Simons Center News

Maj. April M.K. Moore received the LTC Ronald C. Ward Distinguished Special Operations Forces Student Award for the Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Class of 2016 in a ceremony June 9. Maj. Moore is a civil affairs officer in the U.S. Army. The award is presented to the top Special Operations Forces (SOF) […]

U.S. Air Force Major Bishane A. Whitmore graduated from the Command and General Staff Officers Course of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College on June 10, as one of 1,300 students. He was also one of only 139 members of the class recognized for obtaining a Masters of Military Art and Science (MMAS). […]

Nearly 800 representatives from U.S. government agencies, private industry, and foreign nations recently participated in Cyber Guard 2016, a nine-day exercise that concluded on June 18. U.S. government participants included representatives from the FBI and the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, among others. Non-government entities included power companies and port facilities. This year’s Cyber Guard exercise scenarios involved […]

Last week, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued guidance on national security professional development interagency personnel rotations. On June 15, Acting Director Beth F. Cobert announced OPM’s guidance aimed at assisting participating agencies in meeting the requirement mandated by section 1107(e) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. The guidance encourages agencies to […]

On June 9, RAND Corporation released two reports examining the deployment of Department of Defense (DoD) civilians. The full case study is included in Expeditionary Civilians: Creating a Viable Practice of Department of Defense Civilian Deployment, and while a shorter report, Expeditionary Civilians: Creating a Viable Practice of Civilian Deployment Within the U.S. Interagency Community and Among Foreign […]

The 2016 graduating class was comprised of 1,307 students: 879 from the active U.S. Army; 50 – National Guard; 98 – U.S. Army Reserve; 87 – U.S. Air Force; 45 – U.S. Navy; 28 – U.S. Marine Corps; two from the U.S. Coast Guard; 109 international officers representing 90 countries; and nine from other U.S. […]

International military students, received the Command and General Staff College International Officer Graduate Badge during a ceremony June 9, 2016, in the Eisenhower Auditorium at the post’s Lewis and Clark Center. In the 2016 CGSC graduating class, there were 109 international officers representing 90 countries. The tradition of presenting international military students with a badge […]

Scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are making progress on a Zika virus vaccine, and plan to start human testing later this year. Efforts to produce the vaccine and prepare for the spread of the virus have included components of the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the […]

When the American Revolution broke out, the rebellious colonies did not possess an army in the modern sense. Rather, the revolutionaries fielded an amateur force of colonial troops, cobbled together from various New England militia companies. They had no unified chain of command, and although Artemas Ward of Massachusetts exercised authority by informal agreement, officers […]

In May, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) released their Joint Strategy on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). The joint strategy builds on the foundation of the 2015 White House CVE Summit and provides a “roadmap” for U.S. CVE efforts. In his opening message for the strategy, Secretary of State John […]