Basic Strategic Arts Program The Basic Strategic Art Program ( BSAP ) is a specialized academic program taught at the U . S . Army War College . In the late 1990s when the Army created Functional Area 59 , the United States Army War College chosen as the institution to host the program . The first BSAP class was in 2003 . FA 59 Officers were used in combat for the first time beginning in 2001 with the onset of the Global War on Terror . Graduates of this program have served in key positions in Iraq , Afghanistan , at all combatant commands , Army Service Component Commands , and at the Pentagon . The program is the qualification course for Officers selected for FA59 ( Strategist , formerly Strategic Plans & Policy ) . It provides an introduction to strategy , art and practice , and establishes a base of the unique skills , knowledge , and attributes required for an Officer ' s development as a strategist . The course is taught to rigorous academic standards , failure to achieve and maintain these standards is cause for disenrollment from the program and loss of the Functional Area identifier . Faculty . The course is directed by an FA59 Lieutenant Colonel and employs two full - time instructors serve as educators and mentors with a civilian technician providing administrative support . The Director of BSAP is responsible for the execution of the program , and is the primary liaison to the Proponent Office at Headquarters , Department of the Army in Washington , DC . The two civilian instructors develop and implement the curriculum , along with the program Director , and an educational technician provides administrative and program support . BSAP draws upon the entire faculty of the War College to support instruction . In addition , the BSAP curriculum makes full use of additional academic and professional opportunities available during the resident and non - resident courses at the U . S . Army War College . BSAP students will sit in seminar with many of the same renowned subject matter experts who lecture for the Advanced Strategic Art Program , the U . S . Army War College resident program and the other Senior Service Colleges . Curriculum . The BSAP curriculum is based on six modules of study that provide the officers with the unique skills , knowledge , and attributes needed as a foundation for their progressive development as Army strategists . Strategic theory . This module provides a foundation in strategic and operational theory . This course of study provides the officer with the theoretical tools to enable him or her to evaluate doctrine and strategy . It begins with a survey of classical strategic theory from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz . Next the course examines modern strategic theory , including modern theories that underpin current service and joint doctrine . The module also looks at the notion of strategic culture and ends with a discussion of current operational theory and the role of theory and doctrine in practice . Strategic art . In this module students study the practice of the strategic art from the Peloponnesian Wars to the Global War on Terrorism . Students will discuss critical themes , which help explain victory or defeat . Among these themes are : strategy and policy match , theories of victory , mirror imaging , civil - military relations , pre - war plans and wartime realities , and coalition warfare . Army systems . This module will familiarize students with how the nation raises and maintains the Army . Specifically , students will develop an appreciation for Army resource and force management , readiness , and transformation . National security and decision - making . This module will acquaint students with the nature of decision - making on national security matters in the executive branch of the U . S . Government . This module includes an examination of the national security organization and policy development . It covers the theory and reality of the interagency process and an analysis of the main agencies engaged in national security . The students will look at real world case studies which will illustrate both the formal and informal processes at work . This module will also include a trip to Washington , D . C . to visit the State Department , the NSC , JCS , CIA , and the Army G - 3 . Contemporary strategic challenges . This module uses assigned readings , guest lecturers and a program of study to familiarize students with the strategic environment for Northeast Asia , Southwest Asia , Western Hemisphere , and Europe . The course examines U . S . regional interest , objectives , trends , and factors which impact on them . The module concludes with an examination of the homeland security . Landpower . This module familiarizes students with the strategic value of landpower and the strategic role of the U . S . Army . Key to this module is the study of campaign planning . Students learn about the structure and employment of Army forces in theater . At the conclusion of this module , students should be able to articulate appropriate Army roles and Army Forces ( ARFOR ) , Joint Forces Land Component ( JFLC ) , and Army theater planning for a given strategy . Staff rides and staff visits . BSAP students participate in two staff ride s and one staff visit . The interagency staff ride that concludes the National Security Decision - Making module includes visits to the State Department , NSC , OSD , JCS , the Army staff , and other relevant entities in Washington , DC . BSAP concludes with a staff ride of Grant ' s 1864 Overland Campaign . This staff ride serves as review for the entire course and as a vehicle for additional insights as the students look at the operational , theater strategic , and strategic insights from the Battle of the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House . Reading List . 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare : Implictions for Army and Defense Policy , Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey Friedman 34 Days : Israel , Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon , Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff Accidental Guerilla : Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One , David Kilcullen American Civil - Military Relations , Edited by Suzanne C . Nielsen and Don M . Snider American Politics : Classic and Contemporary Readings , Allan C . Cigler American Way of War , Russell F . Weigley An Unknown Future and A Doubtful Present , Writing the Victory Plan of 1941 , Charles E . Kirkpatrick And Keep Moving On , Mark Grimsley Art of War , trans . by Samuel Griffith Asking the Right Questions : A Guide to Critical Thinking , M Neil Browne and Stuart Keeley Austro - Prussian War , Geoffrey Wawro Bombing to Win : Air Power and Coercion in War , Robert A . Pape Bureaucracy : What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It , James Q . Wilson Carrying the War to the Enemy : American Operational Art to 1945 , Michael R . Matheny Cobra II , Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor Congress : The Electoral Connection , David Mayhew Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities , Perspectives on Warfighting , Dr . Joe Strange Confederate War , The Gary W . Gallagher Conflict After the Cold War , Richard K . Betts Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare , Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian Dereliction of Duty , H . R . McMaster Elements of Style , William Strunk and E . B . White Essence of Decision : Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis , Graham T . Allison and Philip Zelikow Fighting Talk : Forty Maxims on War , Peace , and Strategy , Colin S . Gray Franco - Prussian War : The German Conquest of France in 1870 - 1871 , Geoffery Wawro Grand Strategies in War and Peace edited by Paul Kennedy Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire , Edward N . Luttwak Great Civil War : A Military and Political History 1861 - 1865 , A Russell F . Weigley Landmark Thucydides R . B . Stassler Lexus and the Olive Tree , Thomas L . Friedman Making of Peace : Rulers , States , and the Aftermath of War , Williamson Murray Making of Strategy : Rulers , States , and War , Williamson Murray , MacGregor Knox , Alvin Bernstein Modern Strategy , Colin S . Gray Obama ' s Wars , Bob Woodward On Point : US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom , Gregory Fontenot , E . J . Degen , David Tohn On point II : the United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom , May 2003 - Jan 2005 : transition to the new campaign , Donald P . Wright On War , Clausewitz Paths of Heaven , Evolution of Airpower Theory , Phillip S . Meilinger Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century , Larry H . Addington Peace to End all Peace : The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East , David Fromkin Plan of Attack , Bob Woodward Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse - Tung , Mao Tse - tung Spanish Ulcer : A History of the Peninsular War , David Gates Strategy and Power in Russia 1600 - 1914 , William C . Fuller , Jr . Strategy in the Contemporary World , John Baylis , James Wirtz , Eliot Cohen , Colin Gray Supreme Command , Eliot A . Cohen Thinking in Time : The Uses of History for Decisionmakers , Neustadt and May This Mighty Scourge : Perspectives on the Civil War , James McPherson The Endgame : The Inside Story of the Struggles for Iraq , from George Bush to Barack Obama , Gordon and Trainor The Tragedy of Great Power Politics , John Mearsheimer Transformation of War , Martin Van Creveld Transforming an Army at War : Designing the Modular Force , 1993 - 2005 , William M . Donnelly War , Peace and International Relations : An Introduction to Strategic History , Colin Gray War Within : A Secret White House History 2006 - 2008 , Bob Woodward Why the Allies Won , Richard J . Overy