Spahr – USAWC Civil-Military Relations Center

Thomas Spahr

Chair
Department of Military Strategy, Plans, and Operations, SSL

MILITARY AND SOCIETY, FUTURE OF THE MILITARY PROFESSION, STRATEGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

BIO

Colonel Thomas W. Spahr is an Army War College Professor (FA47W) and the Chair of the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations. He served as a military intelligence officer before transitioning to the War College in July 2020. Colonel Spahr holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. in History from The Ohio State University and an M.S.S. from the Army War College.

Colonel Spahr’s military assignments include: Chief of Staff for the CJ2 (Intelligence), Operation Resolute Support, Afghanistan; Senior Intelligence Officer (G2), 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson; Speechwriter to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (GEN John Campbell and Daniel Allyn); Commander, MI Detachment, 7^thSpecial Forces Group; and Collection Management Officer, 75^th Ranger Regiment. He deployed as an intelligence officer to Afghanistan four times (2001, 2005, 2012, 2020) and Columbia twice (2003) and has taken part in multinational training exercises in Eastern Europe (2016-2017). COL Spahr taught military history at West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

COL Spahr is currently working on a book titled “Occupying for Peace, the U.S. Army in Mexico.”

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contact

thomas.spahr@armywarcollege.edu

(717) 245-3561

651 Wright Ave, Room 2006
Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013

Recent Publications

_{ACADEMIC ARTICLE}“Polk’s Toxic Success”
Presentation at the USAWC Civil-Military Relations Center Inaugural Conference, May 5, 2023
^{STRATEGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY}

_PODCAST
“Allies, Adversaries, Priorities and Plans: the NDS” (with Robert Bradford and Ron Granieri)
A Better Peace Podcast, USAWC WarRoom, Nov 15, 2022
^{STRATEGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY, ALLIES AND ADVERSARIES}

_{BOOK CHAPTER}
“Intelligence and the US Army War College: The Academic-Practitioner Relationship in Professional Military Education” (with Genevieve Lester and James Breckenridge)
in The Academic-Practitioner Divide in Intelligence Studies, edited by Ruben Arcos, Nicole Drumhiller, and Mark Phythian (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
^{EDUCATION, STRATEGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY}

_COMMENTARY
“Adapting Intelligence to the New Afghanistan”
War on the Rocks, September 30, 2021
^{STRATEGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY, ALLIES AND ADVERSARIES}