Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, Air Command and Staff College

Military Dilemmas: Seeing Like Alexander with Creativity and Decisiveness

Dr. Paul Johstono is an Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC). He is the course director for Leadership and the Profession of Arms, the core course serving the leader development mission at ACSC. He also teaches and lectures at ACSC and around AU on Leadership, Ethics, Innovation, Vision, Strategy, and Ethos. He teaches elective courses on the Ethics of Emerging Technologies, Great Captains of military history, Roman Warfare, and the Vietnam War. He regularly leads walking tours and staff rides on leadership, strategy, and social innovation in the Montgomery Civil Rights Movement. Prior to joining ACSC in January 2019, he was Associate Professor for History of Warfare at The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. He also formerly consulted on the Creative Assembly Total War game series. Dr. Johstono received his bachelor’s degree from Furman University in Greenville, SC (2005) and his master’s degree (2008) and Ph.D. (2012) from Duke University. He specializes in warfare in the Hellenistic era, including military decision-making and military institutional history. He has published articles and chapters on a wide range of topics in ancient warfare, including insurgency, asymmetries in warfare, cognition, and strategy. His first book, on the Army of Ptolemaic Egypt, was published at the end of 2020. He is on editorial boards for the Brill series on War in World History and the Journal of Military History. He lives in Wetumpka, AL with his wife and three children.