George Washington, America's First Strategic Leader

American military officers are educated via a formal professional military development program, for more than twenty years in pursuit of mastery of the strategic art. Much of that developmental program emphasizes the concepts of war and military genius advocated by Carl Von Clausewitz in his nineteenth century classic, On War. This study examines the strategic thought and actions of General George Washington in the American Revolution, which preceded Clausewitz's work by more than thirty years. It shows that, despite the lack of any formal military professional education, Washington made skiliful use of the ways and means available to him to construct a strategy capable of achieving the desired ends. The author concludes that, whether judged against Clausewitz's concepts or modern definitions of the strategic art, Washington deserves to be recognized as a master of the strategic art and America's first strategic leader.