, as we will discuss today, I am very much a civilian despite my enthusiasm for military history. It is good to be back on the microphones, Corn. There is something about the silence of a winter morning in Jerusalem that really lends itself to deep dives into complex subjects.
It is a heavy time to be living in this part of the world, for sure. There is a lot of talk about troop movements, regional strategy, and the potential for wider conflict. But Daniel's prompt today takes us a step back from the daily headlines to look at how the people making these decisions are actually trained. We see the results of strategy every day, but we rarely look at the schools where that strategy is forged.
Exactly. We see these generals and colonels on the news, or we read their white papers from think tanks, and their biographies often mention a year spent at a war college or a degree in war studies. It sounds like something out of a nineteenth-century novel, perhaps something involving Prussian officers with monocles, but it is a very real, very modern, and very influential part of the professional military world.
Right, and I think for a lot of people, the idea of a college for war sounds like a contradiction. We think of college as a place for liberal arts or engineering, and war as something you learn on a drill pad or in the field. But Daniel wants us to dig into what these institutions actually are, what they teach, and how studying ancient history helps someone manage a modern drone fleet or a cyber command in twenty twenty-six.
It is a fascinating world. And I think the best place to start is by clarifying that these are not places where you learn how to fire a rifle or drive a tank. By the time an officer reaches a war college, they have usually been in the military for fifteen to twenty years. They are already experts in the mechanics of their specific branch. They have commanded companies or battalions; they have been the ones on the ground.
So, this is more like an executive M B A for the military?
That is actually a very good analogy. In the United States, for example, the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, or the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, are senior professional military education institutions. The students are typically lieutenant colonels or colonels, or their equivalent ranks in other services. They are at the point in their careers where they are transitioning from leading a few hundred or a few thousand people to potentially managing entire regions or shaping national policy. This is what the military calls the transition from the tactical level to the strategic level.
Before we get into the colleges themselves, let's talk about the field of war studies. Is that the same thing as military history?
Not quite. Military history is a component of it, but war studies as an academic discipline is much broader. It really came into its own after the Second World War. One of the pioneers was Sir Michael Howard, who helped establish the Department of War Studies at King's College London in the nineteen fifties. He argued that you cannot understand war if you only look at it through the lens of technology or tactics. You have to look at it through history, sociology, ethics, economics, and politics.
That makes sense. If you are a senior leader, you are not just thinking about how to take a hill; you are thinking about why that hill matters to the local population, how the cost of taking it affects the national budget, and what the international legal implications are if you use a certain type of weapon.
Precisely. War studies looks at the causes of war, the conduct of war, and the consequences of war. It treats war as a social phenomenon, not just a technical one. In a civilian university, a war studies program might be filled with people who want to go into diplomacy, journalism, or academia. But in a war college, that academic discipline is applied directly to the profession of arms.
So, what does the curriculum actually look like? If I am a colonel and I show up for my year at the War College, what is on my syllabus on Monday morning?
It usually breaks down into four main pillars. The first, and perhaps most important, is strategy and policy. This is where they study the great strategic thinkers. They spend a lot of time with Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian general whose book On War is basically the Bible of Western military thought. They also look at Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War.
I have always wondered about Clausewitz. Why is a guy from the early eighteen hundreds still the primary text for people who are planning for satellite warfare?
Because Clausewitz identified what he called the nature of war, which he argued never changes. He described war as a remarkable trinity of three things: primordial violence and passion, the play of chance and probability, and its element of subordination as an instrument of policy. In simpler terms, that is the people, the military, and the government. Clausewitz argued that if those three things are out of alignment, you will lose. That is a timeless truth, whether you are fighting with muskets or hypersonic missiles.
That is a great way to put it. What about the second pillar?
The second is theater strategy and campaigning, which involves what is known as operational art. This is the bridge between high-level national policy and the actual battles. It is about how you arrange a series of tactical actions to achieve a strategic goal. This involves a heavy dose of logistics. As the old saying goes, amateurs talk strategy, but professionals talk logistics. At a war college, they learn how to move a hundred thousand troops across an ocean and keep them fed, fueled, and armed for six months. It is a massive management challenge.
And the third pillar?
The third is leadership and management, specifically at the enterprise level. This is about the internal health of the military. How do you manage a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars? How do you foster innovation in a bureaucracy that is designed to be rigid? How do you deal with the mental health and well-being of a force that has been under constant strain? They study organizational behavior and ethics very deeply here.
And I assume the fourth pillar is the one that changes the most?
Exactly. The fourth pillar is the future of conflict. This is where they look at emerging technologies. In twenty twenty-six, this means a massive focus on artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and the integration of space and cyber capabilities. They are trying to figure out how these things change the character of war. While the nature of war is constant—it is always a violent human struggle—the character of war changes with every new invention.
I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier. You said they study the whole of government approach. I have heard that term in news reports about regional conflicts. What does that actually mean in a classroom setting?
It means recognizing that the military is only one instrument of national power. Strategists use the acronym D I M E, which stands for diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. A student at a war college spends a lot of time learning how to coordinate with the State Department, or how economic sanctions might be more effective than a naval blockade. They are learning how to speak the language of civilians in government. They might have seminars where they have to role-play a National Security Council meeting, where the military option is actually the least desirable one on the table.
It is interesting that you mention civilian language, because these colleges often have civilian students too, right?
They do. You will find senior officials from the State Department, the intelligence community, and even international partners in these classes. It is about building a network of leaders who understand each other's perspectives before a crisis hits. If a colonel and a diplomat spent a year debating Clausewitz together in a classroom, they are much more likely to work effectively together when they are deployed to a volatile region.
So, how does this compare to a traditional university? If I go to a big state school for a masters in history, and my neighbor goes to the Army War College, how are our experiences different?
The biggest difference is the focus on application. In a traditional university, you might study the Peloponnesian War to understand the nuances of ancient Greek culture or the evolution of historiography. You are looking for knowledge for its own sake. At a war college, you study the Peloponnesian War to understand the Thucydides Trap. This is the idea, popularized by Graham Allison, that when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, war is almost inevitable. You are looking for timeless patterns of human behavior that can be applied to current tensions between global powers today.
So, they are looking for a toolkit rather than just an archive of facts.
Exactly. And the faculty is different too. In a civilian university, almost everyone is a career academic. At a war college, you have a mix of P h D s who are experts in their fields and active-duty or retired military officers who bring decades of practical experience. It creates this very intense environment where theory is constantly being tested against reality. A professor might give a lecture on the theory of deterrence, and a student in the back of the room might raise their hand and say, well, I was in a situation where we tried that, and here is why it failed on the ground.
I want to dig into that teaching method Daniel asked about. Specifically, how they look at ancient battles. It seems almost absurd to think that a battle fought with spears and shields two thousand years ago has anything to teach someone in the age of satellite-guided missiles and electronic warfare.
It does seem counterintuitive, but there is a very specific philosophy behind it. Military educators distinguish between the nature of war and the character of war. The character of war changes constantly. That is the technology, the uniforms, the speed of communication. But the nature of war, as we discussed with Clausewitz, is immutable. It is a human endeavor defined by violence, chance, and political purpose.
So, the human element is the constant.
Right. Fear, fatigue, the fog of war, the difficulty of getting people to do what you want under fire—those things have not changed since the dawn of time. When senior leaders study the Battle of Cannae from two hundred sixteen Before the Common Era, they are not looking at how to use cavalry in a pincer movement. They are looking at how Hannibal used the psychology of the Roman commanders against them. They are looking at how a smaller force can achieve a decisive victory through superior positioning, timing, and an understanding of the enemy’s internal weaknesses.
And how do they actually teach this? Is it just lectures and reading books?
One of the most famous and effective methods is called the Staff Ride. This is where a group of officers and instructors go to an actual battlefield, like Gettysburg, Normandy, or even ancient sites in Greece and Italy. But they do not just walk around and look at monuments. They are assigned roles. One person might have to represent General Robert E. Lee, and another might represent a subordinate who failed to follow orders.
That sounds like a very high-stakes version of role-playing.
It is. They stand on the exact spot where a decision was made and they have to explain, based on the information available at the time, why that decision was made. Then the group critiques it. They look at the terrain, they consider the weather, they think about the exhaustion of the troops. They ask, what would you have done differently if you didn't know the outcome? It is about developing what they call the coup d'oeil, which is French for a stroke of the eye—the ability to see a situation and intuitively understand the strategic possibilities.
That is fascinating. It is about training the brain to recognize patterns. But I wonder, does that ever lead to a kind of tunnel vision? If you are always looking for patterns from the past, do you miss the things that are truly new?
That is a major point of debate in the field of war studies. Critics often say that military leaders are always fighting the last war. And that is why modern war colleges have started to emphasize critical thinking and something called red teaming. Red teaming is where you assign a group of people to act as the adversary and find every possible way to break your plan. They want students to challenge their own assumptions. They bring in science fiction writers, technology entrepreneurs, and ethicists to push the boundaries of the discussion.
I like the idea of a science fiction writer at a war college. It makes sense, though. You need people who can imagine the unimaginable.
Totally. Because if you look at the last few years, the biggest shifts in warfare have not necessarily come from better tanks. They have come from the democratization of information, the use of social media as a weapon, and the rise of non-state actors who do not follow the traditional rules of war. A war college today is spending as much time on cyber-resilience and disinformation as they are on traditional maneuvers. They are studying how a viral video can be more effective at stopping an army than a minefield.
Let's talk about the wargaming aspect. I know that is a big part of the curriculum. Is it like a giant board game?
It can be, but it has become incredibly sophisticated. They use everything from tabletop exercises with maps and counters to high-end computer simulations that use artificial intelligence to model millions of variables. These games are not about winning or losing in the traditional sense. They are about exploring the decision space. They want to see how different choices lead to different outcomes.
So, they might run a simulation of a conflict in the South China Sea or a crisis in Eastern Europe?
Exactly. And they will include things like economic shocks, cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure, and the role of international public opinion. The goal is to force the students to make difficult decisions under pressure with incomplete information. It is about building mental muscle memory for crisis management. They want the first time a colonel encounters a complex, multi-domain crisis to be in a classroom, not in a command center during a real war.
I assume there is a heavy dose of ethics in all of this too?
Absolutely. Just War theory is a huge part of the curriculum. They discuss the legal and moral frameworks for going to war—jus ad bellum—and the rules for conduct during war—jus in bello. In twenty twenty-six, this includes very difficult questions about the use of autonomous weapons. If an algorithm makes a mistake and hits a civilian target, who is responsible? The programmer? The commander who deployed it? The machine itself? These are not just academic exercises. For these officers, these are the rules they will have to enforce in the field.
It really does sound like a comprehensive education. It is not just about the fighting; it is about the entire ecosystem of the military.
It is. And it is also about the relationship between the military and the society it serves. They study civil-military relations, which is the study of how a democratic society controls its military. They read Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz to understand the balance between military expertise and civilian oversight. This is crucial because, in a democracy, the military must always be subordinate to the elected leadership, even when they disagree with the policy.
So, when these officers leave the war college and go back to their units, or go to the Pentagon, how do they actually apply these lessons? Is there a tangible difference in how they lead?
Ideally, yes. The goal is to move them from being tactical experts to being strategic thinkers. A tactical thinker sees a problem and looks for a direct solution. A strategic thinker looks at the problem and asks, what are the second and third-order effects of this solution? If I take this action today, what does it mean for our relationship with this ally five years from now? How does it affect the global economy? How does it play into the enemy's long-term narrative?
It is about expanding the horizon of their thinking.
Right. It is also about humility. One of the biggest takeaways from studying history is that even the best-laid plans often fall apart. You learn about the role of chance and what Clausewitz called friction—the myriad of small things that go wrong and make the simplest task difficult. By studying the failures of the past, these leaders are hopefully more aware of their own blind spots. They are more likely to listen to dissenting voices and to have a plan B and a plan C.
It is interesting because we often have this image of military leaders as being very rigid and authoritarian. But what you are describing is an education that prizes flexibility, critical thinking, and a broad understanding of the world.
That is the ideal. Of course, like any educational institution, it is not perfect. There is still a lot of institutional inertia. But the fact that these colleges exist and that they are taken so seriously by the military leadership is a testament to the belief that the brain is the most important weapon in the arsenal. In the United States, for example, you cannot even be considered for promotion to general or admiral unless you have completed this level of professional military education.
I wonder about the perspective of other countries. Daniel mentioned the United States, Israel, and Britain. Do they all teach the same thing?
The core principles are very similar, especially among Western allies. But each country brings its own flavor based on its geography and its history. For example, the Israel Defense Forces National Defense College focuses very heavily on regional dynamics and the specific challenges of fighting in a small, densely populated area. They have a very practical, almost urgent approach to strategy because their threats are literally on their doorstep. They don't have the luxury of a three-thousand-mile ocean buffer.
Whereas the United States might focus more on global power projection.
Exactly. The United States Naval War College, for instance, has a huge focus on maritime strategy and how to keep the world's shipping lanes open. They are thinking about the Pacific and the Atlantic in ways that a smaller land-based power wouldn't. The United Kingdom's Royal College of Defence Studies often has a very strong focus on international diplomacy and the role of the United Kingdom in global security alliances. But they all still read Clausewitz. They all still look at the same historical examples.
It is like a shared language of strategy.
It really is. And that shared language is what allows for international cooperation. When an American colonel and a British brigadier and an Israeli general sit down in a room together, they have a common framework for discussing a problem. They understand what a center of gravity is. They understand the difference between an objective and a mission. They have all walked the same battlefields and debated the same ancient texts.
So, for the listeners who are not in the military, what are the practical takeaways here? Is there something we can learn from the field of war studies that applies to our own lives or businesses?
I think there is a lot. The first is the value of historical perspective. We tend to live in the eternal now, thinking that our problems are unique and unprecedented. But when you look at history, you realize that most of our challenges have been faced before in some form. Studying how others navigated crisis can give you a sense of calm and a better set of tools for your own life. It helps you see that today’s crisis is often just a variation on a very old theme.
That is definitely something I have found in our discussions over the years. History is a great teacher if you are willing to listen.
The second takeaway is the importance of strategic thinking. Most of us are very good at the tactical level—getting through the day, finishing a project, solving a specific problem. But how often do we step back and ask what our long-term goal is? How do our actions today align with our values and our ultimate destination? That kind of strategic alignment is what war colleges are all about, and it is just as useful for a C E O or a parent as it is for a general. It is about making sure that your daily actions are actually moving you toward the future you want.
And the third would be the whole of government approach, or what we might call a systems thinking approach.
Yes. Recognizing that nothing happens in a vacuum. Your decisions at work affect your family. Your economic choices affect your health. Being able to see the connections between different parts of your life and managing them as a single system is a very powerful skill. It is about moving away from siloed thinking and toward a more holistic view of the world.
It really is about becoming a more well-rounded, thoughtful human being. It is funny that a college for war would be such a strong advocate for a liberal arts style education.
It is one of those great paradoxes. To be effective at war, you have to understand peace. To be a great leader of soldiers, you have to be a great student of humanity. You have to understand what motivates people, what scares them, and what gives them hope. You have to understand the culture of the people you are trying to protect and the culture of the people you are fighting.
I think that is a really profound point to end on. We have covered a lot of ground today, from the definition of war colleges to the specific curriculum and the value of ancient history. It is a world that most of us never see, but it has a huge impact on the world we live in. These institutions are where the leaders of the future are learning how to navigate the most difficult challenges imaginable.
It really does. And I hope this gives our listeners a bit more context when they see these leaders on the news. They are not just people in uniforms; they are products of a very rigorous, very thoughtful educational system. They are people who have spent years studying the hardest questions of human existence.
Definitely. And it makes me want to go back and re-read some of those classics. Maybe not Clausewitz right away—that is a bit of a slog—but maybe some Sun Tzu.
Sun Tzu is much more digestible. Very punchy. Perfect for a morning commute. He has a way of getting straight to the point about the importance of knowing yourself and knowing your enemy.
Well, thank you all for joining us for this deep dive into the world of war studies. This was a great prompt from Daniel, and I think it really fits with the conversations we have been having lately about the state of the world in twenty twenty-six.
It really does. If you are enjoying the show, we would really appreciate it if you could leave a review on your podcast app or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other people find us and keeps the conversation going. We love seeing the community grow and hearing your thoughts on these topics.
And remember, you can find all of our past episodes, including the ones we mentioned today, at myweirdprompts dot com. We have a full archive there, and you can also find our R S S feed and a contact form if you want to get in touch. We have been doing this for a while now, and there is a lot of great stuff in the back catalog.
You can also reach us directly at show at myweirdprompts dot com. We love hearing from you, whether you have a question, a comment, or a prompt of your own. Daniel, thank you again for this one—it really gave us a lot to chew on.
This has been My Weird Prompts. We are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. We will be back next week with another deep dive into the strange and fascinating prompts you send our way.
Thanks for listening, and we will see you next time. Stay curious, everyone.
Goodbye, everyone.
Take care.
