On-line Continuous Learning

The posting links to a paper that Dr. David Betz, King's College Department of War Studies, will be presenting at the upcoming USMC Pedagogy for the Long War conference.

A Real Revolution in Military Affairs: On-line Continuous Learning for the Operational Warfighter

This paper begins from the premise that continuous change is the new norm of the strategic and operational environment in which military activities take place. That being the case the most vital war-winning qualities to develop in our military forces are adaptability and flexibility. These are a function of mindsets and skill sets not weapons suites and materiel. Therefore, the first step to addressing the maladaptation of our armed forces, whose institutional DNA is rooted in the wars of the Industrial Age, to the needs of the wars of the Information Age is the creation of an appropriate training and educational regime. But this task is complicated by the hard facts that, first, training and education must be continuous throughout the career at a time when, second, operational tempo is such that sending officers and men to school for extended periods, which was never easy to manage, is even more difficult. Solution: if the soldier cannot go to the school then the school must go to the soldier.

If providers of training and education to the military were able to achieve such a transformation of the way in which they operate that would indeed be revolutionary. As this paper will show, not only is it possible, it is in fact already a reality on a small scale for 58 serving officers (of 112 current students), 47 of whom are British army, 3 RAF, 3 US, 3 Danes, 1 Swede, 1 Canadian, and 1 Australian navy commander, all students on the on-line MA War in the Modern World programme offered by the renowned Department of War Studies at King's College London...

Betz: Anyway, in the spirit of building the 'Learning Community' that is Kings of War's corner of the Blogosphere I post my paper for any who may find it interesting. Comments and suggestions welcome.

On the conference:

The Conference Steering Committee for Pedagogy for the Long War: Teaching Irregular Warfare invites paper submissions for a conference to be held 29 October through 1 November 2007 at the General Alfred M Gray Research Center, in Quantico Virginia...

Building upon recent lessons of the US and international community of military educators, Pedagogy for the Long War: Teaching Irregular Warfare focuses on shifting the concepts, curricula, and methods of military training and education for general purpose forces, in order to better prepare service people at every stage in their career for the diverse tasks unique to current and projected operating environments over the next twenty years. It is a conference which focuses on pedagogy both as a topic for deliberation and as an activity animating participation.