FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ohio State selects Petraeus aide as military history chair
Col. Peter R. Mansoor is influential advisor in shaping “surge” strategy in Iraq
COLUMBUS — The Mershon Center for International Security Studies and the Department of History at The Ohio State University are proud to announce that they have selected Col. Peter R. Mansoor as the next Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair of Military History.
Mansoor, currently serving as executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, will begin his duties at Ohio State in September 2008. He will assume a joint appointment between the Mershon Center and the History Department, teaching classes, conducting research, and organizing speaking and conference events in the fields of military history and national security studies.
Mansoor is a highly decorated officer with more than 25 years of distinguished military service. He currently serves as a key advisor to Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq. In this position, Mansoor assists Petraeus with strategic planning for the U.S. war effort in Iraq, and helps to prepare Petraeus for key meetings with top leaders in the Executive Branch, Congress, and in the Iraqi government. Mansoor was one of the major authors of the report on the situation in Iraq, delivered by Petraeus to Congress on Sept. 10-11, 2007.
While working for Petraeus in his previous assignment, Mansoor was hand-picked in the fall of 2006 to serve on a “Council of Colonels” that assisted the Joint Chiefs of Staff in reassessing the strategy for the Iraq War. The outcome of this effort was the “surge” strategy currently being employed in Iraq.
Mansoor is also the founding director of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Under his leadership, the Counterinsurgency Center helped to revise the final version of the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24, which was published jointly by the Army and Marine Corps in December 2006. This document was the first revision of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in more than 20 years, incorporating lessons learned during conflicts throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
In 2003-04, Mansoor served as Commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, in Iraq, which was responsible for security and stability in the Rusafa and Adhamiya districts of Baghdad, an area of 195 square kilometers and 2.1 million people. After the April 2004 uprising of militia loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, Mansoor’s brigade combat team restored the holy city of Karbala to coalition control within three weeks, an operation that earned the organization a Presidential Unit Citation for collective valor in combat.
In 1997-99, Mansoor was Special Assistant to the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy on the Joint Staff, responsible for research and planning that supported ongoing peace operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the withdrawal of United Nations weapons inspectors from Iraq, and U.S. and NATO operations during the Kosovo campaign.
In addition to his military service, Mansoor has a long record of academic experience. He was an assistant professor of history at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., teaching such courses as Weapons and Warfare in the 20th Century, West Point and the American Military Experience, and the History of Military Art. His research interests include modern U.S. military history, World War II, and counterinsurgency operations.
Mansoor is author of The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-45 (University Press of Kansas, 1999), which won the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award and the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award. He has also recently completed Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq, to be published by Yale University Press in Fall 2008.
7 Comments
Mark,
Is Mansoor retired, or retiring to take this position?
Hi Jonathan,
He’s still on active duty. He’ll continue as GEN Petraeus’s Executive Officer through May 2008, and will retire soon thereafter — I think in early June.
Mark -
I suspect such an appointment would be a hard sell at many (most?) universities. How is it going over at OSU? Does OSU’s record/culture as a leader in military history make such an appointment easier there?
Thanks.
Hi Phil,
I assume you mean the appointment of a career officer? We already did that in the case of my colleague Joe Guilmartin. And although it was not an “enforceable” provision of General Mason’s bequest, ideally he wished the holder of the Mason Chair to be someone who possessed significant military experience.
The Mason Chair is divided equally between the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, which controls the endowment; and the OSU History Department, which provides the tenure home. The Chair holder’s time is divided equally between Mershon and the department. As you might imagine, Mershon could scarcely find someone better suited to its needs, and we in the military history program feel equally fortunate.
As wonderful as it is for OSU to get such a fine officer, doesn’t the Army need someone of his talents more? Is there any possiblity that the report that Petraeus will be playing a large role in the general selection process might throw a monkey wrench in this hiring?
COL Mansoor accepted the Mason Chair before the recent brigadier general’s board met, and therefore, before the board met, removed his name from consideration for brigadier general. There have been a few stories to the effect that he was “passed over” for promotion — the stories are always in connection with criticizing the Army’s current promotion culture — but in this case they obviously do not apply. Indeed, the reason Ohio State had to move as rapidly as possible on the search, consistent with following procedure, was because Mansoor made clear he would have to have a decision prior to the time the board met.
Out of curiosity, what are the decision making mechanisms at OSU to fill the Mason chair in particular and vacant history department chairs in general?