commander in chief of the continental army

#Commander in chief of the continental army how to
#Commander in chief of the continental army professional

Portrait of George Washington, by Charles Willson Peale, 1772, oil on canvas, Washington and Lee University

He was very much a strategically minded critical thinker who learned from his mistakes and fought under conditions of highly disruptive change.

#Commander in chief of the continental army professional

In the most recent Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Instruction on joint professional military education (JPME), the Chairman articulated his commander’s intent for JPME, which is “the development of strategically minded joint warfighters who think critically and can creatively apply military power to inform national strategy, conduct globally integrated operations, and fight under conditions of disruptive change.” 4 After 1778, North America was a theater in a globally integrated operation between the British and French, in which Washington was the American theater joint commander and the combined forces commander for the allied American and French forces.

Washington’s military career embodies many of the goals set out in current-day military education. At that point, with the Declaration of Independence still a year away, ideas about military strategy-that is, tactics-fell on the shoulders of the new and unanimously elected commander in chief of the Continental Army, George Washington. (The Constitution that we operate under today was still several years into the future.) Ideas about national-level strategy fell to the delegates to the Second Continental Congress-among whom Washington was counted from the spring of 1775 until he became commander of the Continental Army. It was not until 1781 that the 13 new states even ratified the Articles of Confederation, under which each state acted as a sovereign nation. What today we would call “national security strategy” or “grand strategy” was only for kings and their ministers.Ĭomplicating matters, the new United States did not have a modern national leadership structure during the American Revolution. 2 For military officers, the word strategy referred then to military tactics, not national security strategy or even grand strategy.

#Commander in chief of the continental army how to

In the 18 th century, for the most part, a strategy meant “the rules of the game”-that is, maxims on how to execute battles, in much the same way Sun Tzu or Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini handed us recipes for success. Palmer argued that it “was not a word George Washington ever used.” 1 However, as Palmer also states, there was most certainly strategy before Clausewitz. Palmer, historian and former West Point superintendent, strategy was not a commonly used word until Carl von Clausewitz analyzed the Napoleonic Wars of the 19 th century. His command of all the instruments of national power most certainly provides a superlative model for officers who will serve in the JIIM environment in the future.Īccording to Lieutenant General Dave R. Washington was undoubtedly the first and possibly the only officer to simultaneously serve as de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Chief of Staff of the Army, and commander of an army in a combat theater. forces during the American Revolution, understood how all four instruments of national power could be orchestrated to achieve the aim of independence from Great Britain. Long before he became President, Washington was a national security strategist who, as commander of all U.S. But while many of the founders understood one or perhaps two of these instruments, General George Washington was the first American to execute a strategy using all four to achieve his ends-all while operating in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) environment, as complicated in its time as ours is today. To achieve that end, they relied on all four instruments of national power-diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. They wanted political, military, and economic independence for the 13 colonies. On July 4, 1776, American leaders at the Second Continental Congress terminated the strategy they had been executing against Great Britain for over a year.

The Passage of the Delaware, by Thomas Sully, 1819, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts Boston