Educating for Jointness

8/10/2019 Educating for Jointness

1/49

EDUCATING FOR JOINTNESS; AN ANALYSIS OF THE JOINT PROFESSIONAL

MILITARY EDUCATION SYSTEM OF THEUNITED STATES

Craig A. DeareJohn T. Fishel

Salvador G. Raza

A study prepared for presentation to the Chilean Academa Nacional de

Estudios Polticos y Estratgicos , January 2003.

Disclaimer: Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or

implied in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarilyrepresent those of the National Defense University, the Department ofDefense, or any other agency of the U.S. Government.


2/49

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION.1

BACKGROUND......3

DESIGN AND HAPPENSTANCE....11

EVALUATION..... .18

INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGY: Faculty and Student Mix ......20

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT...29

LESSONS LEARNED.......37

ANNEX A: JPME CONSOLIDATED LEARNING OBJECTIVES.....41

ANNEX B: LIST OF ACRONYMS......46


3/49

1

Educating for Jointness: An Analysis of the Evolution of the Joint Professional Military Education System of the United States

Craig A. Deare, John T. Fishel, and Salvador G. Raza

Despite the uncertainties of the threats of the 21 st century, it is increasingly clear that

today s evolving military missions, coupled with the dramatic decline of defense resources,

are causing armed forces around the world to shape their force structures, doctrines and

strategies to maximize efficiency in resource allocation in order to satisfy the increased

demands for combat effectiveness. In the past, officers from different services have worked

together when required to do so, often rotating among joint and service positions sequentially

as th ey progressed through the ranks. Currently, jointness emerges as the most effective

way to craft present and future military operations, providing military synergy to respond to

changing demands of effective warfare capabilities in the tactical, operational and strategic

domains to achieve politically determined objectives.1

Recognizing the growing complexity

of these demands over twenty years ago, the U.S. endeavored to develop leaders at all levels

with both service expertise and joint specialized skills, not only to fight effectively but also to

provide civilian leaders in the administration and Congress with sound military advice.

The purpose of this research project is to convey the results of the efforts of the United

States to improve the quality of joint education. The circumstances of the U.S. case are

unique for a number of reasons, principal among which was the role of the legislative branch

in bringing about the significant change in the emphasis regarding joint education in the U.S.

military. The U.S. case is also unique in that it involves a complex array of educational

institutions, each with its own historical baggage, that faces significant challenges in imbuing

1

A fundamental assumption of jointness is that combining two or more military forces produces greater effectsthan each force operating independently. Since jointness is a coined word, we have put it in quotes for thesefirst two uses. Henceforth, it will appear without quotes.


4/49

2

future military leaders with a joint perspective and culture. Notwithstanding, the lessons

learned by the U.S. might prove themselves useful for other countries engaged in similar

efforts to educate military leaders who, according to David McCormick, 2 not only know one

field deeply but who possess the broad range of leadership skills, confidence, experience, and

intellectual flexibility required to adapt to present and future uncertainties in a joint

environment.

The initial section of this paper briefly examines the history of the U.S. joint experience

and sets the stage for the review of the unprecedented emphasis on joint professional military

education (JPME), following the recommendations made by the 1989 Skelton panel. 3

Significant attention is paid to the findings of the Skelton panel, due to its major influence on

the changes in the U.S. Professional Military Education (PME) system. This review covers

relevant implications in the U.S. PME schools organizational architecture, explaining the

conceptual framework that supported the changes. Furthermore, evaluation procedures,

instructional methodologies and curriculum development are analyzed. In addition to the

experience of the authors as military instructors in senior-level military and civilian

educational programs and interviews conducted with current and former faculty members of

those schools, this analysis is strongly supported by accreditation reports conducted to assess

the degree to which military schools implemented joint education policies (PAJE Process

for Accreditation of Joint Education). Finally, the paper summarizes some of the lessons

learned, remaining challenges, and both positive and negative consequences of the decisions

made in U.S. JPME.

We note that the intent of this paper is not meant to be prescriptive in any way. Rather,

the objective is to be descriptive and analytical, for the purpose of making it relevant to

present and future national joint education policy formulation in Latin America, contributing

2 McCormick, D. The Downsized Warrior: Americas Army in Transition. New York; New York University


5/49

3

to the relatively scant body of work on joint military education in the region, and inviting

similar efforts.

BACKGROUND

Prior to analyzing the specific aspects of the educational component of jointness, it is

useful to understand the subject of jointness in itself as both a way of thinking and a form of

warfare. These two characteristics mutually reinforce each other, improving the performance

of military forces through gains in efficiency which enhance military capabilities. Jointness is

desired when no single service can perform the mission alone as well as it could jointly.

Jointness results when operational commanders conceive of joint solutions to accomplish an

assigned mission, which are both more efficient as well as more effective than a single

service solution. It is a contextual necessity to accommodate diverse and different

approaches to war-fighting through a single unified perspective which eliminates the

redundancy that causes an inefficient allocation of resources and results in military disasters.

It is worth noting that the initial efforts at jointness within the U.S. military began prior

to the First World War, with the establishment of a Joint Board of Army and Navy

representatives in 1903, to plan for joint operations. Due to the lack of any legitimate

authority, the Joint Board had virtually no significant effect on the U.S. operations during

World War I. It was evident, however, that the services understood the operational need for

joint planning.

The next step involved the agreement between the Army and Navy secretaries to

reestablish and strengthen the Joint Board (in 1919), with membership including the Service

Chiefs, their deputies, and the Chief of War Plans Division for the Army and Director of

Plans Division for the Navy. In addition to the Joint Board, they were supported by a staff --

the Joint Planning Committee -- with officers from the plans divisions from both the Army

Press, 1998. p. 160.


6/49

4

and Navy. However, this new attempt suffered the same fate as its predecessor, once more

due to the lack of authority to effect change. The board was disbanded in 1947.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American President and British

Prime Minister established the Combined Chiefs of Staff to provide strategic direction of the

combined 4 U.S.-British operational planning efforts. For its part, the British Chiefs of Staff

Committee had provided administrative coordination, tactical coordination, and strategic

direction to British forces since 1924. Although the U.S. did have the Joint Board, because it

lacked legitimacy and effectiveness, it was incapable of coordinating effectively with the

British staff.

The requirement to create a staff element capable of developing effective staff products

of a joint nature led to the adoption of what Admiral Leahy described as a "unified high

command" in 1942. It was this entity that would eventually become known as the Joint

Chiefs of Staff. This group worked during the Second World War in an ad hoc fashion,

without formal Presidential definition or legislation, but it did enjoy Presidential support.

The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were the counterparts to the Chiefs of the British

Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force. 5

Following the Second World War, it was clear that the U.S. required a formal structure

for joint staff planning and operational requirements. The Joint Chiefs of Staff offered a

workable model as a point of departure, and the enactment of the National Security Act of

1947 formally established the Joint Chiefs of Staff in law. This step began the process of

legislative and executive actions which ultimately led to the 1986 Department of Defense

Reorganization Act, known better as the Goldwater-Nichols Act.

3 See our discussion of the Skelton Panel on pp. 9-11.4 By combined it is understood as elements forces/agencies of two or more allies. This is differentiated from

joint in that the latter is understood as elements of two or more forces. 5 Admiral William D. Leahy, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's special military adviser, with the title ofChief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy; General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of


7/49

5

The National Security Act of 1947 represented a watershed change in the manner in

which the defense and security establishment was organized. In addition to creating the

National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense

was established. The War Department and the Navy Department combined with the newly

created Air Force Department to form the Defense Department, along with an Office of the

Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff. This initial schema has evolved since 1947 to its

current structure, with the 1958 and 1986 Defense Authorization Acts effecting additional

changes.

THE GOLDWATER-NICHOLS ACT

The intent of much of the 1958 and 1986 legislation was to improve the effectiveness of

the armed forces by emphasizing the ability of the military to conduct joint operations. The

more influential of these two bills was clearly the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense

Reorganization Act, which attempted to achieve the following objectives:

Reorganize the Department of Defense and strengthen civilian authority in the Department

Improve the military advice provided to the President, the National Security Council, and theSecretary of Defense

Enhance the authority of Unified Commanders 6

Clarify the responsibilities of Unified Commanders

Increase attention to the formulation of strategy and contingency planning

Provide for more efficient use of defense resources

Improve Joint Officer management policies

the Army; Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet; andGeneral Henry H. Arnold, Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Air and Chief of the Army Air Corps.6 A Unified Commander is the senior military officer responsible for a Unified Command, which is a

command with a broad continuing mission composed of significant assigned components of two or moreMilitary Departments, that is established and so designated by the President through the Secretary of Defensewith the advice and assistance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


8/49

6

Enhance the effectiveness of military operations and improve the management andadministration of the Department of Defense

The trend toward jointness developed from the historical experience that a single

service approach was often grossly ineffective to confront tactical, operational and strategic

demands within the context of complex, multidimensional warfare environments. 7 Jointness

became an attempt to reduce interservice rivalry, largely a result of individual service cultures

and insufficient focus on the collective, real, problem, with each service following its own

interests, competing for peacetime roles and resources they believed would accrue to their

unique strategic approach to war fighting.

Goldwater-Nichols created powerful incentives for joint education by enacting new

personnel and assignments policies; in particular one policy which decreed that no officer

could be promoted to general or flag rank without first serving in a prior joint assignment.

The legislation also created a new category of officer, the Joint Specialty Officer (JSO),

promoted at the same rate as officers on service staffs, who should fill half of the joint slots,

alternating their assignments between service and joint tours lasting at least two years. In

addition, strict responsibilities for joint education were specifically assigned to the Chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who shall be responsible for the following:

Doctrine, Training, and Education.

Developing doctrine for the joint employment of the armed forces.

Formulating policies for the joint training of the armed forces.

Formulating policies for coordinating the military education and training of members of thearmed forces. 8

7 See David C. Jones, Reform: The Beginnings, especially pp. 3 -6 and John M. Shalikashvili, Goldwater - Nichols Ten Years from Now, p. 66, in Dennis J. Quinn (ed.), The Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization

Act: A Ten-Year Retrospective , Washington, D.C., NDU Press, 1999.8 U.S. House of Representatives. Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1986.


9/49

7

The legislation required the Chairman -- in his planning, advice, and policy formulation

functions -- to make policies regarding the military education of members of the armed

forces. However, it gave little specific guidance other than directing the Secretary of Defense,

with the advice a nd assistance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to periodically

review and revise the curriculum [of the joint schools] to enhance the education and

training of officers in joint matters. 9

Joint thinking progressed slowly -- due to obdurate opposition -- to become something

resembling second nature in the armed forces. However, the JPME process still faced

difficulties in preparing officers to support joint operations, especially in ensuring that

officers effectively internalize the appropriate set of intellectual and technical abilities

required by high quality armed forces.

Education is one of the fundamental tools available to enhance professional military

efficiency, supplementing and reinforcing organizational changes. As Williamson Murray

expresses, what makes PME so important is the role that it has played in military innovation

and effectiveness in war throughout the twentieth century. To a great extent, it has been a

major factor in determining how military institutions will adapt to the actual conditions of

war. 10

Despite these efforts, JPME has not achieved the desired degrees of preparation of

military warriors at the respective levels, due to a fundamental unresolved duality: on one

side, the need to develop, achieve, and maintain distinctive combat capabilities that leverage

single services respective strengths; and on the other, the need to generate the synergistic

effects which jointness produces, which implies training and operating in a collective fashion

9 US. House of Representatives. Report of the Panel on Military Education (Skelton Panel). Washington, D.C.U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989. p.51f.10

Murray W. Remarks on Conference on Military Education for the 21 st

Century Warrior . in ConferenceProceedings: Military Education for the 21 st Century Warrior Monterrey, Ca. Naval PostGraduate School andOffice of Naval Research, 15-16 January 1998. p. 4-22.


10/49

8

for extended periods of time. Balancing these two critical yet generally competing demands

presents commanders at all levels a serious challenge.

However, finding the proper balance among these two poles propels one into the

devilishly higher level threefold goal of: (1) building armed forces better able to assure

military effectiveness; (2) assuring operational efficiency stemming from good planning and

close coordination with supporting and participating forces able to perform old and new sets

of roles, functions, and missions within a democratic environment; and (3) promoting

economy through a variety of approaches to problem-solving that increases the likelihood of

innovation at less cost .

THE DOUGHERTY BOARD AND THE SKELTON PANEL

The Goldwater-Nichols Act was a watershed event, putting in place the basic

requirements for the transition towards enhanced jointness in the U.S. military through a

comprehensive legal framework, coherent policy determinants, and structured organizational

arrangements. 11 The implications for Professional Military Education (PME) resulting from

the Goldwater-Nichols legislation led to two separate studies -- one military and another

congressional -- to assess the current status of PME, and provide recommendations to meet

the legislative requirements.

The first of these efforts was the Senior Military Schools Review Board (SMSRB),

appointed by the Chairman, JCS, in 1987 to review PME in joint matters and preparation for

officers for joint assignments. The board was headed by General Russell E. Dougherty,

USAF (Ret.), a former Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command, and was subsequently

referred to as the Dougherty Board. In May 1987, the Dougherty Board issued its report

11 For a critique and limitations of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, see Quinn, D.J. The Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act: A Ten-Year Retrospective. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1999.


11/49

9

strongly supporting that the intermediate and senior Service sch ools maintain their identities

and continue to teach the roles and capabilities of the individual Services. 12 The Board also

recommended that all service professional military education schools be accredited as joint

and that joint matters would comprise a minimum of 25 percent of the total curriculum hours.

The Board went on to recommend the maintenance of a (vaguely defined) student and faculty

service mix at each school. The Dougherty Board had no authority to mandate any changes;

it made recommendations only. The barriers to a joint oriented education were difficult and

awkward while opposition was even hostile at times.

Recognizing shortfalls in the results of military implementation of joint education, in

late 1987 the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Les Aspin,

appointed a Panel on Military Education of the Committee on Armed Services, and

designated Representative Ike Skelton as the panel s chairman. In his letter appointing the

panel, Aspen indicated the panel

sh ould review Department of Defense plans for implementing the joint professional military

education requirements of the Goldwater-Nichols Act with a view toward assuring that this

education provides the proper linkage between the Service competent officer and the

competent joint officer. The panel should also assess the ability of the current Department of

Defense military education system to develop professional military strategists, joint

warfighters and tacticians. 13

Skelton transmitted his report back to Aspin on April 3, 1989, a volume in excess of

200 pages. This major effort to study the PME system of the Defense Department was

conducted primarily by the panel s staff, led by a House Armed Services Committee

professional staff member and four uniformed officers -- one from the Office of the Secretary

of Defense, and one each from the Army, Navy, and Air Force -- assigned by the Defense

12 The Report of the Senior Military Schools Review Board on Recommendations to the Chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff Regarding Professional Military Education in Joint Matters. Washington, D.C.: JCS, May 7,

1987, p.7.13 Letter from Representative Les Aspin, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, dated November13, 1987.


12/49

10

Department to the panel chairman. These five individuals had graduated from six of the

intermediate and senior military colleges, two of them having served on war college faculties.

This exceptionally well-qualified staff performed the following tasks to get a factual

assessment of the state of PME:

Reviewed previous studies and data about the PME system; Interviewed more than 100 military and civilian educators and officials; Visited all 10 PME schools, and held hearings with all the school

commandants/presidents

Arranged for the testimony from the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff, all four Service Chiefs, four current unified commanders; in all, 48

witnesses testified at 28 hearings; and Visited British, French, and German military schools of comparable levels.

The results of the Skelton panel were deeply influential in shaping U.S. JPME in the

years ahead, correctly recognizing and anticipating its key requirements:

Comprehensive organizational architecture and conceptual framework for developingcourse objectives and establishing required student performance

Continuous institutional and student evaluation Explore active learning instructional methodologies within a proper faculty student mix

from the several services

Pro-active curriculum development integrated across all levels of teaching

In the following section, we analyze some of the Skelton panel key components,

comparing its 1989 recommendations to the current situation in the U.S., with an effort to

abstract the discussion into general elements transparent -- and perhaps useful -- to other

countries making similar efforts in joint education. The panel recommendations, therefore,

are used merely to frame the discussion, and are not recommendations that we propose be

adopted by any other country due to the unique conditions which pertain to the United States.


13/49

11

U.S. Professional Military Education System*

* The Skelton panel refered to the 10 PME Schools. The chart above depicts oringial 10 PME schools, plusthe Marine Corps War College, surrounded by the bold box.

DESIGN AND HAPPENSTANCE

Most of the Skelton panel recommendations were included in the Officer Professional

Military Education Policy that promulgates the guidelines, procedures, objectives, and

responsibilities for officer professional military education (PME). 14 Nevertheless, there is a

great deal to question regarding just how much education can do to increase jointness. There

can be no question that the United States now conducts joint operations much more

effectively than it did before the Goldwater-Nichols Act came into effect. How much of that

14 USA. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction. Officer Professional Military Education Policy(OPMEP) . CJCSI 1800.01A. Dec. 2000.


14/49

12

is due to education and how much to other factors, such as experience with joint forces, is an

open question. 15 Still, it cannot be denied that, at a bare minimum, education can reinforce

what has been learned through experience and may give the student the intellectual skills

required to effectively integrate those experiences into an operating paradigm.

Organizational Architecture and Conceptual Framework

After weighing the quality of education offered at military schools, the Skelton panel

concluded that a genuinely joint education should be conducted by an authority independent

of any individual service. However, this position was not recommended because, as with

other possible courses of action that were assessed, the disadvantages of doing so outweighed

the advantages. Among the many specific issues at play were such factors as the hierarchical

structure of the armed forces. Judith Stiehm, in her analysis of the U.S. Army War College,

for example, stated:

The Army chief of staff selects the commandant and sometimes has a close relationship with

him. He may issue formal or informal guidance as to the curriculum or other aspects of the

Army War College.... Even if supervision is light, the chief and the commandant are in a

senior-subordinate relationship. 16

This critique fails to take account of several important facts. First, commandants serve

for only three years. Most of them have not had prior service as faculty of the institution they

will be commanding. All of them come to the institution from some other assignment that

has not focused on academic issues. So, unless they come with an agenda based on

knowledge of the place, they will find it difficult to affect curriculum other than at the

margins. Second, most commandants are other than military academics. Hence, their

learning curve is likely to be fairly steep. By the time they know what they want to do, they

15

On the basis of direct observation between 1992 and 1997, incoming students at an intermediate level serviceschool each year were significantly more committed and receptive to the concept of jointness than the studentsof the previous year.


15/49

13

are often nearing the end of their tenure and are without the time to implement their desired

curriculum changes. Third, the military faculty is also short-term, with three years being the

norm, and they too usually face the same learning curve. Finally, the civilian faculty and

staff provide the institutional memory and have the capability to resist unwanted changes,

particularly those introduced in the second half of a commandant s tenure. In addition, some

commandants wear multiple hats and therefore cannot focus their entire attention on

institutional change. 17

The panel s only critique of commandants and presidents of war colleges was their

short tenure, typically a standard three-year assignment. This is still a recurrent problem

entwined with the pattern of career requirements within the personnel structure of the U.S.

Armed Forces, a much larger issue.

The Skelton panel also recommended sharpening the focus of the colleges using a

comprehensive framework so that each successive level of schooling could be built on the

previous level, tying together curricula at the joint and service schools based on a single

determinant: the major subject of professional military education should be the employment

of combat forces, the conduct of war. 18

This framework was proposed along with what the panel named its most

fundamental 19 recommendation: that joint specialist education should be accomplished in a

joint school, following a proposal for restructuring the architecture of courses and of joint

16 Stiehm, J.H. U.S. Army War College: Military Education in a Democracy. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress, 2002. p.17617 One of the authors has served at both an intermediate and senior service institution. In that capacity, he sawcommandants wearing three separate hats having no desire to effect change in the institution. At the sameschool, the Deputy Commandant was responsible for the running of the place and his tenure was often as shortas one year, with the norm being two years. At another institution he witnessed a well- qualified commandantspending most of his time dealing with issues for the Chief of Staff of his service that had nothing to do withcurriculum. The only case where a commandant is known to have instituted major curriculum change is the

Naval War College during the tenure of Admiral Stansfield Turner during the 1970s who came in with an pre-

conceived agenda.18 Skelton Panel, op.cit ., p.7.19 ibid , p.8


16/49

14

education aiming at greater operational competence with sound, imaginative strategic

thinking. 20

In order to operationalize their recommendations, the panel divided the spectrum of war

into four categories, assigning each one as the focus of specific levels of education, courses,

and schools. The result made the pre-commission and primary level schools (academies and

specialization equivalents in Latin America) focus on branch or warfare specialty at the

tactical level. The intermediate schools (staff college equivalents) should focus on operational

art, theater warfare, broadening the officer s knowledge of multi -service particularities and

requirements. Selected graduates of the services intermediate schools would attend a joint

school enlarging and deepening joint force planning and employment skill. The senior

schools (service war college equivalent) should focus on national military strategy; selected

officers would progress into the national security strategy arena in a proposed National

Center for Strategic Studies, and those promoted to general/flag rank would attend a

Capstone course focusing on jointness in force employment with substantive study of strategy

issues.

The panel clearly defined the intermediate level as the principal schools for all officers

to study the foundations and practicalities of jointness, reserving to the joint schools the role

of educating joint specialists, thus creating an interlocked structure of service experts and

jointness specialists.

One of the underlying difficulties in implementing both the Goldwater-Nichols

derived directives and the recommendations of the Skelton panel was that joint education was

to be grafted onto a preexisting structure of military schools. Each of the four services had its

own intermediate level staff college, while the Army, Navy, and Air Force each had a senior

service college (the Marine Corps would soon acquire one as well). In addition, the Joint

20 ibid , p.10


17/49

15

community also had its schools with the Armed Forces Staff College (AFSC) at the

intermediate level, and the National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed

Forces at the senior level. The AFSC was founded in 1946, became part of the National

Defense University (NDU) in 1981, and changed its name to Joint Forces Staff College in

2001. For its part, the National Defense University (NDU) was formally established on

January 16, 1976, as a consequence of recommendations made by the Department of Defense

Committee on Excellence in Education, bringing together in a university concept the two

Senior Colleges -- the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the National War College.

The National War College was founded in 1946 while the ICAF was established as the Army

Industrial College in 1924. It closed its doors in 1940 to reopen in 1947 as the ICAF. The

principal point is that these preexisting institutions had significant historical baggage, which

for good or ill, would serve to both guide the direction that the institutions would take as well

as constrain their possibilities. The following table chronicles the establishment of the

institutions.

1881 - U.S. Army School of Application of Cavalry and Infantry established in FortLeavenworth, KS (predecessor of Command & General Staff College)

1884 - U.S. Naval War College established in Newport, RI 1903 - U.S. Army War College established in Washington, D.C.1920 - U.S. Marine Corps Field Officers' Course established in Quantico, VA1922 - U.S. Army Command & General Staff College established in Fort Leavenworth, KS1924 - Army Industrial College established in Washington, D.C.1940 - U.S. Army War College suspends classes1943 - Army-Navy Staff College (ANSCOL) established in Washington, D.C.1946 - National War College (formerly ANSCOL) established in Washington, D.C.1946 - Industrial College of the Armed Forces (formerly Army Industrial College)

established in Washington, D.C.

1946 - Air War College/Air Command and Staff School established at Maxwell, AL1947 - Armed Forces Staff College (formerly ANSCOL) established in Norfolk, VA1951 - U.S. Army War College relocates to Carlisle Barracks, PA1976 - National Defense University established in Washington, D.C.1981 - Armed Forces Staff College joins NDU1986 - Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act1991 - U.S. Marine Corps War College established in Quantico, VA2001 - Joint Forces Staff College (formerly Armed Forces Staff College) established in Norfolk, VA

Table 1: Chronology of Intermediate and Senior Service Institutions


18/49

16

In order to more effectively implement the recommendations of the Skelton panel, as

well as to oversee the JPME process, the JCS Chairman instituted a series of organizational

and procedural steps:

Created the J-7 Directorate -- Operational Plans and Interoperabililty -- with

responsibilities for joint plans, training, exercises, evaluation, education, interoperability

and joint doctrine. Within that Directorate, he also created the Military Education

Division (MED) to formulate CJCS policy for educating members of the Armed Forces to

ensure compliance with the Goldwater-Nichols Act. 21

Created the Military Education Coordination Conference (MECC), a forum to discuss

issues regarding PME and JPME issues, coordinate efforts to improve PME, and review

joint curricula. The MECC includes the Director, Joint Staff (the MECC Chairman), the

President of the NDU, the commandant/president of each intermediate and senior Service

school, and the commandants of the three NDU PME colleges.

Created the Process for the Accreditation of Joint Education (PAJE) procedure for

assessing the effectiveness of JPME across the intermediate and senior Service schools. 22

These major elements represented the Chairman s intent to ensure the JPME was

implemented as uniformly as possible -- given the realities of divergent Service inclinations

previously discussed -- across the intermediate and senior Service schools. Certainly, the

quality of the JPME product was independent of these procedural steps; nonetheless, the

Chairman s intent was to attempt to institutionalize a process that wou ld lend formality,

weight, and rigor to the JPME effort.

Another result of the Skelton panel s recommendations was a two -tiered approach to

joint education. The lower tier, called Phase I, was to be the responsibility of the services and

was to be taught in the intermediate and senior service schools. The upper tier, called Phase

II, was to be the responsibility of the joint schools particularly the Armed Forces Staff

College whose curriculum was completely revamped to fit within 12 weeks (instead of 26).

This approach worked best at the intermediate level as all the service staff colleges met or

21

This took place in 1987. Subsequently, the Military Education Division became the Joint Doctrine,Education, and Training Division, with a subordinate Joint Education Branch, Joint Training Branch, and JointDoctrine Branch.


19/49

17

exceeded the standards and learning areas identified in the joint documents such as the

Officer Professional Military Education Policy (OPMEP) 23. Following their attendance at

the service staff college, officers selected for joint assignments would attend the AFSC for

the new 12-week course that constituted Phase II. While most attended on their way to the

joint assignment a significant minority attended while on joint duty.

The report also recommended that an accrediting process be set up so the service

schools could demonstrate their compliance with Goldwater-Nichols in a two-phase process.

Phase I of joint education should provide all officers with what they should know about

jointness. School accreditation would be given or denied for this phase based on the

recommendations of an independent evaluation. Phase II would provide enhanced education

in jointness for qualified students through the above-mentioned short course at the Armed

Forces Staff College.

When it began in 1987, the process of moving professional military education into

civilian academic like accreditation with academic degrees (Masters) was not universally

applauded.

There were critics at the time who held that the nature of military education and training was

such that academic practices and standards were quite inappropriate. War is not an academic

exercise; soldiers understand soldiers and the intrusion of scholars might deflect the

decisiveness of command into the divisiveness of academic debate. One also should

understand that the senior colleges, ICAF and NWC already had extended and accomplished

histories; they felt that their efforts needed neither an external guarantor nor encumbrance in

the extended authority of the National Defense University. 24

22 The concept for evaluating JPME in a centralized fashion was approved by the Chairman in November, 1987.23 Interviews with former instructors at AFSC and USAF instructors in the Department of Joint and CombinedOperations at the Army Command and General Staff College who attended AFSC as students during their jointinstructor assignments confirm this but also make the point that of all the services the Army prepared their

students the best for Phase II joint education. Interviews in 1997, 98, 99, 2000 and 2001.24 Report of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Evaluation Team to the National DefenseUniversity on accreditation, http://ndunet.ndu.edu/ndu_ar/2002reportsms.htm


20/49

18

Nevertheless, the process has moved ahead on two fronts: Joint accreditation and civilian

academic accreditation along with the conferring of advanced degrees (in many of the

schools).

The major problem in joint education seems to come at the senior level. Here many of

the students at the senior service schools have already served on joint duty assignments.

Although other senior service school selectees have not served on a joint staff or other joint

duty, all have now been through Phase I in the intermediate level schools. In addition, only

those who will be assigned to joint duty will go to AFSC (now JFSC) for Phase II education.

This has resulted in some confusion as to the desired joint educational objectives in the senior

service schools. Does their Phase I merely duplicate the Phase I of the intermediate schools?

Does this curriculum serve merely as a refresher? Or is there something new added?

Finally, there is the question of the two senior level joint schools. Both ICAF and

NWC teach curricula that are deemed to meet the criteria for both Phase I and Phase II of

joint education. This raises questions of efficiency and economy as well as effectiveness.

First, all military students at ICAF and NWC are graduates of Phase I at an intermediate

service school raising the question of whether these two curricula merely repeat the Phase I

curricula that all the other service schools teach. If not, then is what they teach really Phase

I? Do t heir curricula parallel the Phase II curricula of JFSC s intermediate and senior

courses? If so, is this redundant? If not, is it really Phase II or something else? 25

The current US policy for joint education (2000) defines the focus of each

educational l evel in terms of major levels of war, tactical, operational and strategic, linking

the educational levels so each builds upon the knowledge and values gained at previous

levels 26 ( bold in the original). It also recognizes the interdependence of joint and Service

25 In an interview in November 2002, a former professor at the National War College and AFSC stated that

while there was no substantive equivalence between NWC and AFSC (JFSC), the objective of inculcating a joint thought process was met by both institutions.26 OPMEP, op.cit ., p. A-B-1.


21/49

19

schools, keeping with the Service schools the role of developing Service specialists with

emphasis primarily from a Service perspective and attributing to joint schools the emphasis

on joint education from a joint perspective. Each has a focus similar to that recommended by

the Skelton panel. The only noticeable difference rests on the rejection of the proposal to

transform The National Defense University into the proposed National Center for Strategic

Studies. 27

EVALUATION

The Skelton panel also recognized that equally important as clearly defining the

intended outcomes of education is assessing both the students and institutions actual

achievement, not only to guide the development of individual students, but also to monitor

and continuously improve the quality of the course and provide evidence of accountability to

its stakeholders.

To address these evaluation issues -- with emphasis on the latter -- the Chairman

created the Program for Accreditation of Joint Education (PAJE) under the J-7 of the Joint

Staff. The PAJE periodically reviews the curricula of all the intermediate and senior schools

to determine how well they meet joint standards and learning areas.

To accomplish this, the PAJE process follows the practice of civilian academic

accreditation associations in the U.S. by evaluating how well the institution does what it says

it does. This is accomplished by reviewing the institution s self -study and teaching materials

provided by the institution. PAJE does not go into the classroom to determine if the

27 The panel believed that the study of strategy required more emphasis in the senior schools. Arguing that theservice war colleges should increase their emphasis on national military strategy, they further argued that thenext higher level is national security strategy, which includes the military, economic, diplomatic, and politicalelements of national power. The panel recommended that the National War College be converted into a

National Center for Strategic Studies -- with a focus on this level -- and study the application of all the elements both in peacetime and during crisis and war.


22/49

20

institution actually is doing what it says it does. To date, all the institutions have been

reviewed twice, with the third cycle having just begun in 2001 2002.

An accurate analysis of the nature of the problems of joint education and the changes

that can be expected in the joint schools, as well as the links among them, depends upon the

characteristics of the evaluation processes available and on their sources of information. The

PAJE system emerged as a key enabler of increased efficacy in the fundamental shift to

enhanced joint education. The operational value or benefit of the accreditation process is

derived from its ability to generate and integrate more complete, accurate, and timely

information than can be produced by schools reports operating in stand-alone mode. The

very essence of the PAJE system lies in the ability of the CJCS to make the most out of the

situations reported, comparing the schools against identified standards and learning areas.

The desired result is a set of compatible outcomes among schools of the same level.

As a result of this increased centralization, high-level joint education policy decision-

makers will find themselves with more resources to monitor the situation, and looking ahead,

to ensure that problems are identified and resolved as quickly as possible, perhaps even

before the schools realize they exist. On the other hand, the system makes services joint

education planning activities significantly easier as plans no longer need to hedge against

policy uncertainties. The schools curriculum and instructional methodologies can now focus

instead on being consciously proactive in producing emergent properties of individual

schools that derive from policy intent, as internalized by its leadership, the degree of

knowledge available on the educational environment and the ability of the organizations to

minimize the constraints imposed by virtue of the resources allocated.

That this model works well for the U.S. JPME system is clear. Indeed, it is a system

that, as practiced by the JPME schools, is inductive rather than deductive and flexible rather

than constrained. In its operation it is analogous to the U.S. legal system based on case (or


23/49

21

common) law as opposed to the code law systems practiced in continental Europe and Latin

America. Thus, the JPME system provides a vehicle that ensures the necessary comparability

among the several service institutions at the intermediate and senior levels without putting

them in an intellectual straight jacket.

Nevertheless, the very efficiency of the PAJE system could drive its future limitations,

especially if it were adopted in toto by Latin American institutions operating from a

deductive approach similar to that discussed above. This apparent paradox suggests that as

the system becomes more efficient in achieving its goals, it might preclude necessary changes

needed for joint education requirements to support the evolving joint warfighting

environment and its associated military capabilities.

Joint education must be proactive. To the extent we currently understand the conditions

under which some degree of success in joint education happens, a different set of conditions

is what we might experience in the future; therefore, there is the need to let some aspects of

the problem vary and try innovative approaches that could anticipate future demands. The

PAJE system -- with the advantages of centralization -- has the burden to incorporate

mechanisms of innovativeness in its policy recommendations. The danger is that the

presence of this requirement is not clear in the current system and the attempts of individual

efforts towards innovation by the schools may be seen as a deviation from the norm -- and

thus forcing them to conform to artificially rigid standards. While there is no evidence that

this danger has come to pass in the U.S. JPME system, it is a very real risk in systems with

traditions and modes of thinking that differ significantly from the U.S. approach.

INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGY: STUDENT AND FACULTY MIX

From a conceptual perspective, instructional methodologies should be explored in joint

education to foster conceptual thinking as a result of close, detailed, reflective study. The


24/49

22

Skelton panel gave considerable attention to rigor in the proper use of instructional

methodologies, addressing the ability of JPME to develop military strategists, joint war

fighters, and tacticians. Its recommendation on this issue established the standard that would

orient JPME schools curricula to develop strategy practitioners rather than strategy theorists.

The importance of this point is reinforced by the following -- rather long -- quotation:

From the numerous attributes identified, the panel has distilled four characteristics

prerequisites, if you will of the ideal strategist. First, a true strategist must be analytical. He

has to be able to move beyond isolated facts or competency in any given subject area to see

and develop interrelationships. Second, he must be pragmatic. The accelerated pace of change

in today s world, especially technological change, is self -evident. A true strategist is on top of

emerging trends and aware of the need to constantly revalidate his strategic constructs. Third,

he must be innovative. Fashioning strategies is, after all, a creative process one that

frequently challenges the status quo . Fourth, he must be broadly educated. Thinking

strategically requires individuals who are generalists rather than specialists. Given the potential

impact of many different areas on strategic thinking -- trends in political, technological,

economic, scientific, and social issues, both domestic and international -- strategists must have

the broadest possible educational base.

Few officers possess all of these attributes. It is rare to find individuals capable of a high

degree of conceptualization and innovation the attributes that most distinguish the

theoretical from applied strategist (emphasis added). Fortunately, the objective of PME

system is not the creation of a large pool of military officers who are strategists of the order of

Mahan. In the view of the panel, only a small number of genuine theoretical strategists are

need. More officers, however, can and should become skilled in the application of

strategy.Practical problem solvers -- applied strategists -- should be relatively easier to

nurture and more numerous. A large number of the nearly 1,100 general and flag officers

should be applied strategists. Overall, the panel believes that it is within the capacity of the

military education system to produce applied strategists and to identify and nurture theoretical

strategists. Thus the goals of the PME system with respect to strategists should be two-fold: (1)to improve the quality of strategic thinking among senior military officers and (2) to encourage

the development of a more limited number of bona fide theoretical strategists. 28

This emphasis on applied strategy, to some extent, helped to placate any criticism that

could have emerged from the scholarship intrusion into the traditional military school. It

28 Skelton Panel, op.cit ., p. 28.


25/49

23

asserted that the JPME would be conducive to soldiers, who understand soldiers, teaching

soldiers.

The initial resistance to having civilian teaching faculty in the academies, staff colleges

and, to a lesser extent, in the war colleges was overcome; however, some resistance still

persists in some segments of institutions such as the Army General Staff College tactics

department. Currently, high expertise requirements for those teaching soldiers stresses the

crucial importance of having a properly sized civilian faculty who can bring formally trained

academic expertise into military schools and catalyze higher rigor and standards in education.

The focus of this expertise is largely on the academic disciplines such as economics and

international relations that are relevant to the strategic curriculum as well as regional studies.

To facilitate joint education, the panel recommended that the joint schools have both a

student and faculty service mix. Joint education, the Report stre ssed, is often used,

incorrectly to refer to instruction in joint matters without regard to such important factors as

the composition of the student body and faculty or who controls the school. Courses are

misleadingly termed joint education if they add ress multi-service problems and issues or

joint staffing procedures and systems. In fact, curriculum only sets the stage for the joint

educational experience (emphasis added). Beyond curriculum, a mixed student body and

faculty and an independently controlled school are all important elements of joint

education 29.

The panel also acknowledged the importance of active learning (which was

progressively introduced in the U.S. military schools since the 1950s) recognizing that the

educating 21 st century joint officers, with styles of learning profoundly influenced by global

networking of knowledge are all significantly different from those of past decades.

29 Ibid , p.64


26/49

24

Modes of instruction that emphasize active learning and collaborative activities engage

students in intellectual discovery. Clearly, these modes are the most effective, as shown by

research over the past half century.

Collaborative activities is a generic term for various small group interactive

instructional procedures. Activities are structured so that students need each other to

accomplish their common task or learning activities. Students working in collaborative

groups usually divide responsibility for the domain, and produce networks of linked cognitive

structures. These can grow to become very complex, particularly if they are part of activities

such as those of a research group.

The cognitive architecture required for joint thinking is shaped in mixed classes. When

students who attempt to impose their service bias on the discussion are challenged in mixed

classes, they are forced to recognize complementary possibilities in ideas, values, and

traditions of their services.

According to this view, the instructor s task is to interact with students in ways that

enable them to acquire new information, practice new skills, and reconfigure and expand

their knowledge. Guiding students through cooperative processes is easier and more

understandable for those who will practice implementation of the ideas, concepts, and

practices that are the products of a facilitated session. The instructor, then, is the one who

provides structure and process to group interaction leading to high-quality decisions and who

helps, enables, and supports others toward performance excellence.

However, with candor rare among most mili tary educators, the panel noted that at the

present [1989], although there is a dearth of knowledge about joint operations and of joint

doctrine, joint faculties can address the joint employment problems that have plagued our

armed forces over the past 40 yearsit follows that the educational qualifications and

military experience of the joint faculty are paramount. Instructors must be able to explain and


27/49

25

debate joint issues with the confidence that only experience and study can provide. An

inexperienced faculty member with a weak educational background will have little success in

broadening the uni- service perspectives of his students. 30

Further, the panel argued that expertise was not necessarily linked to rank faculty did

not have to outrank students. Expertise can command respect. Such expertise would also

contribute to fulfilling other panel recommendations about careful grading, counseling and

more feedback that addresses analytical performance. The panel also gave a strong

endorsement to simulations and war-gaming.

There was nothing timorous about the panel s argument that student exchange in the

classroom was conducive to reproducing past errors because of faculty lack of teaching

qualifications and subject matter expertise, whereas facilitating was mistakenly taken as a

synonym of ordering the speakers sequence. 31

Conceptually, the Skelton panel hit the target on many issues -- while missing it on

some significant ones. One specific case in point is with regard to sending more students to

another service s college meant fewer of each service s students attending its own schools.

The Navy and the Air Force, more so than the Army, found it difficult to simultaneously

change their schools structure to accommodate the demands for increased non -host service

representation, or conversely to increase the number of officers in education billets each year

to make other services colleges more joint within the same budget appropriation.

The tables below exemplify the accomplishment in student and faculty mix at the Army

Command and General Staff College. These tables were compiled from data presented in a

masters thesis at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). Their value is

in providing a comparative analysis of the students and faculties just before and ten years

after the Skelton panel recommendations. The 1998 data are consistent with the latest (in

30 ibid , p. 64


28/49

26

1998) Report of Accreditation 32 for phase I joint (64 Air Force Students and 64 Sea Service

students 44 Navy and 20 Marine Corps) and should serve as a spot check on the validity of

the PAJE reports for the other intermediate level Service schools.

Service1987-1988

1998-1999

Percent ChangeRelative to Service

Representation

Percent ChangeRelative to Total

Student Size Army 819

81.2%834

79.2% (2.3%) (1.9%) Navy 3

0.3%43

4.1% 1,266.6% 3.8%USMC 18

1.8%20

1.9% 5.5% 0.1%Air Force 40

4.0%64

6.1% 52.5% 2.1%International 128

12.7%91

8.6% (32.2%) (4.1%)Total 1008 1052 4.37%

Table 2: Comparative Analysis of Service Representation in Army Command and GeneralStaff College 1987/1988 1998/1999.

Service 1987-1988

1998-1999

Percent ChangeRelative to Service

Representation

Percent ChangeRelative to Total

Faculty SizeArmy 24395.3%

17789.0% (6.51%) (6.3%)

Navy 31.2%

63% 150% 1.8%

USMC 31.2%

42% 66.67% 0.8%

Air Force 62.3%

126% 160.87% 3.7%

Total 255 199 (20.96%)Table 3: Comparative Analysis of Service Faculty Representation in Army Command andGeneral Staff College 1987/1988 1998/1999.

The numbers presented in these charts and Accreditation Reports for other Colleges

(senior and intermediate) indicate that the mix of sister Service representatives meets the

31

ibid , p.13532 USA, CJS. Memorandum for the Chief of Staff, US Army CJCS Accreditation, Command and General StaffOfficers Course Resident Program. Texas, Kansas - Fort Leavenworth, June 1997. p.2.


29/49

27

required standard posed by the Officer Professional Military Education Policy graphically

depicted in Table 4. 33

College Class and Seminar Mix forResident Programs

Faculty Mix

Senior Level(NDU and ICAF)

Approximately equal representation fromeach of the three Military Departments

Approximately 33 percent from eachMilitary Department

Service SeniorLevel

A minimum of 20-percent from non-hostMilitary Departments

No less than 25 percent of the totalmilitary faculty from non-host militarydepartments.

IntermediateLevel

At least one officer from each of the twonon-host Military Department in eachseminar

Minimum of 5 percent of military facultymembers whose primary duty is jointeducation

Table 4: Faculty and students mix requirements.

However, it cannot be said that the purpose for which this mix was established have

been adequately achieved: to provide a diversity of service experience to foster active

learning in joint education. This can be seen in the following appreciation of the current

status of the joint learning process:

in reality, the lack of a good Service mix in the classroom and the faculty causes skewed

instruction and unrealistic and even incorrect portrayal of non-Army capabilities andlimitations. For example, the course book includes detailed, robust force listing of U.S. Air

Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and coalition air forces and a reasonably plausible command and

control relationship of these forces in a Joint Task Force. However, in the classroom, the roles

of these non-Army forces are seldom, if ever, mentioned and if they are, it is usually because

of a zealous Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, or international officer student who puts in the

considerable extra effort to show how these forces could produce results important to the Army

commanders. Even with such effort by a student, these results of airpower, seapower,

amphibious, and coalition operations are often discounted as insignificant. 34

The author of this appreciation, Major Carney, U.S. Air Force, is talking about a course

within the curriculum -- tactics -- that is taught by the most service parochial department at

the CGSC. Nevertheless, his critique focuses well on the requirements for faculty/student

mix at the intermediate level. These are the bottom two cells of Table 2. Indeed, his critique

33 The requirements can be found at: USA. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction. Officer

Professional Military Policy. CJCSI 1800.01A. Dec. 2000. Enclosure B.34 Carney, M. Joint Professional Military Education 1999: Where to Now? Kansas, Fort Leavenworth: U.S.Army Command and General Staff College. Masters Thesis (unclassified), 1999. p.56.


30/49

28

is especially powerful with regard to the faculty mix requirement in the bottom right cell. In

the course he is discussing, there are no faculty members from non-host military departments

required. This leaves the two non-host students to raise joint type issues alone. Major

Carney s candid criticism, however, makes explicit the actual commitment to academic

freedom in the U.S. intermediate and senior military schools for expressing ideas and

recommendations.

That appreciation should also be contextualized as an individual student perspective on

a rather complex issue, suggesting caution in its generalization; notwithstanding, if the

schools are achieving the standards but the purpose of that standard is not met, then the

standard should be reviewed. At least one officer from each of the two non-host services

seems to have proved itself not an adequate standard for enhancing joint education. This

might be a far too strong a conclusion; the point however, is the necessity of rethinking the

interaction that is actually achievable within the school house between students versus

students, students versus faculty, and department versus department based on current

standards so that a better ratio would be devised.

Another problematic aspect found in the instructional methodologies currently

practiced in the U.S. JPME regards the difficulty to reconcile active learning requirements

which impose highly selective content - with the high volume of knowledge students are

required to get in order to achieve the learning objectives. The result is a tension between

what might be called an educational model and a training model. 35 This tension is reflected

in the structure used to frame information, keeping students busy , whether attending a lecture,

meeting in seminar, or participating in an exercise, precluding the students from considering

and challenging their own intellectual assumptions and prejudices.

35 Over many years of teaching at the Army Command and General Staff College in both military and civilianstatus, one of the authors has been involved in countless discussions of this tension.


31/49

29

The objectives are oriented to educate students in thinking logically about tough

problems. Explicitly, they are told to think differently -- from one another and from the way

they had thought in the past. However, there is a danger that the instructional methodologies -

- and the culture of the seminar system -- implicitly keep them on the same track, with a

tendency to seek certainty and consensus reinforced by the use of questions that force

students to reach a conclusion. This situation is not ameliorated with the exercises, i.e.

requirements to take action in war games and crisis management exercises and, at least

temporarily, cease inquiry and reflection on what they have read, heard, and discussed.

Making sure that the right information is available at the right time -- following the

schedule -- is one such element that is a major concern for the faculty. Students are constantly

being briefed with shorthand versions of a variety of information. These briefings -- lectures -

- ambitiously condense what one might think would merit a whole course into a single

lesson. 36

Recognizing these tensions, textbooks containing required and supplementary readings

are made available to students. This procedure seems to imply that having been briefed and

read the readings, students not only are assumed to be entitled to an opinion (know enough to

have an opinion -- even on issues on which experts do not agree) but are also assumed to be

ready to act. These are not simple problems with easy solutions, making faculty development

a critical requirement in joint education, so that professors can gain new insights into how

knowledge is created, retained, transferred and used within their courses, using available

tools to analyze, design, develop, deliver and evaluate post-graduate level courses in diverse

educational environments using a variety of effective teaching methodologies, delivery

techniques, planning approaches and instructional strategies.

36 This lament is often heard among the academics on the faculty of both the intermediate and senior serviceschools.


32/49

30

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Within the architecture recommended by the Skelton panel, the common education

standard of all U.S. Professional Military Education should be to develop joint awareness,

perspective, and attitudes . The JPME curricula should prepare graduates to operate in a joint

environment and to bring a joint perspective to bear in their tactical, operational, and strategic

thinking.

From a conceptual perspective, the challenges in designing an academic curriculum to

achieve educational objectives revolve around taking advantage of inherent efficiencies in

individual services tradition, doctrines, discipline and procedures, blending service strengths

on a mission basis to provide higher combat output than either any single service or the sum

of individual service contributions could produce.

On one hand, fostering services inherent efficiency promotes specialization and

ultimately argues in favor of a command and control system that keeps the responsibilities

and operations of various service components distinct and separated. It is concerned with

maintaining distinctions and keeping lines of responsibility from overlapping. Keep

components from getting in each other s way and allow them to carry out their particular

specialty with greatest effectiveness. Once each service component meets the demands of its

particular mission, the result will be an effective, smoothly conducted war or operation. Air

Force, Navy, and Army components focus on air, sea, and ground campaigns respectively,

the overall operation will benefit. Resources will not be diluted, stretched or diverted.

On the other hand, implementing joint education demands the confrontation of

multiple-often incompatible-military strategy, doctrine, training, evaluation, and the need to

execute programs in support of those strategies. Because services desire to preserve their

rights and options in determining appropriations use, jointness challenges the role of the

service in determining the training status of their units. Fostering joint education argues in


33/49

31

favor of convergent and complementary functional capabilities with efficient management

tools for working out the myriad of aspects of joint operation in assigned missions, aiding and

facilitating operations of the other service components: helping other services do what they

must do, without positing a unique subordinate role for the army, navy or air force. It means

coming to appreciate tactical, operational and strategic priorities from the perspectives of the

other services, and acting accordingly to produce a rapid build-up of power deployed in a

logical sequence and properly sustained. It implies a cooperative arrangement that extends

the range of the operational scheme as well as the command and control nodes and links

through which an operational scheme can be implemented to achieve strategic objectives and,

ultimately, political objectives.

The information depicted below (Table 5) consolidates learning areas and the

respective teaching goals of the curriculum currently practiced in the U.S. JPME schools --

explaining how the tension depicted above was accommodated at the U.S. military schools --

with a focus on courses at the senior level. Furthermore, the U.S. institutions of military

higher education, typically disaggregate these goals into specific objectives aligned with

cognitive levels using Bloom s taxonomy described in Table 6 to produce the list of

objectives compiled in Annex A: JPME Consolidat ed Learning Objectives. 37

This listing of Consolidated Learning Objectives at Annex A permits a comparative

analysis of the U.S. JPME Schools. The course of study directed by these objectives at

different cognitive levels may seem very complex; however, its logic is straightforwardly

simple with three easily recognizable stages. In the first stage, academic activities are

designed to provide students with the intellectual tool to derive relevant data from empirical

observation and perform critical analysis to a recognized problem; the next step within this

37

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction. Officer Professional Military Education (CJCSI1800.01 A.) Washington, D.C. Dec. 2000, p. E.2. For a detailed ex planation of Bloom s Taxonomy, see:Bloom, B.S. (ed.) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives . New York: Longman, 1956.


34/49

32

LearningAreas

Goals

Foundationsof NationalPower

and theGeo-Strategic

Context

This learning area provides students with the intellectual environment tocomprehend and assess the full spectrum of national power in order to developsensitivity to the political, economic and societal factors that influence nation s

security and well-being, providing students the opportunity to appraise globaland regional aspects of political, social, economic, and military trends from the perspective of national interests, policies, and strategies.Related activities are designed to expose students to many complex issues,events, and policies faced by national policymakers, whom they might have toadvise in the future, related activities led students to learn how to weigh therelative importance of nonmilitary factors and strategies that could affect militarycapabilities, strategies (security, military and operational) and tactics, providingthe instance of reference for assessing military needs and budget requirements.

Theory ofWar

This learning area is dedicated to the acquisition of concepts, theories, andapproaches to the art and science of war, the military profession under theframework of war as a political, social, and moral phenomenon.

Related activities are designed to expose the relationship between military forcesand national political aims across the spectrum of conflict and the levels of war,with the comprehension that, regardless of how conscientious the planning, thesituation becomes fluid once combat begins. Fog and friction derail plans;intelligence, communications, logistics, and more do not deliver as scheduled.

NationalPlanningSystems,

Processes andStructures

This learning area makes students reflect and critically analyze the institutionsand processes that make security policy and how it is translated into capabilityrequirements and budget elements. With varying degrees of details, studentslearn how to institutionalize institutional changes through the exploration of therelationship of organizational structure and the security and defense decision-making process.This process leads students to recognize, first, the arcanities of the U.S.interlocked planning methodologies, with emphasis on the Joint StrategicPlanning System (JSPS), the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System(JOPES), and the Planning Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS). Andsecond, how the planning processes works in reality to conciliate resources andcompeting demands within an interagency bargain process.

MilitaryCapabilities,

Doctrine,

Organization and JointCampaigning

This area of study is oriented towards students acquisition of the skills tomanage large combat formations at the corps level and higher. Translate politicalguidance into operation plan, understanding the needs for, and the means toward,organizing variety of system to achieve integration.Activities are designed to permit the examination of actual force organization,

capabilities and the instrumental role of doctrine (services and joint) to achieve politically oriented objectives (at several levels), guide students into theformulation and assessment over the appropriateness of strategy, developing

performance indicators for capabilities alternatives and organizations possibilities.

StrategicLeadership

andManagementDevelopment

This learning area is oriented to prepare students to be initiators rather than justimplementers of policy, performing well not just within the framework ofcertainty provided by armed services regulations and field manuals, but in a newenvironment characterized by complexity and, more important, by ambiguity.Leadership and management are woven into a number of other topics that chargestudents to carry new responsibilities and acquire new skills and information forinterpersonal relations in managing and leading a joint/combined force.

Table 5: Consolidated learning areas and teaching goals.


35/49

33

stage is the acquisition of the required skills to perform, elaborate, and abstract cognitive

processes in transforming these data according to accepted procedures. In a second stage,

academic activities demand that students develop creative alternatives that respond to the

perceived problem, together with criteria for their assessment.

Finally, this logic requires students to assess the results and present their conclusions in

a rational way. In sum, the logic that defines the structure of joint education curriculum is the

logic of scientific reasoning, exploring a set of concepts and instrumental planning

methodologies.

Level Description Key words

Knowledge Remember Define, describe, identify, label, list, match, name, outline,reproduce, select, state

Comprehension Grasp themeaning

Convert, defend, distinguish, estimate, explain, extend,generalize, exemplify, infer, paraphrase, predictRewrite, summarize, translate, understand

Application Use in a newsituation

Change, compute, demonstrate, discoverManipulate, modify, operate, predictPrepare, produce, relate, show, solve, use

Analysis Break down incomponents

Break down, diagram, differentiate, discriminate,distinguish, illustrate, infer, outline, point out, select,separate, subdivide

Synthesis Put together toform a newwhole

Categorize, combine, compile, compose, create, divide,design, explain, generate, modify, organize, plan, rearrange,reconstruct, relate, reorganize, revise, rewrite, summarize,tell, write

Evaluation Judge thevalue for agive purpose

Appraise, criticize, discriminate, explain, justify, interpret,support

Table 6: Taxonomy of cognitive levels. Source: OPMEP, p. E2.

Although the curriculum of each school component of the U.S. JPME is assigned with

the same logic, each one takes conceptual elements from the former, creating an evolving

process of knowledge acquisition and progressive skills in critical thinking. This logic

structure might justify some degree of the redundancy found in the compared objectives of

courses and schools. It also explains recurring high-level cognitive objectives in all courses.


36/49

34

On the other side, this also means a progression from the strict hierarchy of rigid

conceptual compartmentalization of knowledge proposed by the Skelton panel structure,

towards a spiral-like structure of superimposed concepts without a rigid

compartmentalization. Interestingly enough, the foundations for this implicit departure from

the former into the latter rests in the guidance found in the Officer Professional Military

Education Policy , which states its adoption of the hierarchical framework but produces a

more network-like web of educational objectives which effectively guide the formulation of

subordinate objectives by the schools. 38

The logic is sound. Moreover, it could easily be emulated by any institution seeking to

enhance joint education. The problems as one would expect lie - in pragmatically turning

that logic into real activities with measurable parameters of effectiveness where both the

curriculum and the instructional methodologies complement themselves in a coherent,

interlocked program at several levels.

In Table 7 we present some selected comments collected though the PAJE system that

lay out current tensions in the joint education curriculum. We wish to emphasize, however,

that the existence of these tensions does not imply any deep or systemic weakness within or

across the institutions. To the contrary, we share the sentiment of the Skelton panel when

they observed in 1989, a basic judgment of the panel is that the DoD military e ducation

system is sound. 39 Indeed, the implementation of many of the panel s recommendations

subsequent to its publication have only served to make the system stronger. Nonetheless,

there are shortcomings, and improvements can be made.

The problem can be simply stated: too ambitious, too much. Some schools objectives

just seem too ambitious, going much beyond the applied strategy level. This reflects a

tension between the intentions of producing a rigorous academic program and the pragmatic

38 Ibid.


37/49

35

reality of the schools limited by the academic qualifications of their military faculty and even

more by their expertise as trainers rather than as educators. Broad objectives lead students to

think they know even when experts acknowledge that they themselves do not. Table 7

provides the basis for these conclusions as drawn from the comments sections of a

representative sample of the PAJE reports.

One difficulty found in the structure of the PAJE process -- fundamental for critically

accessing schools curricula -- is that it does not explore teaching and adult learning aspects

of performance evaluation concerning stated objectives. Notwithstanding, two conclusions

are clearly evident.

First, outcomes achieved should not be mistaken for anything but limited expertise.

After only a few weeks of regional study, for example, students construct a strategy for that

region to include not just the military component, but also political, economic, and

psychological elements. These products are clearly limited and usually biased.

Second, students have no time for arriving at a truly original idea. Absorbing so much

material makes it difficult to develop enough distance to make independent judgments. In

this situation, dealing with abstraction and speculation runs the risk of ceasing to be the order

of the day, allowing the enforcement of a methodology to reign as an implicit goal. The

difficulty -- one would recognize -- lies in finding the proper balance between applying

strategic concepts on one side, and meta-cognition and analysis on the other. In the former,

ordeal is not synonymous with a systematic approach to the thinking process. In the latter, a

simplistic approach to the procedures for investigation is not a qualification in epistemology

this would be a doctorate in itself.

39 Skelton Panel, op.cit ., p.18


38/49

36

School Year CommentsIndustrialCollege ofthe Armed

Forces

1994 The program does not adequately address JTF planning and operationsand command and control and provides too few opportunities to reachthe application level of learning.The use of student briefing and discussion teams to address thecapabilities and limitations of the Services permits a wide variance in thequality and content of the information exchanged.The emphasis of the strategic level prevents potential joint specialtyofficers (JSOs) graduating from the ICAF from having equivalentoperational level expertise as those graduating from other Phase I and II

programs.Global Rally (exercise) is conducted during the end of the year whenstudents have one foot out the door. Student appointments and outsidecommitments interfere with active learning. Additionally, timeconstraints preclude opportunities to replay poor solutions and/or provideconstructive feedback to students.

Army

Commandand GeneralStaff College

1997 In several lesson plans, the coverage of PAJE learning objectives appears

to be overstated. This practice tends to lead the students into believingthey are receiving more joint education than may really be the case.The end of course war game is primarily oriented on Army tacticaloperations, with joint issues occupying a peripheral role.

AirCommandand StaffCollege

1997 The coverage of available sub-organizational structures (including jointtask forces, sub-unified commands, and single Service Commands) islimited throughout the curriculum.The curriculum does not adequately cover the integration of joint andService systems at the operational level of war.

Air WarCollege

1997 The level of awareness and the understanding of the joint doctrinedevelopment process should be increased beyond just a cursory readingof key doctrine publications.

Army WarCollege

1998 The coverage allotted to the understanding of the capabilities andlimitations of non-host U.S. military forces and to sustaining nationalmilitary resources is spread minimally among various lessons. Onelecture on joint force capabilities offered during the midcourse resident

phase addresses Service capabilities and logistics but, except for onechapter of Joint Pub 4-0 covering logistics, there are no Service-specificreadings assigned to this lesson.

College ofNaval

Commandand Staff

Naval WarCollege

1998 The curriculum covers force planning issues relative to the NationalMilitary Strategy but does not specifically address how the joint staff isorganized.Instructors should review joint publications to familiarize themselveswith the doctrine development process and related terminology.Change all reference in the syllabus to reflect the proper jointterminology.


39/49

37

College ofNaval

Warfare

1998 The competency and experience level of the student body varies greatlyand is not uniform across the various Services at the beginning of theJMO course e.g., a majority of students do not have a strong backgroundin theater strategy and campaigning (operational art).Inconsistency in documenting common learning area objectives indicatea need to review current curriculum development procedures to ensurePAJE standards are applied consistently throughout the entire course.

School Year CommentsArmed

Forces StaffCollege

Joint andCombined

Staff OfficerSchool

1998 Enhance individual lessons through more effective use of Bloom sTaxonomy by using the learning levels as the key verb in each lessonobjective. A desired outcome in the school s st rategic vision is to

Ensure 85% of the curriculum focused on specific tasks at or above theapplication level of learning. This will be much easier to manage anddocument if the verbs (know, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize,and evaluate) are used for every lesson objective. Lesson developmentand student comprehension of the desired learning outcome will be muchclearer if these six words are used in every lesson objective andappropriate verbs are used in the corresponding behavior samples.

ArmedForces Staff

College Joint andCombined

WarfightingSchool

1998 The College should develop a definition of performance standards thatwould apply to all student activities, and publish this information in theStudents Handbook.The College does not extensively use any modeling and simulationsupport in the exercises, to include the capstone exercise, PurpleReliance.Reevaluate the curriculum, critically appraising the taxonomy levelcontribution of each session toward learning objectives contained in theOPMEP. Utilizing the information ob

Educating for Jointness

Documents

Transcript of Educating for Jointness