Advanced Land Power Studies (ALPS) – Purpose, Design, and Method

By LCol T.I. Dossev, Military Course Director, ALPS. - August 5th, 2026

Reading Time: 12 min

The Canadian Army (CA) is modernizing rapidly. It is creating new division structures, introducing new equipment, and adapting to a changing character of warfare. These changes require officers who can solve complex problems, think critically, and help lead institutional adaptation. 

In recent years, the Canadian Army relied heavily on graduates of the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) and the US Marine Corps’ School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW) to support modernization efforts. That reliance highlighted important gaps in the Canadian Army’s Professional Military Education (PME) system, both in the number of trained planners available and in the advanced skills required at higher headquarters. 

To address this need, Commander Canadian Army directed the Canadian Army Command and Staff College (CACSC) to create a new PME program focused on advanced planning, operational problem-solving, and institutional adaptation. The result is Advanced Land Power Studies (ALPS).¹ 

The first of three pilot serials will run from August to December 2026, with 12 students from all Army trades and other services. What follows is the first detailed narrative description of the purpose, method, and design principles of this new course. 

Purpose 

The primary aim of ALPS is to prepare selected Majors and Lieutenant-Colonels for specialized employment where complex problems are unclear, interconnected, and constantly changing. ALPS builds on the foundation provided by Joint Command and Staff Programme (JCSP) and develops officers who can quickly get to the core of a difficult problem, integrate expert advice, and produce decision-quality plans and briefings.²

The ideal graduate is humble, intellectually curious, disciplined, and comfortable working in uncertainty. To benefit the students, the course develops a broad set of advanced analytical and communication skills, including: 

• systems thinking  

• operational analysis 

• advanced verbal, written, and graphical communication skills 

• rhetoric and logic 

• historical analysis and case studies 

• metacognition and reflective thinking 

• probabilistic approaches to uncertainty, risk, and opportunity 

There is also an explicit requirement that these graduates operate tactfully and skillfully within the institutional Army and the broader force. Students will develop these skills through seminars, exercises, staff rides, and wargames focused on real military problems. 

The course design sets out to balance theory and practice, land domain centricity with pan domain context, as well as operational vice institutional focus. In this context, practical does not mean tactical. Being a sound practitioner requires grounding in theory, while a theorist must have first-hand practical experience. To be expert at one requires being expert at the other.  

Force development, sustainment, readiness, doctrine, procurement, and operations are all deeply connected. Since these aspects of an operational army are so intertwined, and transcend domains, ALPS graduates must see the whole as well as the parts to form a mutually supporting network of practitioners. For that reason, ALPS aims to develop broad, adaptable officers who can connect operational requirements with institutional realities. 

Importantly, ALPS is only one part of a larger PME modernization effort. CACSC is also reviewing and adapting the wider PME system to better prepare leaders and battle staff for service at all levels, including the newly formed Division HQs. While ALPS focuses specifically on advanced planners and institutional problem-solvers, other initiatives within the army will address technical and foundational battle staff requirements for Battle Group, Brigade Group, and Division HQs. 

Method 

ALPS is inspired by Advanced-Intermediate Level Education (A-ILE) programs of the United States service staff colleges like SAMS and SAW. These programs select high-performing graduates from service staff college courses for further advanced education focused on operational planning and warfare. An additional year in duration, SAMS and SAW courses build on a broad study of history, theory, and doctrine. Army graduates become service-level assets managed by the US Army G3/5/7. In the case of the US Marines, they are appointed a sub-trade of professional planners. Graduates go on to “utilization tours” in theater and component command HQs as planners and integrators, and into high tactical HQs in plans and operations roles. Both the intensity of the education, and the deliberate utilization represent admirable qualities worth emulating. 

ALPS deviates from US courses in several respects. ALPS is only four months long and covers a broader range of tactical, operational, and institutional topics. As a result, ALPS sacrifices a portion of the depth of US A-ILE, primarily by reducing and replacing US specific content in history and doctrine. The Canadian course retains a comparable ratio of seminars, staff rides, and exercises, proportionally scaled down to the shorter duration.  

The other key difference is that ALPS is professionally rigorous without being academically credentialed. Canadian students will have already completed graduate-level education through JCSP or equivalent programs. So, while US SAMS and SAW provide inspiration with their methods and rigour, ALPS is a uniquely CA course. 

In its andragogical methods, ALPS draws primarily on Bloom’s Taxonomy, seeking the highest levels of learning focused on analysis, evaluation, and creation.³ This approach shapes the seminar structure. Each seminar begins with hours of individual preparation through reading (or consuming other relevant media), reflecting, and analyzing the body of knowledge to date. By the time students enter the classroom they are already collectively evaluating the subject matter, now guided by an expert speaker. Most seminars culminate in a creative activity where students apply the new knowledge in novel ways to military problems. The resulting workload is intentionally demanding, upwards of 50 hours per week, in addition to day-long exercises and the staff rides. Through this design, the course re-calibrates the students’ sense of how quickly they can learn, apply, synthesize, and generate new understanding. 

Design Principles 

While developing the syllabus, several design principles emerged as the most suitable for this type of course and learning objectives.  

First came the realization that the real world is the best lab for complex problems. Rather than creating fictious scenarios, course developers approached established Div HQs and offered to engage on those sponsors’ hard problems. This design exposes students to real operational systems, real constraints, and real decision-making environments. 

The two staff rides follow a similar model. They begin with a brief and relevant historical study as a source of vicarious experience, relative to the problem set or region. What follows is a focused orientation to the hosts’ modern problem sets, leading to a planning exercise and a wargame. Finally, the students brief the sponsors on the findings from wargame results, such as critical capabilities or vulnerabilities. Ideally, future staff rides will vary the problem sets so as not to saturate a sponsor by continually refining a single plan or wargame. Thus, the students learn from real problems they might face directly, while simultaneously contributing to the field force, and compensating the CA for their absence. 

The second design objective recognizes that operational effectiveness depends on institutional systems. This reflects one of the key differences from US A-ILE, specifically that skill at the operational level of warfighting is essential, but insufficient for modern conflict. Divisions rely on sustainment, joint fires, intelligence, or emerging technologies that constrain or enable operations. Therefore, ALPS students will study the links between force development, projection, sustainment, operations, and modernization so the exercises will not be closed systems. These lessons will shape how graduates operate within the institution to shape battlefield effectiveness. 

A final design principle links this education to deliberate employment. ALPS graduates will move into positions where they can continue to develop and contribute. Most will serve in Division HQs, while others will be diffused through the army and flanking services. This deliberate utilization serves three purposes. 

The first aim is to compensate for the limited time on course and allow students additional practice to consolidate learning in specific positions where complex problems abound. 

Second, this is a return on investment. The newly developed skills will equip graduates to deliver tangible, timely solutions to the Army’s problems. Moreover, they will informally diffuse the skills and tools throughout the force by their example.  

Third, by creating and distributing cohorts of ALPS graduates throughout the institution, they can support each other, even when they are not directly employed in the field force. These networks can align and troubleshoot options before bringing them to decision makers. By drawing on shared experiences in planning exercises and wargames related to real-world problems, ALPS graduates can communicate, prioritize, and apply these skills towards the advancement of the CA’s objectives. 

Conclusion 

ALPS is an ambitious endeavour that supports the CA as it modernizes and re-establishes Division level capabilities while Canada competes in a volatile world.  

Three pilot serials of ALPS are planned over the next three years, and the first is already scheduled with the students committed. In the immediate term, they will support the CA’s modernization and stand-up of Div HQs. 

In time, ALPS could expand into a longer, more deliberate program, or into multiple annual courses, given more staff. As early as the second serial in the fall of 2027, there is potential to include foreign students, while continuing to invite other services. In all cases, the course can only improve and adjust to the needs of the CA. 

Ultimately, ALPS is an investment into graduates expected to become the Army’s leading planners and institutional problem-solvers. As the security environment continues to fluctuate, the CA needs officers who can think critically, operate in uncertainty, and connect institutional adaptation to operational effectiveness. ALPS is a start. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Todor (Ted) Dossev is a husband, father, and cavalry officer. He is an Art of War Scholar and a graduate of the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies. He was recently the Chief of Staff of the Combat Training Centre HQ, an instructor on Operation UNIFIER, and the CJ7 of the Multinational Force & Observers. He now serves as the first Military Course Director of the Canadian Army’s Advanced Land Power Studies course. 

End Notes

1. The verbal direction in June 2025 was followed by the Canadian Army Modernization Order (CAMO) in October 2025.
2. Professional development for Officers - Canada.ca; and https://018gc.sharepoint.com/:w:/r/sites/ORG-4938-002-000/DPGR63SpecMaintWeb/A-PD-055/A-PD-055-E.docx, p32-33 (DWAN Only)
3. The modern iteration of Bloom’s taxonomy is a well-known hierarchy of 6 levels of mastery of knowledge, from recall, to understanding, through application, analysis and evaluation, to creation. See for instance Bloom’s Taxonomy | Centre for Teaching Excellence | University of Waterloo