School of Strategic Landpower (SSL) Department of Distance Education (DDE) Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations (DMSPO) Department of Command, Leadership, and Management (DCLM) Department of National Security and Strategy (DNSS)
US Army War College
Library

Publications

This shelf contains faculty papers, monographs, and handbooks designed for USAWC curricular use. These would also be available in other locations in the Library if directly tied to a defense management related topic.

Defense Management: Primer for Senior Leaders, 1st edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin and Lou Yuengert (eds.), originally published 2018
The Defense Management Primer, 1st edition is a go-to resource for general information about the defense enterprise; how the defense, joint, and service levels function; and the roles of senior leaders as defense managers. Each chapter provides a brief overview of major decisions and processes that senior leaders need to be familiar with as they drive the acquisition and distribution of resources, which in turn affects the development and readiness of the military's capabilities.
Strategic Leadership: Primer for Senior Leaders, 4th edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin and Dale Watson (eds.), originally published 2019
The Strategic Leadership Primer, 1st edition is a go-to resource for general information about leadership at the senior levels of a defense enterprise. How does leadership differ between the senior and junior levels? What are the roles that senior leaders must play, the competencies they must acquire to be successful, and the importance of character? What are the natures and characters of the internal and external environments they will encounter?

Also available: Strategic Leadership Primer, 3rd edition (2010) | Strategic Leadership Primer, 2nd edition (2004) | 1st edition (1998) not available
National Preparedness and Military Readiness: Primer for Senior Leaders, 1st edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2024)
What will it take to win the next war? This is the question that should be first and foremost on the minds of military professionals. However, readiness means many things to many different people, and scholars have long debated how readiness should be measured and reported. Meanwhile, less attention is paid to what a nation must provide to its military in order to prosecute a war, such as legal authorities and resources. This monograph follows the pioneering work of Ken Betts (1995) and others in developing a comprehensive framework that examines all aspects of military readiness and national preparedness for war.
Responsible Command: Primer for Senior Leaders, 1st edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2020)
This book is a supplement to the Strategic Leadership and Defense Management primers and pursues the meaning of "responsible command" and how commanders (and staffs) set conditions for units to act responsibly and ethically in combat. Through a historical study, the primer offers five competencies that commanders must master and exercise to institutionalize responsible command regardless of whether commanding operational or enterprise (e.g., major service command or agency-type) units.
Maximizing Senior Leader Health and Well Being (2023)
Eds. Michael Hosie, Maurice Sipos, and Thomas Britt
Military senior leaders cannot take their health and wellbeing for granted. At the peak of their professional careers, senior leaders must simultaneously negotiate multiple roles, life transitions, and increased responsibilities while perhaps encountering the first signs of physical and cognitive decline. This Primer is intended to serve as a clarion call for senior leaders entering midlife to increase self-awareness and embark on a journey of health and wellbeing.
Leading Change in Military Organizations: Primer for Senior Leaders, 2nd edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2023)
This book presents a six-phase framework for initiating a major change effort that includes how to define the problem, diagnose its causes, prepare a vision, develop a concept, construct a plan, and launch the effort. Also presents the roles of senior leaders as change agents in the military and approaches to inheriting change efforts started by others so to preserve continuity and forward momentum.
Strategic Leader Meta-Competencies (2020)
Silas Martinez and Lou Yuengert (eds.)
Prepared by a group of U.S. Army War College students under faculty supervision in support of the Army Talent Management Task Force in academic year 2021. Talent management at the strategic level demands a common understanding of strategic leader capability. After analyzing more than 100 strategic leadership competencies found in over 100 source documents, this report presents a meta-competency framework describing the essence of strategic leadership capability. The six meta-competencies presented provide a common understanding of strategic talent requirements that can inform future Army doctrine.
Leading Change in Military Organizations: Experiential Activity Book, 2nd edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2024)
This activity book is the companion for the Leading Change Primer above. It provides Activities for each of the phases in the change management framework - defining the problem, diagnosing its causes, etc. Activities are presented in both long and short forms - long forms are for deliberate use in practice for detailed analysis and planning; short forms are provided for educational settings and workshops where time is limited and it is only important to ensure master of the ideas.
Communication Campaigning: Primer for Senior Leaders, 1st edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2020)
This book discusses the challenges of developing and implementing communication campaigns that align all the words and actions that a large organization undertakes. It offers an approach for identifying the organization's narrative, counternarratives against the narrative both internal and external, audiences, and the institutionalized norms and habits that the organization exercises. From this, the book discusses how to build a campaign with the themes, messages, and activities that the organization should enact to influence actors in the environment and promote the organization's preferred narrative.
Communication Campaigning: Experiential Activity Book, 1st edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2020)
This activity book is designed for both practical and educational use. Eight activities walk the reader through constructing the organization's narrative, analyzing counternarratives against it, and identifying key audiences and internal processes that drive the organization's actions. From this, the reader can develop a campaign to communicate themes and messages to influence these audiences and achieve a desired outcome. The exercises help guide the reader on how best to align the words and actions of the organization so the messages are delivered consistently and in a unified fashion.
A Proposed Framework for Expanding and Sustaining a Culture of Warfighting in the Army (2025 update)
Carlisle Scholars Program, Academic Year 2024
The white paper proposes a framework for unpacking the meaning of "culture of warfighting." The collective experience of CSP instructors and students suggests that the various branches, components, and communities within the Army interpret the meaning of warfighting differently according to what capabilities each bring to the table. Also, barriers to building the desired culture emanate from across the Army, not just within operational units. The proposal is that building a culture of warfighting begins by ensuring the total Army - active and reserve components, civilians (appropriated and non-appropriated), contractors, and family members - see themselves as part of the desired culture. The implication is that building and sustaining the desired culture will be best done through a powered-down campaign comprising a set of common central themes implemented in distributed fashion.
Capabilities-Based Planning: Experiential Activity Book, 1st edition (2025 update)
Tom Galvin (originally published 2020)
This workbook emerged out of a request for assistance that the United States Army War College received following bi-lateral staff talks between an Army service component command and a partner nation's Army. The request was for a workshop for the partner Army's staff planners on capabilities-based planning in support of that Army's on-going transformation efforts. This workbook is a result of that effort -- combining capabilities-based planning methods employed in both US and international militaries for general use. It includes seven activities that one can use for conducting planning and communicating the results: (1) Describing the Current Situation; (2) Developing Operating Concepts; (3) Developing Scenarios to Test the Concepts; (4) Testing the Concepts; (5) Determining Requirements; (6) Building a Force Development Plan; and (7) Developing the Communications Campaign.

This workbook is undergoing revision and a 2nd edition is planned for release in 2026.