Professional Military Education / Training
Issues / Concepts / Lessons
Report on the Proceedings: Conference on Professional Military Education - On Saturday, March 25 2006, Rep. Steve Israel convened a conference: Rebuilding America’s Intellectual Arsenal, focusing on the status of Professional Military Education (PME), with a special focus on linguistic and cultural requirements. Over 40 leaders from the Military and Civilian Academic Communities attended, including Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) the Ranking Minority Member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans, Ms. Gail McGinn. Key and recurring themes throughout the discussions were a) the need to build and sustain a stronger language and cultural capability throughout the military; b) the related need to tie such studies to career progression; c) the status of the partnership between the military and civilian academia; and d) the organization of PME within the department.
Studying the Art of War - Major General Robert Scales, USA (Ret.). Washington Times article, 17 February 2005. The American military has become so stretched that it has little time to devote to any activity other than repetitive deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. The strains of over commitment are evident, most disturbingly in the military's crumbling academic infrastructure. The Department of Defense is seeking ways to cut drastically the time soldiers spend in school. In World War II, 31 of the Army's 35 corps commanders taught at service schools. Today, the Army's staff college is so short of instructors that it has been forced to hire civilian contractors to do the bulk of the teaching. While the press of operations lessens opportunities to learn, experience in Iraq reinforces the belief that the need to learn has never been greater. Soldiers today can no longer just practice the science of killing in order to win. They must understand and be sensitive to alien cultures. They must be skilled in the art of peacekeeping and stability operations. They must be able to operate with coalition partners and work with governmental and non governmental institutions such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, junior officers and sergeants make critical life-and-death decisions that were the purview of colonels and generals in previous wars. Thus, in this new and unfamiliar era of conflict, the military must prepare soldiers to think critically and analytically much earlier in their careers.
Educating for the Future - Colonel John Toolan (USMC) and Dr. Charles McKenna. Marine Corps Gazette article, February 2006. Since its inception the Command and Staff College (CSC) has had to adjust, adapt, and change in as many ways as the world around it has changed. The global war on terrorism has raised a variety of issues that are not necessarily new but bring into sharper focus the character of irregular warfare (IW) and the complexity of the problems we are facing. Our National Military Strategy, the recent Defense Planning Guidance, Department of Defense's Roadmap to Transformation, our Commandant's recent Vision Statement of the U.S. Marine Corps, and a host of studies and analyses all clearly indicate a need to update our professional military education (PME) programs to enable them to be more current while not losing their timeless relevance. CSC has examined the issues and the guidance and has made significant adjustments to its curriculum. This article examines the areas of change and enhancements for CSC and the School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW).
The Second Learning Revolution - Major General Robert Scales (USA Ret). Military Review article, January - February 2006. The Army’s first post-Vietnam training revolution began in earnest with the creation of a system of force-on-force free-play exercises. These were scored realistically and fought against a world-class adversary imbued with a serious desire to win. The Army’s laboratory for creating the revolution was the National Training Center (NTC) in the California desert. By the time the Army and Marine Corps moved into Kuwait in 1991, both services had embedded the spirit of the combat training centers into their cultures. The results on the ground spoke volumes about the efficacy of realistic training followed by forthright assessments during pos-exercise after-action reviews. By the beginning of the kinetic phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 12 years later, the U.S. had gotten it exactly right. For the first time, large Army and Marine armored formations, supported by massive aerial strike forces, were able to execute a truly joint operational takedown thanks mostly to skills learned by Soldiers, Marines, and Airmen in the California deserts. Subsequent events in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, suggest that the enemy now understands and accepts America’s superiority on the sea, in the air, and in space. Acknowledging the ground services’ operational dominance, the enemy seeks to win at the tactical level of war. His logic is simple, his intent diabolical. He has learned that the surest way to negate big-war technology is by moving the fight into such complex terrain as jungles, mountains, and most recently, cities. War against such an enemy has devolved primarily into a series of tactical engagements fought principally at squad and platoon levels. As a result, joint warfare and other elements of military power are increasingly being applied at lower and lower levels, to the extent that combat leaders of much lower rank and experience are performing the functions formerly considered the purview of senior commanders. The challenge today is to create a second training and educational revolution—a learning revolution—that prepares military leaders to fight in this new age of warfare. As the focus of fighting shifts downward, so too must the systems that teach Soldiers and Marines how to fight.
Agile Leaders, Agile Institutions: Educating Adaptive and Innovative Leaders for Today and Tomorrow - Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Gehler, USA. US Army Strategic Studies Institute Carlisle Paper, August 2005. This paper is a “directed telescope” focused on the Captain’s Career Courses (CCCs). It seeks to answer the research question, how should TRADOC change its education system, with specific regard to the CCCs, to better develop and prepare mentally agile leaders for the Army’s new strategic reality? To answer this question, this paper examines the new strategic reality and its implications on our officers’ professional military education, as well as the concepts of individual and organizational agility, specifically investigating adaptability, innovation, and learning. It then advances a recommended model to develop agile leaders, while making the institutional system more agile as well.
Concept Paper for US Marine Corps Command and Staff College Master Thesis Project - Colonel John Toolan, USMC. Command and Staff College’s AY05/06 class will have a large percentage of Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 veterans in attendance. This is an opportunity that must be seized upon now, in order to draw on their experiences, to refresh our tactics, techniques and procedures. The Small Wars Manual has been updated as it relates to Chapter I. Section I, however it has yet to be updated under the more detailed tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) chapters. Specifically, Chapter 1, Sect IV - Relationship with the State Department, Sect VI - Military Civil Relationship; Chapter VIII - Convoy and Convoy Escorts; Chapter XI - Disarmament of Population; Chapter XII - Armed Native Organizations; Chapter XIII - Military Government; and Chapter XIV - Supervision of Elections. The propensity for Irregular Warfare remains high and therefore requires that we compile the lessons learned and highlight the best practices being employed and tested today.
Improving the Marine Team: Educators and Trainers Working Together - Claudia Clark & Robert Antis. Marine Corps Gazette article, March 2004. In the latter part of 2002 the Marine Corps Gazette presented some important perspectives on education and training in the Marine Corps. In July 2002 the Marine Corps University (MCU) discussed efforts to highlight program improvements, and then in December 2002 authors focused on the future of Training and Education Command’s (TECom’s) training/education systems and efforts to improve the management of these systems. These discussions highlighted the improvements and strengths of both the MCU and TECom in their efforts to effect positive change within their respective environments. This article continues those discussions, building upon those proposals and offering recommendations to improve internal coordination to structure a more efficient training system based on readiness and mission essential tasks (METs).
Transition of Stability and Support Operations (SASO) for Pre-Deployment Training in Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III - US Marine Corps Concepts and Programs, 2005. The Marine Corps War Fighting Laboratory (MCWL) has conducted urban experimentation since 1997. In order to prepare and train operating forces for urban experiments, MCWL developed a comprehensive Basic Urban Skills Training (BUST) and Stability and Support Operations (SASO) Training Syllabus. Training and Education Command (TECOM) will leverage all existing material and knowledge associated with the War Fighting Laboratory’s extensive experimentation, and provide the operating forces with the same level of applicable training synonymous with previous SASO exercises in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). TECOM has begun SASO training support for Fleet Marine Force (FMF) units preparing for OIF III deployments.
The Strategic Corporal in the Three Block War - General Charles Krulak, USMC. Marines article, 1999. The future battlefields on which Marines fight will be increasingly hostile, lethal, and chaotic. Our success will hinge, as it always has, on the leadership of our junior Marines. We must ensure that they are prepared to lead.
The Strategic Corporal Some Requirements in Training and Education - Major Lynda Liddy, Australian Army. Australian Army Journal article, 2005. In most modern Western armies, soldiers are expected to be not only technically proficient in warfighting, but also capable of supervising civil affairs, providing humanitarian aid and performing a range of activities relating to order and stability. As networked technologies flatten command structures, new doctrine and revised training regimes are likely to be required in order to prepare individual soldiers to assume greater responsibility on the multidimensional 21st-century battlespace. As a result of these trends, the Australian Army must begin to foster a military culture that is aimed at preparing non-commissioned officers (NCOs) to become what has been described as ‘strategic corporals’. The term strategic corporal refers to the devolution of command responsibility to lower rank levels in an era of instant communications and pervasive media images. This article has three aims. First, it seeks to investigate the idea of a strategic corporal and to identify the skills that such an individual should possess. Second, it examines whether the current Army training system is capable of producing strategic corporals. Finally, the article attempts to identify those adjustments that may be necessary in land force training in order to develop soldiers that are capable of assuming greater responsibility in a complex and multidimensional battlespace.
Military Degrees: How High the Bar and Where's the Beef? - Lieutenant-Colonel David Last, Canadian Army. Canadian Military Journal article, Summer 2004. It is unfortunate in some ways that officers are advised to obtain a degree, rather than an education. Of course, it is easier to identify a degree than an educated mind. I know officers with a superb professional education – well read, articulate, critical and open-minded – who have somehow escaped ‘higher education’ entirely. I know others whose ticket-punching university degrees have left them just as resistant to new knowledge and as suspicious of ideas as they were before the parchment was inked. Education touches us all in different ways. If the Canadian Forces are going to produce degrees-as-required from the Forces’ own university, we should think about the types of degrees, and articulate for Canadian Forces students and administrators exactly what they are being asked to do and why.
The French Joint Defense College - Lieutenant Colonel Philippe Rogers (USMC), Major Chris Pollard (USMC), Major Dan Hicks (USMC). Marine Corps Gazette article, March 2004. Do you want to learn a new language? Would you like to spend an incredible year and a half in Paris, France? How would you like to accomplish all of this while earning your Command and Staff College resident credit? If your answer is “yes” to all three questions, then consider volunteering for the College Interarmées de Défense, the French Joint Defense College. The home of the French Joint Defense College is the French War College complex, located in the middle of downtown Paris. This august structure mirrors the Eiffel Tower, at opposite ends of the Champs de Mars (“Mars Park,” the old school military training grounds). The War College complex can be compared to the Marine Corps University at Quantico or to the National Defense University at Fort McNair. It is the center of French intellectual military study and is comprised of several senior-level professional military schools. It is the location of the Joint Defense College, the Course Supérieure d’État Major (the Advanced Infantry Officers Course), the Centre des Hautes Études Militaire (CHEM—the Center for Higher Military Studies), and the Institute des Hautes Études de la Défense Nationale (IHEDN—the Institute for Higher National Defense Studies).
3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Reading List - Brave Rifles pre-OIF deployment recommended reading list, November 2004. US, Coalition, and Iraqi forces are conducting counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. While the fundamentals of cavalry combat operations clearly apply to fighting in Iraq, counterinsurgency operations demand that leaders possess a very broad base of knowledge and understand how military operations effect the political situation. Religious, ethnic, and social dynamics make the situation in Iraq particularly complex. Leaders must understand those dynamics and how our presence and actions affect them. The enemy’s use of urban and restrictive terrain and his ability to blend into the civilian population demand that leaders become expert in MOUT, civil-military operations, combined operations with Iraqi forces, and the development of tactical intelligence. This reading list is meant to guide self study and serve as a basis for professional reading programs at the squadron and troop levels. The knowledge gained from reading, thinking about, and discussing this material will permit leaders to better prepare their troopers for combat and assist leaders in taking the initiative when they encounter complex situations in Iraq. We possess a solid doctrinal foundation for operations in Iraq. Leaders must be familiar with our doctrine and our Standard Operating Procedures. Our SOPs prescribe techniques and reports to be used throughout the Regimental battle group. SOPs allow for standardized execution of critical mission essential tasks in order to facilitate cooperation between units and to promote the mutual confidence and dependability that is necessary to fighting units. Uniform execution of certain tasks and battle drills add speed and coordination to our actions in training and in combat. Doctrinal knowledge and SOPs cannot replace common sense or the leader’s ability to adapt and seize the initiative through aggressive action. They do give leaders a baseline for common action.
Links for Further Research:
Interagency Transformation, Education & AAR (NDU)
Joint Special Operations University
Defense Acquisition University
School for Advanced Military Studies (USA)
Command and General Staff College (USA)
School of Advanced Warfighting (USMC)
Command and Staff College (USMC)
Expeditionary Warfare School (USMC)
Security Cooperation Education & Training (USMC)
College of Naval Command and Staff
Defence Academy (UK)
Royal College of Defence Studies (UK)
Joint Services Command and Staff College (UK)
Australian Command and Staff College
Interagency Transformation, Education & AAR (NDU)
Foreign Service Institute (US Department of State)
United States Institute of Peace
United Nations System Staff College
National Training Center (US Army)
Joint Readiness Training Center (US Army)
USMC Training And Education Command
