The trend of awarding a civilian degree in PME courses, which are then subjected to a higher education regulatory body’s guideline, is perhaps the reason for “civilianizing” courses for military leaders at premier military institutes.
Staff and war college graduates play a pivotal role in the military. They must possess the skills necessary to employ the three steps of the military process, i.e., understand the task objectives correctly, analyze the available courses of action with accuracy to develop a plan, and execute the plan with efficiency to meet the objectives. To prepare students for this challenge, professional military education (PME) should put more emphasis on practice than theory.
Students generally learn the military process in two parts. The first part is education in the art of warfare, its theory and historical analysis, besides application of research methodology in analytical writing. The second part is (or should be) training to understand the art of warfare through rigorous practice by way of role-playing during map exercises. In this training, just like in war, the process is not bound by class schedules; rather the exercise unfolds in a way that creates rigor and uncertainty for the students. The leadership, advising, and staff skills of the students are enhanced as they get to play different roles in varied scenarios.
But many PME courses tend towards the theoretical and academic. The trend of awarding a civilian degree in PME courses, which are then subjected to a higher education regulatory body’s guideline, is perhaps the reason for “civilianizing” courses for military leaders at premier military institutes.
During my own time as a student at the Iranian Command and General Staff College in the class of 2004 or the U.S. Army War College Carlisle in the class of 2016, both courses gave hardly any opportunities for students to practice the military process by playing the roles which they would perform in subsequent assignments as leaders, advisors and staff officers.
In contrast, the staff, national security and war courses at the Pakistani Command & Staff College and National Defense University balance education and training in their curricular methodology. Both feature five to six multi-day wargames or map exercises to train the military process at the various levels of war, a rigorous process of five to six wargames or map exercises. Every student has multiple opportunities to play the roles of leaders, advisors and staff officers. This program is accredited by the national Higher Education Commission to award a college degree, due to its mixture of standard college requirements along with military training.
PME should be balanced between education and military training, rather than being lopsided in favor of education. In my experience as a student and teacher in PME, as well as a leader in the field, officers require three essential traits: ‘integriy’ in understanding of objectives, intelligence in analyzing the courses of action accurately, and leadership in efficient execution to achieve the objectives. PME should adopt a more focused, process-based approach to educate and train future leaders for their primary job, to fight and win the nation’s wars at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. The adage “train as you have to fight, and fight as you have trained” means PME should be structured to match the process of application in war. Educators should nurture the traits of integrity, intelligence and leadership in the commanders and staff officers of the future through curricular and co-curricular activities.
There is currently a healthy discussion going on about PME. Pauline Shanks Kaurin raises the question about whether academic rigor is more important or leadership training for specific roles. Jim Lacey calls for “fundamental change” to “achieve intellectual overmatch against adversaries.” With his characteristic candor, Jim Mattis, then the U.S. defense secretary, raised the issue succinctly in 2018 National Defense Strategy, “we are failing to develop officers to be successful leaders, advisors, and staff members in the national security environment.” The need for creativity and critical thinking along with social and communication skills have been emphasized for strategy making in current operational complexity. The discourse also discusses the education requirements linked to thinking, decision-making, planning, executing and leading.
This literature reveals a convergence on the view that there is a gap between the methodology and content of PME vis-à-vis successful performance in military leadership positions. PME can improve by moving toward the attributes listed in the brief review above, while emphasizing self-accountability, relevant knowledge and leadership.
The first and foremost trait is integrity. It is defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Due to the very low ratio of officers to soldiers in armies, the responsibility for actions taken by the officers which affect their subordinates is very high. For example, in an infantry company, a captain or a major would be responsible for the training of about 120 soldiers. The level of training imparted during the designated time would essentially remain a function of that officer’s integrity. This essay argues that integrity is essentially about self-discipline, faith, and honesty.
Self-discipline is the bedrock of integrity. It is understood as the tendency to follow the rules and regulations with motivation. It comes from strength of character. Discipline while under scrutiny tends to be compulsive; self-discipline comes into play when there’s no fear of observation.
Strong faith in a value system is the next important pillar of integrity. Irrespective of one’s religious denomination or moral beliefs, as long as it conforms to respective cultural norms, one’s undiluted faith in that system of belief will augment his or her integrity. Here, the difference between a set of rituals (form) as against a set of values (spirit) needs to be differentiated.
Honesty, defined as the quality of being truthful and sincere, is another important part of integrity. Officers are supposed to be dead honest, even at the cost of personal harm. Subordinates will only follow those who are truthful and sincere. Superiors will obviously be comfortable entrusting them with various tasks if they are sure about their sincerity in fulfilling it.
The earlier claim that integrity will produce understanding the task requirements now merits clarification. The demand of military missions is often such that a superior commander provides an intent leaving the subordinate to develop the contours of a plan. One can argue that for this mission command methodology, intelligence or even leadership is the foremost requirement, not integrity. However, I contend otherwise, because integrity reflects the innermost truthfulness of a person, which is more essential in deciphering the superior officer’s intent than a person’s intelligence or leadership. It is so because of two reasons: firstly, the ratio of officers to subordinates puts extraordinary demands on the former to interpreting the intent and scope of an order; and secondly, the vagueness of circumstances faced in the military puts a premium on the initiative of the commander or staff officer in charge, which is a direct reflection of their innate truthfulness.
Intelligence is “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
Faculty should help inculcate integrity by putting a premium on self-discipline, faith in value systems and honesty. In the year-long PME slog, a keen instructor can intelligently create subtle opportunities to emphasize these traits in tutorials, tutorial exercises, map exercises, war games, physical efficiency tests, written assignments, and even sports; the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton!
Let’s now move to the next step in the military’s process, deciding upon the correct course of action and planning to execute it, which was described above as a function of intelligence.
Intelligence is “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.” This essay will not delve into scientific discussion of what constitutes intelligence, but only give the user’s perspective. The intelligence required by an army officer might be summarized as “the mental ability to take a certain level of relevant knowledge and experience and use it to understand direction, collate it with a set of circumstances, and then work to advance commander’s intent in the most efficient and effective manner.” The best way to train this intelligence, apart from fostering relevant knowledge and experience, is through controlled two-sided wargames, map exercises, peer assessments, and critical faculty feedback. These rigorous and exacting methods pay dividends in nurturing officers’ intelligence in a manner more suited to their job requirement. Commonwealth of Nations countries’ PME is generally oriented toward these intensive but very interesting practical exercises that often involve hairsplitting military appreciations, as we learned from various interactions with officers trained in British legacy institutions. For example, the factors of an appreciation, (“estimates” in US parlance) such as the operational environment, terrain, enemy or friendly situation, and time all have multiple sub-factors that are analyzed in intertwining ways to lead to courses of actions. This rigor helps develop coup d’oeil—the intuitive glance—that is the essence of military genius.
Warfare today demands far more nuanced knowledge from officers than before; moreover, the equipment and human resources of armies are far more sophisticated than in the past. The demand for intelligence from officers is thus an order of magnitude greater than just two decades ago. Moreover, armies must be ready to fight both conventional and sub-conventional wars. The packed curriculum of PME is already stuffed with legacy material, hence the need to incrementally build knowledge of theories, technologies, and methods for conventional and sub-conventional military warfare at each level of PME.
The final trait to be fostered is leadership, “the ability to influence and guide followers or members of an organization, society, or team.” Officership is nothing but leadership, because an officer’s task is to lead planning, dealing deftly with contingencies and sacrificing as much, if not more, than subordinates in the process. Due to the greater responsibilities entrusted to officers selected for the staff or war colleges, they are required to demonstrate that much more leadership. To be more specific about these demands, let’s examine the role of PME-trained officers in three spheres, administration, training, and active operations.
Administration involves recruiting, caring for both service members and their families during service, and even responsibilities after death in combat or retirement. This is a challenging expansive mandate, but armies are structured to achieve these functions through well-defined procedures and established organizations. However, leadership in these functions is still significant because they are generally believed to be an insignificant job. It is the quintessential job of a leader to create a sense of significance for what are mostly seen as “thankless jobs” because the glamour is in operations and to a lesser degree in training. PME should include lessons, exercises, and wargames focusing of these administrative duties to focus aspiring senior leaders on the “stomachs” upon which armies march and fight!
Everyone cannot do operations and training all the time, and most officers have some role in administration. One challenge for PME is to identify whether an individual is focused only on the glamorous side of command or is he or she ready for an assignment that includes many so-called menial tasks. PME should develop empathy, dedication and motivation in future staff officers and commanders.
Secondly, military training. Officers from the army- down to platoon-level lead training. Units and training centers alike rely on the leadership of young officers to train the force. These trainers need a high-level of knowledge and skill, as well as being physically fit and morally upright. Since units and training centers are commanded by officers, PME needs to develop the attributes of a good teacher in future leaders. Usually, armies put their best officers in teaching or training assignments to get the best out of them and prepare the next generation. While dedicated instruction of teaching methodologies is beyond the scope of PME, faculty comments on student research, tactical problems, and wargames model teaching skills for the future leaders. These sessions should focus on empathy for subordinates’ level of knowledge and the ability to sift through complex situations to strengthen thought. But we should keep in mind that these are finer skills that can be improved after students show integrity, intelligence and the basics of leadership. In the military, very few get instructional positions because most lack the necessary excellence, passion and patience. Therefore, while it’s generally good to improve these skills, the essential task of PME faculty is to identify potential instructors for the future benefit of the organization.
Thirdly, operations, the ultimate test of an officer. For the staff and war college graduates who will serve in higher leadership, bravery, courage and boldness are essential traits distinguishable from recklessness, shortsightedness and foolhardiness. At least four to five wargames of map exercises in PME should be structured to develop and assess these traits. To summarize, PME should train students for the military process of understanding objectives, planning courses of action, and acting to efficiently achieve objectives. This is achieved by developing the essential traits of integrity to interpret mission command, intelligence to analyze courses of action, and leadership for administration, training, and operations. Strategy, operations and tactics are an art that can be honed through a balance of education and training aligned with the objective of training future leaders to win.
Syed Najeeb Ahmad, PhD, is a retired major general from Pakistan Army with experience of army aviation, intelligence, PME, leadership and strategic studies. Presently he is the Vice Chancellor of Institute of Space Technology, a public sector university in Islamabad.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Pakistan Army and Pakistan National Defence University, U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Photo Credit: USAWC Facebook Page and Michael Marra