To say the international environment has become more challenging is an understatement. China, Russia, and North Korea explicitly challenge American leadership, and they aim to erase America’s military lead. Iran and its proxies have been wounded by recent attacks, but they also wish to degrade American power. The U.S. must up its game in appropriations, technology, rapid acquisition of new weapons, shipbuilding, training, doctrine, and recruiting. Equally important is the sound preparation of new officers at the Air Force Academy, West Point, and Annapolis. Three history courses are essential, but one of the academies falls short.
Facing new battlefield threats like drone swarms, network intrusions, next-generation combat aircraft, and operations from space, the temptation is for the service academies to teach more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Yet war is more than weapons and combat. Many social, political, and behavioral factors affect mobilization, training, and morale. Ethics and law bear on operations in order to prevent war crimes and curb battlefield excesses. English courses teach clear communication and the literatures that animate societies. Learning foreign languages spoken by adversaries and partners introduces different cultures and other modes of thinking. A fully effective officer and leader, then, needs a full education.
This necessity includes the most important field of study for warfighters – history. To adequately prepare American military officers for the challenges they will face during their careers, the service academies must ensure that their graduates all have studied three areas of history: American, world, and military. Otherwise, there will be a critical gap in their preparation.
American History: Katherine Boyle of Andreeson Horowitz recently spoke to our moment, “We don’t win a war against bad ideologies unless we know who we are, what we stand for, and where we’re headed. And if we lose this silent war — the ultimate war for American ideals — it’s not because we don’t have the know-how to build missiles and hypersonics and attributable systems and drone swarms. It will be because we doubt our inheritance. Because we doubt the beauty and nobility of what we’re building. Because we doubt that American Dynamism is true and the key to a safer, more prosperous civilization.”
Archibald MacLeish provided another insight soon after World War II: “Wars begin in the minds of men.” In the past, Americans defeated many minds poisoned by slavery, militarism, fascism, ugly nationalisms and racisms, communism, and religious hatred among them. Studying history reveals how those malign notions gripped entire nations and led them to war.
American minds defend different values. The Declaration of Independence expressed fundamental principles embraced by the founding generation and by Abraham Lincoln. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms inspired Americans during World War II. Studying history informs us of the long – and yes, checkered – progress from generation to generation and reveals how the Constitution, laws, institutions, and the armed forces reflect the free American mind. In short, American history explains “why we fight.”
World History: The Department of the Air Force Posture Statement for Fiscal Year 2026, referring to Air Force and Space Force missions and challenges, uses significant terms: “global” (8 times), “world” (14), “allies” and “allied” (14), “partner” (17), “adversary” or “adversaries” (31), “Russia,” “Iran,” and “Korea” (15), and “China” (32 times). It states, “strategic alignment and partnerships between Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China creates dangerous synergy as an emerging anti-western coalition” and “we must also acknowledge the threats.” These threats are more than technological; they are also driven by ideological, cultural, and organizational factors, all shaped by history.
Studying world history can provide essential insights into those adversaries while it reveals the values those nations fear – and we defend. The “west” in the posture statement is more than countries on a map; it’s a cluster of values with origins in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, forged over many centuries of European and American – Western – history. Having a basic knowledge of World History is thus a strategic prerequisite for cadets and midshipmen.
Military History: Core courses in military history are included in the core curricula of each academy. These are not simply about wars, campaigns, and battles. They address strategy, operations, logistics, forms of war (conventional, irregular, hybrid), and leadership – allied and enemy – in circumstances as diverse as the American Revolution, the Civil War, the world wars, Korea, Vietnam, and conflicts in the Middle East.
Military history taught at the academies also addresses America’s approach to war, the organization and weaponry of the services, war aims, and how strategy reflects choices made not only by the Commander-in-Chief but also by Congress and political leaders, all responsive to public opinion. Those who study military decisions discover the background, upbringing, and beliefs of presidents and generals. How did colonial Virginia shape Washington, Springfield affect Lincoln, the cowboy west impact Theodore Roosevelt, and Missouri dirt farming influence John Pershing?
A military history course both dovetails with and strengthens understanding of American history.
Three history courses in the core: West Point and Annapolis both require three history courses for all cadets and midshipmen. Having dropped American History from its academic core almost four decades ago, the Air Force Academy currently requires only two history courses. The Superintendent has recently decided to stream more cadets into an American history course, but to make that change, world history – taught continuously at the Academy since 1955 – may not be taught to all cadets.
The Academy leadership, the Board of Visitors, and the Congress must correct that deficiency and ensure that American history, World history, and Military history courses are all in the required curriculum in Colorado Springs. Otherwise, the Academy fails to produce officers who are fully prepared to deal with the challenges that they will face on the world stage.
Cadets become leaders. President Harry Truman, who knew the face of war as an artillery battery commander in World War I, noted that “Readers of good books, particularly books of biography and history, are preparing themselves for leadership.” The Air Force Academy should remember his counsel – and take action to implement it.
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