Staff colleges (also command and staff colleges and war colleges) train military officers in the administrative, staff and policy aspects of their profession. It is usual for such training to occur at several levels in a career. For example, an officer may be sent to various staff courses: as a captain they may be sent to a single service command and staff school to prepare for company command and equivalent staff posts; as a major to a single or joint service college to prepare for battalion command and equivalent staff posts; and as a colonel or brigadier to a higher staff college to prepare for brigade and division command and equivalent postings.
The success of staff colleges spawned, in the mid-twentieth century, a civilian imitation in what are called administrative staff colleges. These institutions apply some of the principles of the education of the military colleges to the executive development of managers from both the public and private sectors of the economy. The first and best-known administrative staff college was established in Britain at Greenlands near Henley, Oxfordshire and is now renamed Henley Management College.
The first modern staff college was that of Prussia. Prussian advanced officer education began under the reign of Fredrick the Great in 1710. The Seven Years' War demonstrated the inadequacy of the education that Generals had at that time, but it was not until 1801 that staff training in a modern sense began when Gerhard von Scharnhorst became the director of the Prussian Military Academy. The Prussian defeats at the hand of Napoleon I led to the creation of the Allgemeine Kriegsschule (General War Academy) with a nine month programme covering mathematics, tactics, strategy, staff work, weapons science, military geography, languages, physics, chemistry and administration. The German staff courses have been used as a basic templates for other staff courses around the world.
Nations have taken a wide variety of approaches to the form, curriculum and status of staff colleges, but have much in common with the Prussian courses of the early 19th Century. Some courses act as filters for promotion or entry into a specialist staff corps. The length of courses varies widely, from three months to three years, with some having entrance and/or exit examinations. The more senior the course, the more likely that it will include strategic, political and joint aspects, with junior courses often focusing on single service and tactical military aspects of warfare.
Certain terms of art or idiom have developed in staff colleges over time, and then been used in wider college or university settings and everyday usage, including:
staff refers to the professional personnel (usually called directing staff (DS)) and employees of the college;fight the white, normally expressed as do not fight the white (as in do not go against the staff's pre-determined answer), where the 'white' is the question given to students, which may lack realism or not fit current operations. A "pink" is the Staff College's staff answer to a particular problem or issue. Pinks and whites referred to the color coding of course material where problems and information for use of students was printed on standard white sheets of papers while material intended for use by directing staff (which often contained suggested solutions/answers) was produced on pink sheets. This practice originates from staff colleges of British origins. The tradition survives across several Commonwealth staff colleges such as the Command and Staff College, Quetta.The following is an incomplete list of staff colleges, by continent by country:
GhanaGhana Armed Forces Command And Staff College, Military Academy And Training Schools, Teshie, AccraKenyaDefense Staff College, NairobiNigeriaArmed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji in Kaduna StateUgandaUganda Senior Command and Staff College, Kimaka in Jinja DistrictUganda Junior Staff College, Jinja in Jinja DistrictEscuela Superior de Guerra "Teniente General Luis María Campos".Canadian Land Force Command and Staff CollegeCanadian Forces CollegeAir University, HQ at Maxwell AFB, AlabamaAir Command and Staff CollegeAir War CollegeAir Force Institute of Technology (Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio)Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, KansasSchool of Advanced Military StudiesU.S. Army War College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania)U.S. Army Warrant Officer Career CollegeNaval War College in Newport, Rhode IslandCollege of Naval Command and StaffCollege of Naval WarfareNaval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California)Marines
Marine Corps UniversityMarine Corps War CollegeMarine Corps Command and Staff CollegeSchool of Advanced WarfightingExpeditionary Warfare SchoolJoint
Defense Acquisition University - five campuses - HQ at Fort Belvoir, VirginiaNational Defense University in Washington D.C.National War CollegeIndustrial College of the Armed ForcesJoint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia,BangladeshDefence Services Command And Staff College MirpurChinaPeople's Liberation Army National Defense UniversityNanjing PLA Army Command CollegeShijiazhuang PLA Army Command CollegePLA Naval Command CollegePLA Air Force Command CollegePLA Artillery Command CollegeSecond Artillery Corps Command CollegeIndiaDefence Services Staff College, WellingtonJapanNaval War College (Japan)LebanonFouad Shehab Command and Staff CollegeNepalArmy Command and Staff College(www.acsc-shivapuri.mil.np/)PakistanNational Defence UniversityCommand and Staff CollegePAF Air War CollegePakistan Navy War CollegePhilippinesArmed Forces of the Philippines Command and General Staff CollegeSingaporeGoh Keng Swee Command and Staff CollegeSri LankaGeneral Sir John Kotelawala Defence UniversityDefence Services Command and Staff CollegeSLAF Junior Command & Staff CollegeTaiwan (Republic of China)National Defense UniversityArmy Command and Staff CollegeNaval Command and Staff CollegeAir Command and Staff CollegeUnited Arab EmiratesArmed Forces of the UAE Command and Staff CollegeÉcole de guerre ("War School"). Created in 1993 by the fusion of the four Écoles supérieures de guerre ("War Higher Schools"). Formerly known asCentre des hautes études militaires ("School of Advanced Military Studies"). Created in 1952. The students must have completed the École de guerre.Institut des hautes études de la défense nationale ("School of Advanced Defense Studies"). Created in 1936. The students are civilians, both civil servants and high-profile executives, but the students of the Centre des hautes études militaires also attend the Institut..École supérieure des officiers de réserve spécialistes d'état-major ("Reserve Staff Officers School"). Following the defeat of 1870-71 war, it was created in 1899 by a group of Reserve Officers and then officially became a staff college in 1900.All these schools are seated in the école militaire in Paris.
Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, Armed Forces Staff and Command College.Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik, Federal Academy for Security Policy.Instituto de Estudos Superiores Militares ("Higher Military Studies Institute"), Portuguese Armed Forces Joint Command and Staff College. Created in 2005 by the fusion of the former three separate Army, Navy and Air Force staff collegesInstituto da Defesa Nacional ("National Defense Institute"), Ministry of Defense college for National and International Security policy, created in 1967.Defence Academy of the United Kingdom (Shrivenham)Joint Services Command and Staff College for officers (OF2 to OF6) and Warrant Officers (Shrivenham)JSCSC was formed by the merger of: Staff College, Camberley (Army), Royal Naval College, Greenwich and RAF Staff College, BracknellRoyal College of Defence Studies for officers (OF6 to OF7) and civilians (London)The Australian Defence College (ADC) was officially opened in 1999 in Canberra. It is a Joint organisation, and comprises:
the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies (CDSS), Weston Creek,the Australian Command and Staff College (ACSC), Weston Creek, andthe Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA).Prior to the establishment of the Australian Command and Staff College, middle management officer Command and Staff training was conducted at separate single Service staff colleges:
the RAN Staff Course at the RAN Staff College at HMAS Penguin in Sydneythe Army Command and Staff Course was conducted at the Army Command and Staff College at Fort Queenscliff in Victoria; andthe RAAF Staff Course at the RAAF Staff College at RAAF Base Fairbairn in Canberra.New Zealand
New Zealand Defence CollegeNATO Defence College