Foundation hosts special dinner lecture with noted author and commentator

The CGSC Foundation and Alumni Association and its Simons Center hosted a special dinner lecture Feb. 2, 2026, in the atrium of the Lewis and Clark Center on Fort Leavenworth. The guest speaker for the evening was Peter Mansoor, Ph.D., a retired Army colonel, author and frequent media commentator on national security affairs.

Simons Center Director Todd Schmidt, Ph.D., welcomed guests and introduced Mansoor after the dinner period.

Mansoor’s presentation focused on his most recent book, Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines, which is a comprehensive military history of the Philippines campaign in WWII, focusing on Gen. MacArthur’s return to liberate the islands following his defeat in 1942. The book re-evaluates MacArthur’s controversial leadership, balancing his brilliance and strategic success with his egotism.

Mansoor began with a background of the fall of the Philippines in 1942 and a characterization of Gen. MacArthur’s leadership style and personality, both good and bad, as he reorganized and retrained the forces in the South West Pacific Area to eventually conduct operations and achieve success in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the island of Luzon, the Battle of Manilla, and the Visayas and Mindanao islands. Mansoor’s conclusion was that in spite of his ego and his hunger for publicity, MacArthur and his forces achieved their redemption against an enemy that had defeated him earlier in the war. MacArthur’s success was underpinned by creative planning and command flexibility and competent execution of combined arms operations, along with a Filipino guerrilla effort that remains one of the most successful such efforts in history.

At the conclusion of his presentation, CGSC Foundation President/CEO Lora Morgan presented Mansoor with a small gift in appreciation for his time with the Foundation and its guests.

Earlier in the day, Mansoor spent time interacting with the Command and General Staff Officers Course students enrolled in the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College’s “Art of War Scholars” program led by Professor Matthew Broaddus, Ph.D.

For more photos see the CGSC Foundation Flickr album

Peter Mansoor, Ph.D., has served as the General Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair of Military History at Ohio State University since September 2008, following a 26-year career in the U.S. Army. He is a retired colonel and frequent media commentator on national security affairs.

A 1982 distinguished graduate of the United States Military Academy, Mansoor served in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East during his military career. Among his many assignments, Mansoor served as the founding director of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he helped to edit the counterinsurgency field manual, which was used to reshape the conduct of the Iraq War. In the fall of 2006 he also served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Council of Colonels that reexamined the strategy for the war in Iraq. He ended his Army career as executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus, then commanding general of Multi-National Force–Iraq, during the 2007–08 surge.

Mansoor is the author of several books including The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941–45 (winner of the Society for Military History and Army Historical Society distinguished book awards in 2000); Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq; and Surge: My Journey with Gen. David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War. His most recent book, Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines, is a comprehensive military history of the Philippines campaign in WWII, focusing on MacArthur’s return to liberate the islands following his defeat in 1942. The book re-evaluates MacArthur’s controversial leadership, balancing his brilliance and strategic success with his egotism.

Mansoor is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion. His research interests include modern U.S. military history, World War II, the Iraq War, and counterinsurgency warfare.