Lester W. Grau, Ph.D.
Foreign Military Studies Office
U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command
Dr. Lester W. Grau is a Senior Analyst for the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas with a primary focus on Russia.
He has served the U.S. Army for 57 years, retiring as an infantry Lieutenant Colonel and continuing service through research and teaching in Army professional military education. His on-the-ground service over those decades spanned from the Vietnam War to Cold War assignments in Europe, Vietnam, Korea, and the Soviet Union to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As one of the U.S. Army’s leading Russian military experts, he has conducted various assignments in Russia including collaborative research with the Russian General Staff’s Military History Institute and with other Russian military officials. He has also conducted collaborative research in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and with numerous organizations in Europe.
Dr. Grau is the author of 18 books and 250 articles and studies on tactical, operational, and geopolitical subjects, translated into several languages. His books, The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan and The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, co-authored with former Afghan Minister of Security Ali Jalali, remain the most widely distributed, U.S. government-published books throughout the long conflict in Afghanistan. His e-book, “The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces,” co-authored with FMSO’s Charles Bartles, has been downloaded over three million times.
He received his doctoral degree from the University of Kansas. His advanced military education includes the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Air Force War College.
FMSO books authored by Dr. Lester Grau
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The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces (Dr. Lester W. Grau and Charles K. Bartles)
Fangs of the Lone Wolf: Chechen Tactics in the Russian-Chechen Wars, 1994-2009 (Dodge Billingsley with Dr. Lester Grau)
Mountain Warfare and Other Lofty Problems: Foreign Perspectives on High-Altitude Combat (Les Grau and Charles Bartles)
Passing It On: Fighting the Pushtun on Afghanistan’s Frontiers (General Sir Andrew Skeen. Les Grau and Robert Baer)
The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War (Ali A. Jalali and Lester Grau)
FMSO content authored by Dr. Lester Grau
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