No two officers, even if they are from the same branch, need the same professional development during their year here.
Root Hall at the U.S. Army War College is filled with passionate, professional debate on virtually every national security topic. But there is one thing on which the entire faculty agrees: our graduates face a dynamic global environment which will require them to command units, lead staffs, and inform decision makers at the speed of relevance. This truth, however, begs the question, “How does the Army War College prepare its graduates to succeed?”
The trap hidden within the question is that there is no single answer. No two officers, even if they are from the same branch, need the same professional development during their year here. And our student body does not come from just one segment of the national security community: all branches, all components, and all services as well as civilians and international students are represented. Forcing this diverse body into a single development track fails to recognize the need for a wide array of development objectives for different students.
The solution to the riddle—carefully developed over several years of deliberation and experimentation—is embodied within a string of military acronyms undecipherable to outsiders: ABTE, ECs, PLOs, CLOs, and SAEs.
This article explains this alphabet soup to give a peak into the current state of Assessment Based Tailored Education (ABTE) at Carlisle Barracks. The objective is to see what is changing, why it needs to change, and how providing students more ability to shape their course of study will better prepare them to lead the joint force.
In short, the Army War College is changing the recipe. ABTE broadens the available lines of study while ensuring that all students receive the legally mandated elements of Joint Professional Military Education as directed by Congress and the Department of War. These legal requirements arrive in the form of Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) and Special Areas of Emphasis (SAEs). Together, these inputs directly shape the Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for each course in order to achieve the Army War College’s year-long goals. ABTE’s core-for-all curriculum, therefore, simultaneously delivers the required instruction while enabling the students to identify the areas of study from which they can best benefit. The new recipe recognizes no one better understands what a particular student needs to study than that particular student.
To implement these focused studies, ABTE creates a portion of the year known as the Extended Core (EC). The EC period allows the students to explore two elements of the core curriculum in a deeper, more immersive way. By offering more than twenty courses developed specifically to complement the topics covered in the core-for-all program at a survey level, these ECs bring together the students from across the student body most interested in mastering these aspects of the core curriculum with the faculty experts best prepared to enhance their understanding. The ABTE recipe guarantees students remain focused on core concepts selected by strategic policymakers, while leveraging the student’s interests to shape their program of study to deepen their engagement with the material. More than simply additional elective periods exploring an interesting idea, ABTE provides deeper instruction on a necessary aspect of the core curriculum which the student needs for their future roles.
The ABTE approach, however, introduces significant complexities for faculty and course management. For instance, faculty departments enter the year not knowing how many students will enroll in their EC offerings. If a department experiences particularly high demand for its EC, then instructors who would otherwise have been teaching other ECs, developing new elective courses, taking part in group research projects, or answering requests from the operational force might be redirected to meet the higher EC demand. Obviously, for experts in strategic planning and leadership, this complexity is a manageable problem. But, as ever, the devil is in the details. Similarly, as students decide which ECs they want to take, they must weigh course availability against course applicability to determine the best fit. It is likely to take the Army War College a few iterations of trial-and-error to figure out the specific processes to maximize choice while reducing friction.
On the curriculum development side, Army War College faculty are busily reshaping the lessons which will power the EC offerings. While this sounds typical for faculty members, the extended core window represents roughly 20 to 25 new courses. Each of these courses has 10 lessons. This means 200 to 250 lesson plans complete with meaningful readings, thought-provoking discussion, and engaging group activities.
For example, the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, & Operations is creating seven brand new ECs to highlight the diverse challenges of warfighting in the emerging operational environment. The Joint All-Domain Operations Experiential EC centers on how to achieve convergence across domains while the Influence and Information Advantage EC focuses on aligning effective information activities with policy goals and military objectives. Each of these courses builds upon a set of ideas introduced in ABTE’s core-for-all to provide a deep dive for students who either know they will encounter these subjects in their future roles or who recognize they must become more familiar with an area outside of their core expertise.
The million-dollar question is why? Why is the U.S. Army War College investing its time, energy, and resources to overhaul an already successful curriculum?
More curriculum development to flesh out all the new material required by ABTE means the faculty will likely produce less scholarship and have less time available to support the larger army and joint force. Administrators and policymakers will need to actively manage faculty bandwidth to ensure that the Army War College achieves its several different missions.
The million-dollar question is why? Why is the U.S. Army War College investing its time, energy, and resources to overhaul an already successful curriculum? The answer lies in the nature of the challenge that Army War College graduates face. The operational environment is constantly changing, and it is not getting simpler. Adversaries are cooperating with each other against our interests. Technology is advancing at breakneck pace. Supply chains, interconnected economies, and limited resources are causing nations to change how they engage with each other. On top of all of this, military force has reemerged as a central tool in both coercing enemies and protecting our allies and partners.
Graduates know they will face the challenges of this new world. Their countries will demand the very best from them. The U.S. Army War College, therefore, is simply not content to let the existing model persist until it is too late. The ABTE model incorporates the competitive environment of student choice into the Army War College’s core curriculum in order to ensure that the core curriculum remains relevant. Relevant to the needs of students; relevant to the needs of our military services; and relevant to demands of the future.
Implementing this change has taken, and will continue to take, enormous effort. Faculty will adjust to new rhythms. Students will decipher new choices. The U.S. Army War College experience will change. At the end of the day, the Assessment Based Tailored Education model creates a living curriculum driven by both the needs of the Armed Forces and the developmental requirements of the students. While this represents a new approach, it will ensure the courses offered by the U.S. Army War College continue to deliver the educational transformation that potential senior military leaders need to succeed on the battlefields of the future.
Patrick Lysaght is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force currently serving as a faculty instructor at the U.S. Army War College. He is a command pilot with over 2,000 hours in F-16 and T-38 aircraft. Also, he is a School of Advanced Military Studies graduate, and planned both joint operations and crisis response options for the United States Forces Korea and Defense Threat Reductions Agency staffs.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of War.
Photo Credit: Created by Gemini
