Intermediate Command and Staff Course (Land)

The Intermediate Command and Staff Course (Land) (ICSC(L)) is a 26-week residential, comprehensive and generalist mandatory career course delivered at the Land Command and Staff College.

The aim of ICSC(L) is to educate, train and assess majors for command appointments and grade 1 and 2 staff appointments, in order to instil the manoeuvrist mindset and intellectual edge inherent in operational success. The course comprises two terms: the Contemporary Military Studies Term (CMS) and the Operations Term (OT). LCSC also delivers the ICSC Land Reserves (ICSC(LR)) course.

ICSC(L) is delivered through a series of research studies, planning exercises, projects and engagements with senior leaders. The course syllabus includes:

• Army command and staff skills
• Command, leadership and management
• British Army staff training in land environment operations
• Brigade and divisional levels of command
• Planning formation-level operations in a joint and NATO command context
•UK government resilience operations
•Historical case studies from the Normandy campaign
•Global effects of defence on British defence policy
•Management of UK defence and the Army operating model
•The factors driving battlefield capability

ICSC(L) also includes a two-week exercise at the US Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and a staff ride to Normandy.

The course is set at divisional and brigade level, with educational delivery aimed at postgraduate, master's level study.

Application timelines:

•    Army Personnel Centre (APC) will inform captains who have been selected for promotion to major (Beige List) and notify them of their expected attendance on ICSC(L).
•    Foreign military personnel and civil servants should declare expressions of interest through their respective UK defence attaché.

Accreditation:

•    Army students may volunteer to study for a funded Master of Science (MSc Executive) degree with Henley Business School in Leadership and Strategic Studies, or a self-funded Master of Arts (MA) with King's College London in Military and Security Studies. Both options require additional work.
•    Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Level 7 Certificate in Management and Leadership (38 QCF Credits)
•    Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), Level 7 Award in Management (20 QCF Credits)
•    City and Guilds (C&G), Level 7 Award, Leadership and Management

What you will learn

By the end of the course, you will have the requisite analytical and communication skills, professional knowledge and understanding to support a career as a major or lieutenant colonel on the staff, and as a major in sub-unit command.

•    Staff fundamentals: this module examines military and civilian communication skills. It seeks to improve the quality of your staff work, both written and verbal. It introduces a range of skills and techniques, including thinking skills, as well as applications and programmes that you can use to support your work.
•    Security and defence policy: this module evaluates the current and emerging strategic environment, and how the military contributes to the UK's strategic objectives, in order to understand UK Defence policy.
•    Management of Defence: this module examines the role of Defence in government, including its interaction with other departments such as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and HM Treasury. It broadens students' understanding of how government works, including Defence spending.
•    Conflict and war studies: this module develops your critical understanding of the enduring nature and changing character of war by examining classical theory, British doctrine and contemporary conflict. It equips you to interrogate assumptions, evaluate doctrine and apply professional military judgement.
•    Capability, including business skills: students analyse how Defence develops and delivers land domain capability.
•    Operational planning: this module confirms your knowledge at divisional and brigade levels in the contemporary operating environment, covering project, engage, constrain and warfight. It includes a number of planning cycles in different operating contexts, followed by a two-week exercise in the United States with students from the US Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

How this course will help your career

ICSC(L) provides a unique opportunity for OF3 officers to study strategy, higher management of defence, doctrine and operational planning alongside multi-national partners and be graded against a wider peer group. The course is supported by numerous senior guest speakers, both military and civilian, up to 4-star level.

The course provides focussed opportunities to understand, experiment and develop staff and communication skills, professional knowledge and understanding, and analytical and decision-making skills which will prepare majors for appointments in sub-unit command and on the staff up to and including lieutenant colonel. The course report is used by boards to support consideration for employment in sub unit command and in staff appointments at OF3.

Who can attend this course

• Military
• Internationals

•    The course is principally designed and resourced to meet the Statement of Trained Requirement (SOTR) for newly promoted majors.

•    Overseas military personnel and civil servants must have a very good command of English (NATO 3333) and be comfortable learning in English at postgraduate level.

•    Foreign military personnel must be nominated through their respective defence attaché and security checked by International Defence Training (Army).

Before you attend

You will be required to complete the Military Knowledge ICSC package on the Defence Learning Environment (DLE) before arrival. This can be completed in approximately six hours.

There is also a modest reading list, consisting largely of topical articles or links to recent military keynote addresses. You will be required to conduct research and undertake essential reading in the evenings, outside the scheduled daily programme.

The course programme routinely runs from Monday to Friday, 0830 to 1730.

Service Families Accommodation can be provided on site for officers who choose to bring their families. Single Living Accommodation is available for officers who are not married or who wish to serve unaccompanied.

How the course will be taught

• Face-to-face
• Online (Virtual)

How you will be assessed

The course comprises both formative assessments, based on course interaction, and summative assessments, including formal examinations.

Formative assessments includes:

•    professional knowledge
•    written communication
•    verbal communication
•    emotional intelligence
•    leadership

You will receive a course report.