Congratulations on attending Air War College. You have a challenging time ahead of you, with courses in strategy, doctrine, airpower, international relations, strategic leadership, global security, military planning, and military use of land, sea, air, and space environments.

We have students from all the U.S. military services, over 40 foreign countries, and many of the non-military U.S. government agencies. As such, everyone arrives here with some areas of the curriculum being very familiar and other areas being very new.

For many of you, it has been years since you were in an academic environment and had to do things such as attending lectures, participating in seminar discussions, and writing research papers.

Below are some helpful links to resources which can assist you in preparing to attend Air War College. Even for areas you feel comfortable with, you might want to at least glance at the materials.

AWC Student Operations

• This is your source of information in lieu of a sponsor package. Read it thoroughly and check back often for updates.
• Look here for items regarding household goods, orders, passports (you'll be traveling during the year), immunization records, schooling for dependents, promotion board paperwork, physicals, etc.

Air War College Curriculum

• Looking at the overall program will help you judge for yourself which topic areas you need to brush up on before arriving here.

Electives Program

• You'll be balloting for your choices of electives soon after you arrive. The list of electives offered varies every year.

Study Hints & Tips

• Study Guides and Strategies in 15 languages

Reading Effectively

• You'll be doing a LOT of reading, so it might behoove you to glance at some tips on how to minimize the pain.

U.S. National Strategies & Doctrine Resources

• Be familiar with them, especially the U.S. National Security Strategy

Key Links - Professional & Security

• Professional Reading Lists from the services
• Key Security Strategy Documents
• Regional Study Centers and Posture Statements

Doing Research

• You'll be doing at least one large research project ... and perhaps more (smaller), if you take certain elective courses

• You'll be able to compete for AWC, AU, and DoD-wide research awards, and perhaps get published. Some past research efforts have resulted in high-level attention and career boosts for the writers.

• You might want to think ahead about a research topic (bring several), since you don't have a lot of time after arrival before you have to declare a topic. Pick a topic which interests you, since you'll be spending a lot of time working on it.

• Faculty Expertise Areas - might give you some ideas for research topic areas

• Mini-Course on Writing - can't hurt to check it out, all the materials are short

Air War College Quick Portal

• About 200 of the most useful links for U.S. agencies, searching the internet, components of DoD, tools for writing, etc.

Military Theory

• You don't have to read them all (see Reading Effectively above), but you might want to read a few to get into the groove, especially
  • Clausewitz Condensed - written for Congress ... gives you the basics.
  • Art of War, by Sun Tzu - not the latest translation (which is not available online), but will get you familiar with the essential ideas
  • Articles comparing theorists - for instance, the Faber article compares most of the prominent airpower theories

Military History

• WAY too much to read, but you might want to peruse for items of interest, especially regarding the more recent wars
  • A Short History of War - key word in title has five letters. Not exhaustive (that's why it is short), but it will give the basics. If you can't read it all, at least try for chapters five and six.

International Officer resources

• Even if you're homegrown right here in the U.S., you still might want to check out some of these