One year into my tenure as Chancellor of the College of International Security Affairs, several things are clear. The strategic environment our graduates will face is neither episodic nor distant. Competition is continuous. Conflict is persistent. We are not in a singular age of warfare; we are in an era of constant connection—intellectual, informational, and physical—at a scale unprecedented in human history. CISA exists to educate future leaders to meet that reality.

For much of our national experience, the United States has engaged in what we now describe as irregular warfare. From our earliest history to the present day, warfare has involved influence, legitimacy, coercion, proxy forces, and competition below the threshold of declared conflict. What has changed is the speed at which these tools propagate and the willingness of some nation-states to proactively leverage them against competitors. Irregular warfare is not a niche, nor is it merely something to be countered. It is a tool of statecraft and a universal aspect of warfare itself. Within the Department of War, our responsibility is to ensure the United States—alongside its allies and partners—understands it better, applies it more effectively, and integrates it responsibly across the totality of the joint force.

CISA is a war college. We study war in all its forms—conventional and irregular, state and non-state, kinetic and informational—because warfighting ultimately centers on human decision making under conditions of uncertainty and consequence. CISA delivers this education through two flagship programs: the Master of Arts in Security Studies and JPME II program at Fort McNair, and the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts at Fort Bragg. Our curriculum emphasizes how states, their proxies, and non-state actors employ irregular warfare and related concepts to achieve strategic effects in the competitive space. Global power competition is treated not as theory, but as reality. This education is intentionally practical and strategic. Our graduates leave with tools they can apply immediately and the intellectual discipline to adapt as conditions change.

CISA’s strength rests on its faculty and instructors. Our team combines deep operational and battlefield experience with a lifelong study of war—its theory, its nature, and its practice in all its forms. They bring practical understanding into the classroom while maintaining analytical rigor, ensuring our education remains relevant, demanding, and grounded in the realities of warfare. CISA is deliberately small, and that is a strength. We educate a limited population of U.S. students by design, alongside a majority international cohort. Our scale enables rigor, selectivity, and depth of engagement. Our students graduate with a seriousness of purpose, intellectual heft, and the professional trust of their peers—trust that extends well beyond our campus.

CISA’s alumni form a global network of practitioners who continue to shape security outcomes in their home countries and institutions. Many return to us as instructors. Others serve as presidents, ambassadors, chiefs of defense, and senior civilian leaders. This continuity is an institutional asset. It sustains excellence and ensures what we teach remains grounded in lived experience.

Partnership is central to who we are. Working with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict and with partners across the interagency, CISA helps build and strengthen a global network of irregular warfare and counterterrorism professionals. Through programs supported by the Regional Defense Fellowship Program, we assist allied and partner nations in institutionalizing these practices so they can secure themselves and contribute to collective security. This is peace through strength in practice.

A year into this role, I am confident in CISA’s direction. We are proud of our people and our graduates, and clear-eyed about our responsibility. In an era of persistent competition and complex warfare, the Department of War requires leaders who can think critically, operate across domains, and build durable partnerships. At CISA, building those leaders is our mission. 

GREGG P. OLSON

Chancellor