Ft. Leavenworth Series

Abraham Lincoln, often characterized as one of America’s preeminent war leaders, was a master politician who intuitively understood the political consequences of any decision.  Yet on matters of strategy, arguably the most important responsibility of a wartime president, Lincoln deferred to his military commanders rather than exercise his authority as commander-in-chief.  His strategy of deference […]

Popularly known as “the Strong” for his formidable physical vigor and power, Augustus II came to power in Saxony in 1694 and won the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth three years later. He then proceeded to conduct military operations against the Turks that resulted in the Treaty of Karlowitz before forming alliances with the rulers of […]

The Nazis’ attempt to bomb Great Britain into submission in 1940 and 1941 represented Hitler’s most destructive method of forcing Britain out of the Second World War, but it was not the first time London and other cities had experienced such attacks. From 1915 to 1918, aircraft from Imperial Germany’s army and navy sought to […]

Robert Fulton is best known for the first commercially successful steamboats plying the Hudson River.  However, he did considerable work inventing and developing weapons of naval warfare: workable submarines, underwater mines, underwater cannons, and skiff-propelled torpedoes.  Perhaps his crowning contribution to naval warfare was the Demologus (Voice of the People) – the world's first steam-powered warship with […]

In April 1960 the US Navy launched the first experimental navigation satellite.  This highly classified and cutting-edge technology found in the TRANSIT satellites were designed to provide the Navy’s submarines armed with the new POLARIS ballistic missile with more precise navigation fixes as a means to improve their accuracy, if and when they had to […]

This lecture will begin with the genesis of the shipboard combat information center (CIC) in World War II from the Guadalcanal campaign (1942) up through that at Okinawa (1945). From there it will move to a discussion of the development of the CIC on aircraft carriers through the Cold War and its current incarnation as […]

The Vietnam War was not just America’s first televised war, it was the nation’s first computerized war. The conflict’s hybrid character created a fragmented battlespace that was defined by a lack of front lines, the comingling of friendly and enemy forces, and a patchwork of political and military control. Data collection and analysis thus became […]

In 1700, the French army adopted the musket with attached socket bayonet, but it took over a century for it to master the new art of war that the technology brought about. Exploring why explains the challenges new technologies present to militaries and illustrates how they adapt to them. Dr. Jonathan Abel is an Associate […]

The tank was one of the most iconic weapons of the 20th century. While it was a dominate weapon on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East from World War II and beyond, its origins were deeply tied to the realities of the Western Front of the Great War This lecture will examine how the […]

The integration of the U.S. Armed Forces signifies one of the many adaptations the U.S. military conducted during the Second World War when it came to combat power and reconstitution. As of early 1945, the U.S. Army fielded integrated units as a result of the attrition on the Western Front, but shortly thereafter returned to […]

Desert Storm in January-February 1991 is known for its dazzling display of technological brilliance, forecasting a so-called revolution in military affairs that promised the United States a cheap alternative to wars of the past.  The lop-sided victory over Iraqi forces in Kuwait in 1991 seemed to forecast a new American way of war that was […]