The Foreign Military Studies Office, or FMSO, is a research and analysis center for the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
that is part of the
United States Army Combined Arms Center
The U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (USACAC) is located at Fort Leavenworth and provides leadership and supervision for leader development and professional military and civilian education; institutional and collective training; functional training; ...
at
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth () is a United States Army installation located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, in the city of Leavenworth, Kansas, Leavenworth. Built in 1827, it is the second oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C., an ...
. It manages the
Joint Reserve Intelligence Center there.
Mission
The main purpose of FMSO is to conduct analysis relating to foreign military and security studies based upon open source research. FMSO's publications are available on its web site, and its researchers publish in many professional military and academic journals, where their products can be assessed in the market place of ideas. Originally created by LTG William Richardson, TRADOC Commander, as the Soviet Army Studies Office in 1986, SASO's first director was Dr. Bruce Menning. A primary area of focus was the development of operational art in the Soviet Union. Colonel
David Glantz
David M. Glantz (born January 11, 1942) is an American military historian known for his books on the Red Army during World War II and as the chief editor of ''The Journal of Slavic Military Studies''.
Born in Port Chester, New York, Glantz r ...
, a well-known author on the Soviet military experience in the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, became its second director. FMSO was staffed by US Army
foreign area officers and civilian scholars. With the end of the Cold War SASO became FMSO in 1991 and its focus initially broadened to Central and Eastern Europe.
About David Glantz - consimworld.com - October 2, 1998
FMSO was actively involved in research on the end of the Cold War, the challenge of ethno-nationalism to Post-Cold War Europe, and relevant foreign military experience, such as the Soviet-Afghan War and the Wars in Chechnya. FMSO developed a research programs on Latin American military affairs, Chinese military studies, and Eurasian military studies. In the post Cold War era
Post or POST commonly refers to:
*Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries
** An Post, the Irish national postal service
**Canada Post, Canadian postal service
**Deutsche Post, German postal service
** Iraqi Post, I ...
FMSO did address problems of asymmetric warfare
Asymmetric warfare (or asymmetric engagement) is the term given to describe a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. This is typically a war between a standing, professional ar ...
. In the last decade it has also addressed the problem of integrating cultural insights into COIN and played a key role in the initial development of the Human Terrain System, and is an active partner of the controversial cultural geography mapping project called México Indígena
México Indígena is a project of the American Geographical Society to organize teams of geographers to research the geography of indigenous populations in Mexico. The project's stated objective is to map "changes in the cultural landscape and con ...
.
Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents
Through the site, the US government made publicly available the Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents - some 55,000 boxes of documents, audiotapes and videotapes relating to the government of Saddam Hussein, seized during the Iraq invasion in 2003 for the purposes of Document Exploitation (DOCEX)
Document Exploitation (DOCEX) is the set of procedures used by the United States Armed Forces to discover, categorize, and use documents seized in combat operations. In the course of performing its missions in the War on Terrorism, members of ...
. However, in early November 2006, the entire set of documents was apparently removed. Media reports stated that the website was taken offline because the documents included sophisticated diagrams and other information detailing nuclear weapon design that could be useful to anyone wishing to construct a nuclear weapon.
See also
*Intelligence collection management
Intelligence collection management is the process of managing and organizing the collection of intelligence from various sources. The collection department of an intelligence organization may attempt basic validation of what it collects, but is ...
*List of intelligence gathering disciplines
This is a list of intelligence gathering disciplines.
HUMINT
Human intelligence (HUMINT) are gathered from a person in the location in question. Sources can include the following:
* Advisors or foreign internal defense (FID) personnel wor ...
*Document Exploitation (DOCEX)
Document Exploitation (DOCEX) is the set of procedures used by the United States Armed Forces to discover, categorize, and use documents seized in combat operations. In the course of performing its missions in the War on Terrorism, members of ...
*World Basic Information Library
The World Basic Information Library (WBIL) is a joint United States Army and United States Navy program, which allows Reserve Component (RC) personnel of all United States Armed Forces branches to participate in contributing Open Source Intellige ...
(WBIL)
References
External links
Official site - Old
Official site - Current
Research installations of the United States Army
Military in Kansas
Fort Leavenworth
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