importance of military training essay

Training: The Foundation 
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Oct 4, 2018 22 min read

Jim Greer, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.

—Douglas MacArthur, 1933

It is astounding what well-trained and dedicated Soldiers can accomplish in the face of death, fear, physical privation, and an enemy determined to kill them.

—Lieutenant General Ace Collins, 1978

Death, fear, physical privation, and an enemy determined to kill them: These are the challenges that those who defend our nation face when they go to war. Whether one is a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine; a brand new private or a grizzled old veteran; a fighter pilot, a submariner, a tanker, a military policeman, a transporter, or a medic, every serviceman and woman must be prepared to make contact with the enemy, survive, and accomplish the mission as a member of the team. That is what training the Armed Forces of the United States is all about: enabling those who serve to fight, win, and come home to their loved ones.

Warfare is always changing, always evolving.

• World War II saw the emergence of blitzkrieg and air operations over land and sea.
• Vietnam demonstrated the power of combinations of enemy regular and insurgent forces.
• The ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated how improvised explosive devices can be significant killers on the battlefield.
• In 2006, the Israeli Defense Forces were stymied by Hezbollah’s employment of a hybrid approach that combined sophisticated conventional weapons and tactics with terrorism and long-range missiles. 1
• Most recently, Russia has employed what is termed “New Generation Warfare” to conquer the Crimea, secure the eastern Ukraine, and threaten the Baltic nations. 2

Military training must therefore change as well. It must continually be forward-thinking, innovative, and aggressive, both in understanding how warfare is evolving and in adapting training to meet those challenges. Today, the Chinese military presents the threat of long-range missiles to deny the U.S. access to the western Pacific Ocean and to our allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Since the end of World War II, the ability of the U.S. to move freely as it pleases in the Pacific has been assured, but that freedom of action is increasingly at risk as the Chinese military invests in new technologies and capabilities. This growing challenge places a training requirement on all four services to learn how to defeat the threat of such anti-access/area denial tactics. 3

Training is one of the key functions of each of the services within the Department of Defense (DOD). Others include manning, equipping, organizing, and sustaining, but it is training that wraps all of those functions together to create and maintain effective organizations. Training is so important that each service has its own major subordinate command dedicated to training:

• The Training and Doctrine Command for the Army, 4
• The Naval Education and Training Command for the Navy, 5
• The Training and Education Command for the Marine Corps, 6 and
• The Air Education and Training Command for the Air Force. 7

Each of these commands respectively holds the service responsibility for designing, developing, resourcing, assessing the effectiveness of, and providing command oversight of its service’s program. Additionally, for the Joint Force, the Joint Staff J-7 has responsibility for joint oversight, policy, and strategy for training and exercises that bring individual service forces together into a coherent whole. 8

What Is Training?

The U.S. military defines training as “instruction and applied exercises for acquiring and retaining knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes (KSAAs) necessary to complete specific tasks.” 9 Generally speaking, military training is divided into two broad categories: individual and collective. Individual training is exactly that: training designed to develop individual skills. Collective training is designed to integrate trained individuals into a cohesive and effective team, whether that team is a tank crew of four or an aircraft carrier crew of 5,000.

Training can be as small as an hour-long class for a four-person team on how to bandage a wound and as large as a multi-week joint exercise including tens of thousands of personnel and units from all four services. It generally occurs in three domains: the institutional domain, which includes the various formal schools in each service; the operational domain, which includes training in units and on ships, whether at home station, deployed, or underway; and the self-development domain, conducted by individuals to address the gaps they see in their own learning.

Training Realism

Their exercises are unbloody battles, and their battles bloody exercises.

—Flavius Josephus, 75 C.E.

No other activity prepares a military force better for combat than combat itself. The environment in which combat is conducted—one of violence, death and destruction, fear and valor, complexity and uncertainty—is one of the most challenging in which any human being or human organization must operate. It is so challenging and unique that it cannot be completely replicated outside of combat itself. Thus, to be effective, military organizations must train under conditions that are as realistic as possible and come as close as possible to placing the individual, the team, the unit, and the crew in the environment and situations they will face in combat. Training realism is one of the key measures of training effectiveness.

Much of the design and innovation in training is aimed at generating realism. Training design generally has three components:

• The task itself—the thing an individual or the element is expected to accomplish. An example might be to conduct an attack, conduct resupply of a vessel, or employ electronic warfare to jam an enemy system.
• The conditions— the set of circumstances in which the task is expected to be performed. Examples might be day or night, moving or stationary, opposed by an enemy or unopposed, or with full capabilities or some capabilities degraded.
• The standards— the level of competence and effectiveness at which the task is expected to be accomplished. Standards might include the speed at which the task is to be performed, the accuracy of hitting a target, or the percentage of operational systems that are ready and available.

Identifying the tasks, conditions, and standards drives training realism. Ultimately, as Flavius Josephus described the training of the Roman army, the goal is for military forces entering combat to have “been there before” so that they know they can fight, win, and survive.

Training Effectiveness

It’s not practice that makes perfect; rather, it’s perfect practice that makes perfect. It is, after all, the seemingly small disciplines and commitment to high standards that makes us who we are and binds us together as a force, an Army, in peace and in war.

—General Martin Dempsey, 2009

As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Marty Dempsey’s quote implies, the services do not train just for training’s sake. They train in order to reach specific measurable levels of performance in specific tasks. Training, then, is both nested and progressive. It is nested because training in specific individual tasks is aggregated to enable training in small elements tasks, which in turn are aggregated into training in progressively larger organization tasks.

Take, for example, a carrier battle group. A carrier battle group consists typically of the carrier; several cruisers, frigates, or destroyers; and perhaps a submarine. On each of those ships, individual crewmembers, petty officers, and officers must be trained on their individual tasks. Those individuals then form teams such as a fire control party or an engineering team. Teams are then combined to make departments, such as the gunnery and engineering departments, which then train together to create an overall crew for the ship that is effective in sailing, attack, defense, or replenishment. The various ships of the carrier battle group then train together to enable collective attack or defense by the group of ships. At the same time, individuals and organizations are trained progressively under increasingly challenging conditions to increasingly higher standards. All of this must then be assessed for competence and effectiveness.

Because training involves both individual and collective learning, the military uses the standard approach of the educational profession to develop and conduct training. This is known as the ADDIE approach:

• A ssess. Organizations assess their training to identify gaps in proficiency or determine new training requirements.
• D esign. Training is designed to overcome gaps or to improve proficiency under a variety of conditions.
• D evelop. Once designed, training is developed, coordinated, and resourced to enable execution.
• I mplement. Developed training is implemented to train the requisite individuals and organizations.
• E valuate. Once conducted, training is evaluated for its effectiveness. Individuals and elements are retrained until proficiency goals are achieved.

Training assessments are a critical factor in achieving training effectiveness. On the front end of the ADDIE process, such assessments identify gaps in the achievement of standards, which in turn leads to the design, development, and execution of training to achieve those standards. At the back end of the process, training is evaluated to determine whether standards were met and, if they were not, what further training needs to be conducted to achieve those standards.

The Department of Defense uses the Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS) 10 to track readiness, to include training. Under DRRS, each service uses its own readiness reporting system to report training readiness on a monthly basis for all of the elements in its organization. This monthly assessment is used to guide training management to ensure that training is conducted to achieve readiness goals.

Training and Leader Development

Training and leader development are two military functions that go hand in hand. It is of little use to have personnel and units that are well trained if they are not also well led; conversely, the best leader can accomplish little with poorly trained troops. Of course, both training and leader development are forms of learning, and there is significant overlap between the two functions. Consequently, the services invest considerable effort in leader development.

Each service has a Professional Military Education (PME) program for commissioned officers, warrant officers, and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) or petty officers. There is also a Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) program to ensure that officers are qualified to integrate service components into joint headquarters and joint task forces. In each case, PME consists of a progressive series of schools that begin with pre-commissioning education in the military academies, Reserve Officers Training Corps, 11 Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Course, and various officer candidate schools. PME continues with basic, advanced, and specialty education. Each service has a staff college for mid-grade officers and a senior service college, or war college, for senior officers. JPME has a National Defense University system that officers and civilians from all services and partner departments and agencies attend. 12 Within each service, there are parallel PME systems for junior, mid-grade, and senior warrant officers and NCOs.

Leader development represents a significant investment by the Department of Defense. During a 20-year career, a leader is likely to spend between two and four full years in the various PME schools: between 10 and 20 percent of total time served. The investment is necessary because of the unique and complex features of the environment and conduct of warfare. Senior leaders always confront the tension between time in schools and time in operational units. During periods of intense deployment, such as the high points of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns in the mid-2000s, attendance at leader development schools is sometimes deferred. When this happens, however, leaders face a challenge: determining whether it is better to have an untrained person present in the unit or a vacancy in the unit while that person is being trained.

Historically, interwar periods—the years between major wars like the 1920s and 1930s between World War I and World War II—have been periods during which leader development flourished and innovation occurred. The military’s war colleges, the highest level of leader development, were instituted during interwar periods. Similarly, all of the services’ advanced schools, such as the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, the Marine Corps’ School of Advanced Warfare, and the Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies, were started during the Cold War. Clearly, such innovation needs to take place in the post-9/11 environment of seemingly continuous warfare, but how this will happen has not been determined.

Initial Entry Training

Virtually all members of the armed services enter the profession at the ground-floor level. Whether they are recent high school graduates, graduates of a university or one of the service academies, or transitioning from another job or career, they are thrust into an organization whose culture, shaped by the demands of warfare, is significantly different from anything they have previously experienced. At the same time, they are confronted with a myriad of new tasks that they must learn in order to be valued members of the team.

Each of the services has an Initial Entry Training Program, generally divided into two phases: a basic phase, often called “basic” or “boot camp,” to develop the foundational skills required of everyone in that specific service and inculcate them into the culture of that service and a more advanced phase to develop specific skills for their chosen or assigned specialty, whether as an intelligence analyst, a dental hygienist, a mechanic, or an air defender.

Initial Entry Training is a significant undertaking. Each year, the U.S. Navy trains approximately 40,000 recruits at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, 13 and the U.S. Air Force trains approximately 35,000 in Basic Military Training at Lackland Air Force Base. 14 The Marine Corps trains approximately 20,000 recruits a year at Parris Island 15 and another 17,000 at San Diego. 16 The U.S. Army trains more than 80,000 recruits each year at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, 17 and three other major training installations. All told, DOD is conducting Initial Entry Training for almost 200,000 young men and women each year.

The design and resourcing of Initial Entry Training always present a challenge. Obviously, senior leaders would like to train new recruits to the maximum extent possible before those soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines join their units or their ships, but more training means more time, and each individual has enlisted in the military only for a certain period of time, usually three or four years. As a result, there is a trade-off between time spent in initial training and time spent actually serving in support of a mission.

Another consideration is the investment of more senior, experienced people who serve as the training cadre. The services rightly send their very best to be the first leader under whom a new recruit will serve, but that means that the best leaders, who are limited in number, are not always with the fighting forces.

Command and Staff Training

A central component of training military organizations and units is the training of commanders and staffs. Each of the services has dedicated training programs and resources for such training, which normally employs simulations because it would be wasteful to use large numbers of troops and equipment simply for staff training. Much of this training is aimed at planning, coordination during execution, and decision-making.

• The Army Mission Command Training Program trains the commanders and staffs of large units at the brigade, division, and corps levels. 18
• The Marine Staff Training Program trains the senior commanders and staffs of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces. 19
• The Red Flag Series of exercises at Nellis Air Force Base is the U.S. Air Force program for training the commanders and staffs of Expeditionary Air Force elements. 20
• The U.S. Navy operates several different programs tied to its regional fleets. For example, Carrier Strike Group 15 is responsible for training the commanders and staffs of Pacific-based carrier battle groups, amphibious ready groups, and independent ships. 21

Another key factor is the training of joint headquarters and joint staffs. U.S. military forces never fight simply as Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine units. Even if a particular operation is predominantly in one domain, the execution is necessarily joint.

Since 9/11, for example, the U.S. has conducted military operations in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is entirely landlocked, and counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations are conducted exclusively against targets on the ground, against an enemy with no navy and no air force. Yet U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have been completely joint as the Air Force has provided precision attack from the air, the Navy has provided electronic warfare and training for Afghan National Security Forces, and Marine Corps forces have conducted counterinsurgency operations in specific sectors within the country. In addition, special operations forces from all four services have conducted sensitive missions throughout the war.

Previously, training of joint headquarters and staffs was conducted by U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) under a comprehensive program that was not unlike the Mission Command Training Program conducted by the Army. However, in 2011, USJFCOM was disestablished, and a very robust capability was lost. Since then, joint staff training has been conducted by the services, by regional Combatant Commands, or to a limited extent by the Joint Staff. Thus far, because the ongoing campaigns in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan have not faced multidimensional enemies, the change has not had adverse consequences. However, as the Department of Defense focuses training and readiness on more capable potential enemies such as North Korea, Russia, China, or Iran, the lack of a robust joint training capability will increasingly be an issue.

Training Simulations

Simulators and simulations have a long history of enabling training for military forces. Simulators include capabilities that replicate actual systems in order to maximize training opportunities, reduce cost, promote safety, or preserve equipment for wartime use. Early examples were flight simulators that reproduced the cockpit, wings, and tail of an airplane in order to train pilots in the control, maneuvering, and reaction to emergencies on the ground before they took an airplane up in the air. Other simulators in use today recreate the entire bridge of a navy destroyer so that officers and petty officers can learn to maneuver, fight, and safeguard the ship under tactical conditions. 22

Simulations enable the training of organizations by creating battlefields or operational environments. Early examples of simulations were tabletop war games in which maps recreated the terrain of a battlefield and markers were used to signify the various units of opposing sides. Participants would fight out battles for training in the art and science of warfare.

Today’s simulations are far more sophisticated and often far more integrated. The military uses four general classes of simulation: live, constructive, virtual, and gaming. Each of these classes of simulation has a specific purpose and training audience, and two or more classes of simulations can be integrated to make training of individuals and units even more effective. The goal of much simulation research and development is not just to create the most effective individual simulation, but to create a true integrated training environment that combines all four classes to maximize training effectiveness.

• Live simulations are the training simulations that most closely represent training as historically conducted with individuals and units using real equipment in training environments that most closely reflect actual combat. This means using actual land, sea, air, space, or cyber terrain; actual weapons using either live or dummy/inert ammunition; and actual vehicles and other equipment, often against an enemy force that is also live and simulated by some portion of the U.S. military.
• For example, Red Flag exercises are live training simulations in which Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft fight against an enemy portrayed by U.S. aircraft and crews that are trained specifically to represent various enemy capabilities. In a similar manner, Army and Marine Corps ground forces have Combat Training Centers (CTCs) at which large formations of thousands of troops and hundreds of armored and wheeled vehicles and weapons systems fight battles against a well-trained and well-equipped opposing force (OPFOR) and conduct large-scale live-fire training at distances and ranges that they would expect in actual combat.
• Constructive simulations are representations of military forces and operational environments, usually aimed at training for large-scale combat involving whole naval fleets, Army Corps, Marine Divisions, or Air Force Wings, to include joint constructive simulations that combine forces from one or more of the services. Originally, constructive simulations were conducted using tabletop war games with pieces representing military units, but today, most constructive simulations are computer-based. Given the size of forces and the fidelity with which military units, ships, and aircraft can be represented, constructive simulations are usually used to train leaders and staffs.
• Virtual simulations are computer-based representations of individuals, teams, units, weapons systems, and other capabilities, usually with great fidelity to the operational environment (terrain, weather, urban areas, etc.) to include not only enemies, but also local populations. Virtual simulations are best suited to training individuals, teams, or small units. For example, Conduct of Fire Trainers (COFTs) are used to train individual tank or fighting vehicle crews, and Close Combat Tactical Trainers (CCTTs) are used to train platoon and company-size groupings of tanks or armored fighting vehicles. Virtual simulations have the virtue of training aircrews, ship’s combat systems crews, and tank and fighting vehicles crews in many repetitions and situations—in other words, lots of practice—without the large costs for fuel, munitions, and maintenance and without the need for the large spaces that live training requires.
• Gaming is the newest class of training simulation. While war games have been used for centuries in the form of board games or tabletop games, the advent of computer gaming brought with it whole new opportunities. The military recognizes that digital games improve rapid decision-making, cognitive processes, and synchronization and integration of different systems and capabilities while providing almost countless variations of situations and complex problems with almost immediate feedback on performance. The military even uses games to educate new recruits about the military service they have chosen before they actually attend their Initial Entry Training.

Resourcing Training

When personnel are not actually engaged in combat, training dominates military activity in all four services on a daily basis. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are trained from the first day they enter the armed forces until the last day of their service. Commanders at every level consider training for future combat and military operations to be one of their primary responsibilities. Institutionally, each service expends significant time, money, and personnel on generating, conducting, and sustaining the most effective training possible for individuals, teams, units, and organizations at every echelon. Failure to conduct such training or conducting training that does not attend to the harsh realities of war will likely lead to failure in battle.

Of all the training resources we have, time is the most precious. Military organizations start the year with 365 days, but with 104 weekend days and a dozen or so holidays, the start point is soon around 250 days. Then training has to compete with other critical events such as maintaining equipment, moving units from one place to another, personnel-related tasks such as medical checkups, and preparation for deployment.

Therefore, in a really good year, a unit might have six months of actual training time. Then commanders must manage that time. How much is devoted to individual training? How much is devoted to collective or unit training? How much is small-unit or individual ship or squadron training, and how much time is spent on large-scale training? How much is live training, and how much time is spent in simulators? Management of the training calendar becomes one of the most important leader tasks.

Providing adequate personnel for training is also a critical resourcing effort. Great training requires great trainers. The basic training that each service provides is only as good as the drill sergeants and other non-commissioned officers who are taken out of combat-ready units and provided to the training base. Similarly, professional military education at all levels requires dedicated and well-educated faculty, both uniformed and civilian. Senior leaders must make strategic decisions about the management of personnel to provide the best support to training while still ensuring that units and ships are adequately manned to go to war if necessary while meeting the needs of ongoing conflicts.

Of course, the most visible resource necessary for training is money. Money pays for all of these capabilities. It pays for training areas, ranges, training ammunition, and fuel. It pays for flight hours for training aircrews, for transporting units to and from training areas, and for the training simulations. The services also must pay for development of future training capabilities such as virtual, constructive, and gaming simulations and for modernization of training forces as the conflict environment and the threats and enemy change. Money also pays the personnel costs associated with training.

Training budgets are very complex across the Department of Defense. Part of the cost of training is contained in a unit’s operations and maintenance budget. Other training costs are in infrastructure or base maintenance budgets. Others are found in modernization budgets as the services improve capabilities or field new systems. Some costs are related to pre-deployment training for units that are preparing to go into combat in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Costs are also spread over several years, or “across the POM” (Program Objective Memorandum) as the five-year DOD budget planning cycle is termed. This means that some training costs are short-term, year-to-year, while others, such as the costs of building training infrastructure, are spread out over several years.

Resourcing training with enough money is a national endeavor, not just a military one. The Department of Defense, in conjunction with other federal departments and agencies, submits budgets to the Administration that include all of the various training requirements. The Administration submits that budget to Congress as part of its overall budget. Congress considers all of the training requirements and costs in crafting an appropriations bill, which eventually is subject to a vote, approved, and signed by the President. At the same time, the various states are developing and approving budgets that include their own defense-related training costs, such as for the Army and Air National Guards and state-level training areas and facilities. And every two years, when Americans vote, the readiness, modernization, and training of the military forces is a consideration.

In other words, military training is every American’s business.

Warfare continues to change as new operational methods like hybrid warfare are combined with new technologies such as cyber, drones, and 3-D printing. Military training also must continue to change so that the U.S. military is prepared to confront emerging threats and potential enemies that are growing in strength and ambitions. Training innovation and training resourcing are critical to achieving new and better ways to train the force.

Ultimately, the goal of military training is to ensure that when the nation goes to war or engages in conflicts or military operations short of war, the armed forces of the United States will be able to accomplish strategic, operational, and tactical objectives. The ultimate goal of training is to win battles and engagements and to do so with the lowest cost in terms of national resources and with the lowest loss of life among those who have volunteered to fight to defend the nation.

1. David E. Johnson, Hard Fighting: Israel in Lebanon and Gaza (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001), https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1085.html (accessed May 23, 2018).

2. Janis Berzinš, “The New Generation of Russian Warfare,” Aspen Review , Issue 03 (2014), https://www.aspen.review/article/2017/the-new-generation-of-russian-warfare/ (accessed May 3, 2018).

3. Dean Cheng, “The U.S. Needs an Integrated Approach to Counter China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial Strategy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2927, July 9, 2014, https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-us-needs-integrated-approach-counter-chinas-anti-accessarea-denial-strategy .

4. U.S. Army, Training and Doctrine Command Web site, http://tradoc.army.mil/index.asp (accessed May 23, 2018).

5. U.S. Navy, Naval Education and Training Command Web site, https://www.netc.navy.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

6. U.S. Marine Corps, TECOM Training and Education Command Web site, http://www.tecom.marines.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

7. U.S. Air Force, Air Education and Training Command Web site, http://www.aetc.af.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

8. U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, J7 Joint Force Development Web site, http://www.jcs.mil/Directorates/J7-Joint-Force-Development/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

9. U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Joint Training Policy for the Armed Forces of the United States,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction No. 3500.01H, April 25, 2014, p. A-5, http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/training/cjcsi3500_01h.pdf?ver=2017-12-29-171241-630 (accessed May 23, 2018).

10. R. Derek Trunkey, “Implications of the Department of Defense Readiness Reporting System,” Congressional Budget Office Working Paper No. 2013-03, May 2013, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/113th-congress-2013-2014/workingpaper/44127_DefenseReadiness_1.pdf (accessed May 23, 2018).

11. U.S. Department of Defense, “Today’s Military: ROTC Programs,” https://todaysmilitary.com/training/rotc (accessed May 23, 2018).

12. U.S. Department of Defense, National Defense University Web site, http://www.ndu.edu/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

13. U.S. Navy, Recruit Training Command Web site, http://www.bootcamp.navy.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

14. U.S. Air Force, Air Force Basic Military Training Web site, http://www.basictraining.af.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

15. U.S. Marine Corps, MCRD Parris Island Web site, http://www.mcrdpi.marines.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

16. U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Western Recruiting Region Web site, http://www.mcrdsd.marines.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

17. U.S. Army, “Gateway to the Army: Initial Entry Training,” https://www.gatewaytothearmy.org/fort-jackson/basic-training (accessed May 3, 2018).

18. U.S. Army, Combined Arms Center, Mission Command Training Program (MCTP) Web site, https://usacac.army.mil/organizations/cact/mctp (accessed May 23, 2018).

19. U.S. Marine Corps, MAGTF Staff Training Program Web site, http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Units/Directorates/MSTP.aspx (accessed May 23, 2018).

20. Fact Sheet, “414th Combat Training Squadron ‘Red Flag,’” U.S. Air Force, Nellis Air Force Base, July 6, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20150918180334/http:/www.nellis.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=19160 (accessed May 23, 2018).

21. U.S. Navy, Commander, Carrier Strike Group Fifteen Web site, http://www.ccsg15.navy.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

22. Sam LaGrone, “Navy Makes Training Simulation Based on Fatal USS Fitzgerald Collision,” U.S. Naval Institute News, February 21, 2018, https://news.usni.org/2018/02/21/navy-makes-training-simulation-based-fatal-uss-fitzgerald-collision (May 23, 2018).

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Professionalism is the Foundation of the Army and We Will Strengthen It

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In my nearly 37 years of service, I’ve seen the strength of the Army profession in action — in the courage and dedication of our soldiers, leaders, and army civilian professionals on the battlefield and in garrison. I observed that strength watching a company commander display his professional competence and leadership while driving conversation during a National Training Center after action review. I experienced it while shaking the hand of Staff Sgt. Ashley Buhl , the embodiment of the character and soul of our profession and the 2023 drill sergeant of the year. And I felt it, just a few weeks ago, watching Pvt. Jamavius Curry (pictured above) lead his formation in reciting the “ Soldiers Creed ” at his basic training graduation. Our profession allows us to maintain trust; construct cohesive and disciplined teams; train our soldiers, leaders, and civilians; and build climates that don’t tolerate harmful behaviors. In a changing world, our profession undergirds all our strengths; but it must be continuously tended, or it will atrophy.

The Army is a part of American society at large and will always reflect its attributes — we cannot assume that the dynamics operating in America won’t affect our profession. Changes in generational preferences and worldviews impact the way our profession manifests across our ranks, but that diversity in thought can also lead to novel ideas . While social and sensationalized media put a spotlight on every misstep and sometimes overlook efforts to improve, it also presents an opportunity to highlight the value of service. Perhaps most importantly, our adversaries grow stronger every day and seek any seam to erode our advantages, but also provide us with a renewed sense of purpose. As we work to transform our Army, we will rely on our people to keep us ahead of potential adversaries. Our profession will continue to produce unparalleled soldiers and leaders who serve as the foundation of America’s relative strength.

Indeed, it is our people that give us our greatest advantage. No other army can boast the U.S. Army’s disciplined, trained, and fit soldiers capable of operating independently, making difficult decisions, and working as part of cohesive teams. All of that — all our advantages — stem from our unique version of professionalism.

Over the years, generations of Army leaders have stewarded that strength. Our professionals have always taken lessons from ongoing wars and conflicts to improve the way we educate and train, adjusting our culture and systems to reflect a changing society. In the mid-20th century, sociologists like Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz considered how a democracy could maintain a large, standing army and established the foundational concepts of the profession that we still use today. In subsequent decades, Army leaders such as Gens. William DePuy and Donn Starry , and the newly formed Training and Doctrine Command and Forces Command, worked to deal with the effects of the Vietnam War and build professionalism and discipline in the nascent all-volunteer force.

Today, it is our duty — our professional obligation — to account for the impacts of a generation of war, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and other hotspots around the globe, current recruiting challenges , and various societal factors to determine how our profession may need to adapt to maintain its vitality in a tumultuous world where many advantages we once took for granted seem illusory, the time is ripe to focus on our Army profession. In this article, I intend to stoke such a discussion. As I discussed in a recent episode of the War on the Rocks podcast , it is our obligation as Army leaders to refine and update our understanding of what it is, take stock of what we’re already doing to steward and strengthen it, streamline and rationalize those existing programs, and determine where to go from here. However, senior leaders cannot do it alone. This is our profession, and we need soldiers across the entire Army —active, guard, and reserve— to generate ideas and move it forward.

The Army Profession and the Professional

Before we can determine how to strengthen our profession, we need to agree on what it is. This is well-trod territory, and I can’t claim to have some new, visionary definition that will fundamentally alter our trajectory. However, this topic is a personal one and we all have a viewpoint. A common understanding and some accepted lexicon will go a long way to advancing the conversation.

Army doctrine defines the profession as “a trusted vocation of soldiers and army civilians whose collective expertise is the ethical design, generation, support, and application of landpower; serving under civilian authority; and entrusted to defend the constitution and the rights and interests of the American people.” That’s probably a good enough starting point, but it is especially important that our current understanding of the profession has two primary components : the profession itself and the professional it produces. These two components are heavily interrelated, feeding off one another to sustain and improve themselves. The split may seem unnecessary, but I find that it enables us to zero in on specific aspects of each and tailor potential solutions to where they will make the biggest impact.

Our profession is more than the competence, character, and commitment of individual soldiers, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers, officers, and Army civilian professionals in our ranks. It must also encompass the systems with which we develop expertise, accountability, and responsibility. It is a complex system that builds professional warriors who fight and win our nation’s wars within the legal, moral, and ethical bounds of our profession.

The objective expertise that we provide to our nation, that no one else can, is in warfighting. The Army is obligated to have well-trained soldiers and competent leaders to meet this requirement — and the systems that our profession uses to generate that competence are vital. These systems should start with encouraging and moderating diverse discourse on war and its related fields through writing and publication, research, experimentation, and conferences among our professionals and associated parties (think tanks, academia, industry, etc.) However, this is not simply an intellectual exercise. Our purpose is to produce expert warfighters and competent professionals. As such, our system of knowledge generation ought to go further, to turn that discourse into knowledge (doctrine, programs of instruction, training scenarios, etc.) and then transmit that knowledge to developing professionals through training and leader development.

Our profession also requires a system of self-policing that qualifies who we access, retain, and promote. We are trusted with the survival of our nation and the lives of its youth. We are rightly held accountable for that trust. Grounded in our oaths , the “ Warrior Ethos ,” and the “ Army Values ,” our profession produces soldiers and leaders of character through well-established systems of selection, promotion, retention, training, and leader development. Through these accountability mechanisms, we build individual character to produce better soldiers and citizens.

Trust, combined with quality training and leader development, is vital to ensuring that we are a ready and professional army. That trust is built from the responsibility that our profession shows to its members and the commitment that our professionals show to their profession. By caring for soldiers’ needs, providing them the skills and resources to live full and healthy lives, and setting them on the path to a better future, we demonstrate that responsibility and earn their commitment. Ongoing programs steered by the Army People Strategy — prevention, quality of life, life skills development, etc. — are great displays of this responsibility and must be continuously improved to enable our commanders at echelon.

The Army’s systems of expertise, accountability, and responsibility build competent and committed professionals of character. However, it is not these systems that together build a culture. Rather, our profession is a complete entity that enables the Army’s commanders to build positive cultures, which I define as climates and environments that do not tolerate eroding factors such as sexual harassment and assault, or any form of discrimination, while fostering cohesion, dignity, and respect for all that raised their hand and took an oath.

What Are We Doing About It?

I remain an optimist. The Army profession isn’t broken; it simply needs to be stewarded more thoroughly. While it is important to note shortfalls such as soldier and leader misconduct, lack of fitness, harmful behaviors, and more, we — as a total team — are obligated to embrace the profession to build soldiers and leaders of character, competence, and commitment, and to foster positive organizational cultures. To do so, we will continuously improve and refine our professional systems to ensure focus, prioritization, and accountability.

The Sergeant Major of the Army — supported by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Forces Command, and the total Army — has undertaken efforts to reestablish the primacy of the sergeant in this area through a revised Blue Book and the revitalization of common task training and testing at echelon. But unless leaders at every echelon prioritize the effort, we will continue to be challenged. We must also combine this effort with leader development — delivered through “brick and mortar” schoolhouses and further honed at the unit level — at all echelons to reinforce the basic competence of our profession.

To build our expertise, we are working to improve our professional discourse , which will encourage our leaders to think and write about what we do. We have simultaneously sought to expand the understanding of our soldiers and leaders through direct means. Finally, we are investing to streamline our systems of doctrine and program of instruction development to ensure rapid incorporation of lessons and new ideas.

Even the character of our individual soldiers and leaders should be considered as outputs of our professional systems. It is true that our problems with misconduct and indiscipline are, in part, inevitable, just as they are in any other organized group of human beings. But we cannot and will not simply blame soldier indiscipline on generational values or junior leader unwillingness to enforce standards, nor can we blame continued senior leader misconduct on a “few bad apples.” As we continuously transform, we have the opportunity to examine how we bring people into the Army, acculturate them at initial entry and pre-commissioning sources, train them in our values and culture (across a career, not just at institutional training), assess and evaluate them for their adherence to our norms and responsible behavior, and select them for promotion and positions of increased responsibility. We have begun these processes through more effective acculturation at basic training and by enhancing professional military education, assessing future battalion and brigade leaders, and reinforcing the importance of our oath .

Lastly, we often look at the commitment of our soldiers and leaders to their profession as a one-way street. Individuals should remain committed to our values and to their mission; however, we also have professional responsibilities to care for our people, provide for their and their families’ needs, offer safe and healthy environments for them to work and live in, and set them up for a future in or out of uniform. Continued efforts to improve foundational soldier and leader skills, the provision of resources to commanders to build healthy command climates and reduce harmful behaviors, and increased investment in quality-of-life initiatives are demonstrations of our commitment to these responsibilities.

What Can You Do? A Call to Action

The first, and most important thing, we can all do is exactly what we’re trying to do here: acknowledge that our profession is not a constant. While it is certain that our profession undergirds all our strengths, I again remind you that it must be continuously tended, or it will atrophy. This simple acknowledgement — and the commensurate requirement for each and every professional to think deeply about his or her profession, discuss it with their peers, come up with solutions, and drive them into existence — is the most important thing we can do. Our professionals are obligated to increase their engagement on relevant topics in daily interactions, as well as by writing for expanding outlets to spread lessons learned and generate dialogue. If that is all this article achieves, that will be enough.

Each of us must also work to rebuild pride in service. Wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army is a big deal. That honor and responsibility ought to be reflected in each and every one of us. After a long term of service, especially following multiple deployments, it’s easy to get jaded and cynical — to forget why we joined in the first place. But I challenge each of you to go to a basic training, Basic Officer Leader Course, or Officer Candidate School graduation (or at least think back to your own) and look at the sense of accomplishment in every new soldier’s eyes and the pride of every family member. Attaining membership in our profession is hard — as it should be — and pride in service must be reinforced in every unit, school, department, and section.

We all know that our profession is huge. It is made up of countless units, teams, offices, and departments that are manned with people from all walks of life. I encourage every solider and Army civilian to take responsibility for their piece of the profession. Each of us — no matter our rank, mission occupational specialty, or assignment — can strengthen the whole by strengthening its parts.

This we’ll defend.

Gen. Gary Brito is the commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. He is responsible for strengthening the Army profession, building the next generation of soldiers and leaders, and delivering holistic solutions to the future force. He previously served as the deputy chief of staff G-1 at Headquarters Department of the Army and in a variety of command and staff assignments, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Brief: The New President of Taiwan

The 80th anniversary of d-day: an opportunity to seize, horns of a dilemma, from panic to policy: the limits of foreign propaganda and the foundations of an effective response.

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The role of professional military education in mission command.

By Nicholas Murray Joint Force Quarterly 72

The military's new command system, known as mission command, requires that subordinate leaders at all levels are at once aggressive and disciplined in accomplishing the mission. Accordingly, the Chairman's "conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based upon mission type orders" calls for commensurate professional military education (PME), but the emphasis on relative autonomy has not been as pronounced as needed. Among areas where PME is found wanting is not allowing students time to think about what they are learning. Implanting civilian instructors with more experience in building in time for research and reflection, and requiring writing—an operations order a week is suggested—will help develop the critical thinking mission command demands.

The debate about the quality and role of professional military education (PME) has been much written about across the Armed Forces and the blogosphere. However, one area that has received scant attention in the debate is the role of education in the military’s new system of command—that is, mission command. This is the case despite its proclaimed importance to the future vision of the Service environment. In his Mission Command white paper, General Martin Dempsey outlined mission command’s criticality to the concept of Joint Force 2020.1 To better understand the context of this article, it is helpful to provide the definition of mission command used by the Armed Forces: “the conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based upon mission type orders. Successful mission command demands that subordinate leaders at all echelons exercise disciplined initiative and act aggressively and independently to accomplish the mission.”2

Army Staff Sergeant briefs Army Chief of Staff, General George W. Casey, Jr., about new technologies used in war against terrorism (U.S. Army/D. Myles Cullen)

To prepare the forces for that concept, General Dempsey states that mission command “must be institutionalized” throughout the military, with explicit reference to the education system; that is, “[joint and service doctrine, education and training are keys to achieving the habit of mission command . . . our schools must teach it, and we must train individually and collectively to it.” He goes on, “the education of our officer corps—joint and service—must begin at the start of service to instill the cognitive capability to understand, to receive and express intent, to take decisive initiative within intent, and to trust.”3

For mission command to work, understanding and clarity of purpose are the two key components. Without an understanding of what is required to meet the endstate of a mission, it is unlikely that a commander can create an order (intent) that gets to the problem at hand. Likewise, without clarity, it is unlikely anyone will understand the commander’s intent. So how do we provide understanding and clarity of purpose to our officers? We do it through better education.

In his white paper on Joint Education, General Dempsey requires joint PME to develop the “habits of mind essential to our profession”—that is, critical thinking.4 A recent brief relating to leader development and education, however, states that the first core competency of the Combined Arms Center (CAC), which is the overseer and guide to joint PME, is “inculcating leaders with a mastery in the art and science of war.”5 The problem with this competency is that inculcation is simply rote learning under the guise of a fancy name. Rote learning is sometimes a valuable tool for training, but it does not clearly fit the commander’s intent relating to critical thinking.

General Dempsey identifies the development of critical thinking as the key ingredient to the future of PME: “to fully realize the potential of mission command, our joint education efforts must effectively instill the cognitive capability to understand, receive, and clearly express intent, to take decisive initiative within intent, accept prudent risk, and build trust within the force.”6 Thus, we have a conundrum. While General Dempsey is calling for critical thinking, CAC is calling for inculcation. How do we get to effective mission command from there? Moreover, General Dempsey’s call is not new. In 1934, Lieutenant General James Breckenridge, commander of the Marine schools at Quantico, wrote, “It is my constant ambition to see the Marine officers filled with ambition, initiative, and originality; and they can get these attributes only by liberality of thought,—broad thought,—thought that differs from precedent and the compulsory imprint of others. I want them to originate,—not to copy.”7

Similar calls have been made by senior leaders for years. Why then has it proved so difficult to achieve? This is where military culture comes in. There is a fear of white space on the calendar. It suggests “idleness on the part of soldiers,” as my former regimental sergeant major might have put it, idle being the insult of choice, aimed at anyone who did not look physically busy. Now, that might well relate to my experience as a recruit in the British army, but it is equally applicable in the U.S. military. In addition, effective training can more easily be judged. To that end, the amount of time devoted to a particular subject often seems to be the main metric of measurement.

For example, the Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) currently devotes roughly 250 school hours of study to mission command, directly or indirectly. This number comes from a total of about 700 hours of core and advanced instruction, going by the 2013–2014 academic year. That looks impressive on paper. However, only around 100 of the teaching hours truly involve critical thinking as it would be understood outside of PME. Additionally, the amount of time devoted to critical thinking has hardly changed despite the emphasis on a command system that is absolutely dependent upon it. This is despite the addition of more hours of instruction into the curriculum at the staff school. This has meant that students, whose critical thinking skills we need to develop, have even less time to think and study than before.

For mission command to work effectively, this cannot be the case. When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff provides guidance through his white papers, and a key PME institution appears to do the exact opposite, what message is sent to the PME community and to the Armed Forces writ large?

If the military is to integrate mission command into its way of doing things, it must create a culture within PME that facilitates it. The emphasis should be placed on education rather than training. The tension between these two ideas has provided much fuel to the fire of the regular bashing of PME. The routine lack of understanding of the difference between the two was also unfortunately emphasized in the CAC brief. To get the best out of the personnel passing through PME, both the students and staff must value attendance. In addition, PME culture should promote critical thinking so this is not only an add-on to other parts of the curriculum. How should PME go about achieving this?

The Armed Forces must first ensure that the best officers attend PME institutions. Continuing with CGSOC as our example, the move toward merit-based selection is already on the way, and there have been encouraging signals that this will continue. However, details are scarce, and it is essential that PME institutions do more than shave off the bottom few students. PME needs something more radical. Close to universal attendance has meant there are some students who are not ready for, or capable of, high-level critical thinking. This is not to say there are no bright “go get ’em” types. There certainly are. But there is a larger issue at hand, one that is frustrating both to those officers who really do want to challenge themselves and to their instructors. With universal, or near universal attendance, we really cannot expect much in the way of challenging critical thinking skills from all PME students, and this has a direct effect on the ability of the Armed Forces to implement mission command because effective critical thinking is one of the key components.

Compounding this situation is the fear that officers’ attendance in a PME school harms their chances of promotion. Indeed, some officers choose not to attend resident PME. Moreover, if they do choose to attend CGSOC, they sometimes do not choose to go to the follow-on year at the School of Advanced Military Studies because of the risks to their careers from an extra year in PME. This fear is not confined to students. The difficulty of getting the best and brightest officers to instruct PME is often criticized for much the same reason. Largely, this is the case because officers need Key Development (KD) jobs as well as time in operations and in command to progress in their careers. Currently, rightly or wrongly neither attendance nor instruction in a PME school is classed a KD assignment. Thus, in many ways, the perception that involvement in PME might be a real hindrance to career progress is all too real. Again, the effect on mission command is a reduction in the level of critical thinking, which can go on in an environment lacking some of the best and brightest instructors and students.

To encourage the best serving officers, the Services should make teaching in a PME institution a KD job, which would be a quantum shift in military culture. By doing so, the Services could avoid the current scramble for KD postings, which often comes at the expense of its personnel attending or teaching at PME institutions. It would also provide a strong incentive for the best and brightest to teach in the PME system, which does not always happen (despite many excellent serving instructors). This would also have the benefit of helping improve critical thinking in the classroom, thus facilitating the use of mission command.

Afghan air force officer Niloofar Rhmani, accompanied by USAF 438th Air Expeditionary Advisory Group executive officer and AAF pilot advisor, deplanes Cessna 208 becoming first Afghan woman to fly fixed-wing combat mission (U.S. Air Force/Ben Bloker)

For officers to teach PME (if it becomes a KD position), they should have attended the relevant course and perhaps completed a Master’s degree there in a topic relevant to the area in which they wish to teach (in the case of CGSOC, this would be the Master of Military Art and Science). It might also be sensible to require that PME instructors possess a relevant skill identifier in addition to their degrees. This is already the case for history, and there is no reason why it should not also be the case for leadership, tactics, jointness, and logistics.

More officers completing degrees would increase the breadth and depth of the faculty’s knowledge as well as provide the results of such research to the wider military community. It would both improve and expand the intellectual core of the Army (in this case). It would also encourage students, many of whom currently go to online degree Web sites to prepare (while they are attending PME and with an often deleterious effect on their military studies) for their post-Army careers, to focus on more directly relevant topics. Providing a link between PME and military career growth would have the added benefit of more clearly meeting General Dempsey’s intent as well as General Breckenridge’s ideal from 80 years ago. The infrastructure for much of this is already in place.

Of course, high-quality candidates with at least a Master’s degree (related to the subject area in which they are to teach) from other institutions should not be barred from teaching in PME institutions if they are excellent teachers. It should not be enough for someone to check the box of PME attendance to gain a teaching job. Teaching is the main focus of the institutions, and that should remain the case. But too often the criticism has been leveled that many of the teaching staff use PME institutions as a pre-retirement step, and they are accepted as instructors because of the lack of viable alternatives. Whether this is true across PME institutions is subject to debate and beyond the scope of this article. However, encouraging the best to teach through incentives (KD jobs) would help alleviate some of that criticism by encouraging a higher proportion of our best officers to consider attending and teaching PME.

So how would all of this actually help meet General Dempsey’s guidance? Selecting the best and brightest for attendance in PME should be a given. Combine this process with high-quality instructors, both outside civilians and officers working in PME as a key part of their career development, and in theory the pieces would fall in place for much-improved critical thinking in the classroom. Civilians would provide a needed break from military culture (something called for in the Skelton Report), assuming they are not all retired military and can teach effectively.

This last point is important. Research, particularly that of Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, has shown the strong link between teacher effectiveness and student learning. Much of his research focuses on the K-12 school system and the huge gap in learning outcomes for students, depending on whether they are taught by excellent or poor teachers: “Thedifference in student performance in a single academic year from having a good as opposed to a bad teacher can be more than one full year of standardized achievement.”8 Although the focus of his article is on K-12, there is no reason to suppose that the educational outcomes for students in PME are fundamentally different. If that is correct, and this author sees no legitimate reason to doubt it, getting the best people to teach, both military and civilian, is of paramount importance to the mission. This is particularly so if we are to achieve what General Dempsey outlined in his white papers.

To that end, credentialing is important, and it is one method for identifying people with the requisite level of knowledge. However, it does not identify an excellent instructor, who, with a relevant Master’s degree, is worth far more to the institution of PME than a bunch of bad instructors who have doctorates. This is not to say that PME does not need instructors with doctorates—quite the opposite. Proper credentialing is vital to make sure that curricula and proper academic standards are maintained, but if PME is to achieve the goals outlined for it, then well-qualified instructors who are also good teachers must be hired and retained. Bad instructors, whatever their credentials, are a liability in the classroom.

So where does this leave us? If the concept of mission command is to succeed, PME needs to change both what it is doing and how it is doing it. The culture of PME has to learn to accept blank space on the calendar. Just because someone is not physically occupied does not mean he is mentally idle. Build in research time for the students and identify it as such. Get them regularly writing: an operations order a week would be an effective means of doing this, and it would also get them thinking and allow them to practice a key part of what they are likely to be doing when they leave. This is where civilians come in. They should have the experience of a civilian graduate program, and they will be more accepting of this scenario. Furthermore, PME must make sure it employs the best serving officers and civilians—not only in terms of qualifications, but also in terms of their teaching skills. Therefore, we must provide instructors with the incentives to make teaching in PME institutions a key part of their careers. Although training remains an essential part of PME, it should not dominate the schedule. There has to be time for officers to think about what they have learned. Only that will allow us to excel at the critical thinking required by the Armed Forces of the future.

To end, I can do no better than use the words of Lieutenant General Breckenridge: “If we can stimulate our officers to work as hard and intelligently in an academic sense as they always do in a physical and mental sense when confronted by things ‘that can’t be done,’ then we will open the door for the great man (or men) I hope to see produced.”9  JFQ

• Martin E. Dempsey, Mission Command White Paper, April 3, 2012, available at < www.jcs.mil/content/files/2012-04/042312114128_CJCS_Mission_Command_White_Paper_2012_a.pdf >.
• Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, August 11, 2011), II-2.
• Dempsey, Mission Command.
• Martin E. Dempsey, Joint Education White Paper, July 16, 2012, available at < www.jcs.mil//content/files/2012-07/071812110954_CJCS_Joint_Education_White_Paper.pdf >.
• “What CAC Does,” Leader Development and Education Slide Brief, August 7, 2012.
• Dempsey, Joint Education.
• Letter from Lieutenant General Breckenridge to Colonel Smith, November 21, 1934, Julian C. Smith Papers, Marine Corps Archives, Private Papers Collection 188, Box 34.
• Eric A. Hanushek, “The Trade-off between Child Quantity and Quality,” The Journal of Political Economy 100, no. 1 (February 1992), 84–117. Italics in original.
• Letter from Lieutenant General Breckenridge.

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On Trust and Leadership

William Ostlund | 12.19.18

Mission command is fundamental to the way we, in the Army, fight. It is rooted deeply in our Army doctrine and it is how we expect commanders to command and lead. The first principle of mission command is “Build cohesive teams through mutual trust.”

Whether that trust is developed—consistently, and to the degree and in the places necessary to enable effective mission command—might be an uncomfortable question. But it is one our Army needs to ask as we seek to create cross-domain synergy in multi-domain operations.

In May 2017, the Army News Service published an article titled “Future warfare requires ‘disciplined disobedience,’ Army chief says.”  The article is a play on one of the six principles of mission command: exercise disciplined initiative. The premise of the article, for which the author interviewed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, is that future, complex battlefields will feature dispersed and disconnected small units operating to achieve common objectives—and that junior leaders will be required to make rapid decisions, within their commanders’ intent, in order to preserve combat power, accomplish the purpose, and defeat the enemy. Gen. Milley made clear that commanders must not only convey tasks to subordinate leaders, but also the purpose of those tasks. Moreover, he continued, leaders, even junior leaders, on future battlefields will be required to understand this purpose, and must have the competence to know what right action must be taken to accomplish not just the task, but the purpose, and the confidence to do what is right to accomplish the purpose.

I would suggest that this has actually been a common feature of our post-9/11 wars, as we have opted to man dispersed bases with less than reliable connectivity and then patrolled away from these outposts in terrain that further disrupted communications. This has necessitated that leaders—with their lives and those of their soldiers on the line—are switched on to not just completing tasks, but accomplishing the commanders’ intent, in some cases even deriving that intent when not clearly provided by higher.

In September 2018, retired Lt. Gen. Dave Barno and Dr. Nora Bensahel authored an article titled “Are You Enough? Our Speech to the PME Class of 2019,” in which they proposed remarks for mid-level and senior service college students. This article asked the students, some of our best and brightest:

Are you enough? Are you enough for what the country will need from you in the next 10 or 15 or 20 years? Are you capable of leading the nation and the military through its next major war? That’s a really big question, and the fate of the nation may very well ride on the answer. Each and every one of you should spend the next year making absolutely sure that the answer is a resounding yes. Are you smart enough? Are you open-minded enough? Are you adaptable enough? Are you strategic enough? Are you humble enough?

Here again, I would suggest these “students” that have spent their careers training for and deploying to combat at the company- and then field-grade level are, by every one of these measures, “enough.”   The questions we should be asking are of those entrusted with our operational and strategic leadership. Are you enough? Can you see over the ridgeline? Can you manage the operational and strategic fight without diving into in the tactical one? Do you credibly and consistently employ the principles of mission command or are you a turtle—one that basks in the sun of mission command when all is well but immediately dives into the pond and swims away from the principles when there is a disruption? Do you train, trust, and vigorously support subordinates or do you expect the Army values and trust to only flow upward toward you? These questions are not about giving subordinates a pass for misdeeds, but about overtly supporting them, even when it may not be popular to do so, when they are successfully operating within the mission command construct set by their commanders.

Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0: Mission Command is written for a principal audience of “all professionals within the Army,” and defines mission command thus : “Mission command is the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations.”

The six principles of mission command are: 1) Build cohesive teams through mutual trust; 2) Create shared understanding; 3) Provide a clear commander’s intent; 4) Exercise disciplined initiative; 5) Use mission orders; and 6) Accept prudent risk.

“Trust” appears in ADP 6-0 nineteen times. “Mutual trust is shared confidence among commanders, subordinates, and partners,” the manual states , for example, in one passage. “Effective commanders build cohesive teams in an environment of mutual trust. There are few shortcuts to gaining the trust of others. Trust takes time and must be earned. Commanders earn trust by upholding the Army values and exercising leadership, consistent with the Army’s leadership principles.”

ADP 6-0 further tells us that “trust is gained or lost through everyday actions more than grand or occasional gestures. It comes from successful shared experiences and training, usually gained incidental to operations but also deliberately developed by the commander. While sharing experiences, the interaction of the commander, subordinates, and Soldiers through two-way communication reinforces trust. Soldiers expect to see the chain of command accomplish the mission while taking care of their welfare and sharing hardships and danger.” Elsewhere still, it says that “commanders use communication to strengthen bonds within a command. Communication builds trust, cooperation, cohesion, and shared understanding.”

In our doctrine manual on leadership, ADP 6-22: Army Leadership , “trust” is mentioned another thirteen times. “Trust, commitment, and competence,” the manual states , “enable mission command and allow the freedom of action to be operationally agile and adaptive.” In perhaps the most concise encapsulation of how leaders should create and enhance trust within their formations, ADP 6-22 says that “Army leaders build trust by being honest and dependable.” Still another manual, Army Doctrinal Reference Publication (ADRP) 6-22: Army Leadership , highlights the Army values. “The Army recognizes seven values that all Army members must develop,” it says . “When read in sequence, the first letters of the Army Values form the acronym ‘LDRSHIP’: 1) L oyalty, 2) D uty, 3) R espect, 4) S elfless service, 5) H onor, 6) I ntegrity, and 7) P ersonal courage.”

“Trust” may not fit into the acronym, but is inherent to all of our values. “Loyalty” and “trust,” for instance, are paired together in more than one place in our doctrine. An example , from ADRP 6-22: “Good units build loyalty and trust through training. . . . Loyalty and trust are extremely critical for the successful day-to-day operations of all organizations.” Junior soldiers and officers know the Army values and they understand trust. But all who serve in our nation’s Army—from our newest soldiers to our most senior leaders—need to understand trust. Trust should not be viewed as a linear construct, and certainly not one in which trust flows predominantly in one direction. Rather, it must be treated as a spherical construct, in which the Army values, along with trust, are demonstrated fully and uniformly throughout the service, trust flows not only up the chain but down as well, and both are spread laterally to peers and adjacent units. To return once more to our doctrine , “Trust, commitment, and competence enable mission command and allow the freedom of action to be operationally agile and adaptive.”  And “Army leaders build trust by being honest and dependable.” It is abundantly clear that our very effectiveness as a cohesive fighting force absolutely requires these maxims to be reflected at every level, to include our highest levels.

The majority of junior officers addressed by Gen. Milley don’t need to be encouraged to be competent and courageous. I can say confidently from my experience with them—one of the great privileges of my military service—that they have a high tolerance for uncertainty and are brave enough to make the hard calls required to accomplish the mission and protect their force. Nor do the field-grade officers need to question if they are “enough.” What we need, from our Army chief of staff down through field-grade officers, is a discussion about trust and how this is interpreted over time and as one serves at higher levels. I suggest that, within our Army’s culture, we need senior leaders to proactively and consistently practice mission command and foster trust, through action , throughout the force; train, trust, and vigorously support subordinates in the austere, complex, dispersed conditions—conditions company- and field-grade leaders have successfully served in and will do again in the future. Senior officers should pass praise downward for the good things our units do; and when things go sideways, if they are to build and encourage trust and effective organizations, they need to proactively and overtly own the bad things that happen—in training and combat—within the mission command construct they put in place.

Senior leaders throughout our ranks must create shared understanding by consistently using mission orders that include a clearly articulated and understood commander’s intent. If we look back on our deployment history over the past seventeen years of war, a number of battalion and brigade commanders (and likely captains and lieutenants) have been forced to infer their commanders’ intent, do the best they can in the absence of clear intent, and when the fog and friction of war impose themselves, find themselves with no shared understanding or support from senior leaders. This destroys trust and is incongruent with our stated values. And it is unacceptable. When senior leaders do what our own doctrine makes clear is so vital—foster trust, create shared understanding, use mission orders, and provide a clear commander’s intent—and proactively and overtly own the prudent risk accepted by subordinates, those subordinates will habitually identify and accept prudent risk and exercise disciplined initiative. And they will be best prepared to win America’s tactical battles on the complex, dispersed, multi-domain battlefields of the future.

Further, if our forces and our country need competent, agile, aggressive, risk-taking leaders—leaders that amass hard-won tactical victories but also assume the possibility of failure when accepting prudent risk—then those same people must be propagated into the senior ranks, so they can bring these demonstrated characteristics, and much-needed resilience, to our operational and strategic levels of leadership.

Whether we get this right will have serious ramifications in our future wars. The secretary of the Army provides guidance, through the chief of staff, to senior leader promotion boards. General officers sit on these boards and interpret the guidance to other board members. Generals may choose to promote the most competent—those with the characteristics discussed in our doctrine—or the most palatable. When our sons and daughters enter the service and face near-peer adversaries, under supremely challenging circumstances and on complex, multi-domain battlefields, who do we want—who does our country need —to be in command: the most competent or the most palatable?

Image credit: 1st Lt. Leland White, US Army

Sir, tremendously powerful article. I remember our time at SOCOM and Adm McRaven talking about the “speed of trust” and how it takes time to gain trust, but it can also be lost in an instant. I currently lead 120 analysts for the Joint Staff J2 and everyday I communicate the “purpose” of their work and why their analysis matters. I’ve noticed sharper and more prescient analysis from my team. I know this example pales in comparison to leading in combat, but the concept you describe for mission command even applies to those who support our combat commanders and missions. I am making this mandatory reading for my office. Thanks for your leadership and service to our nation! – Jimmie

Dear Col. Couldn't agree more. We are in the 21st Century. Definition of scholar warrior is the one who can learn , unlearn and relearn in the fast changing battlefield milieu.

an excellent article can I suggested visiting our page in support of your argument

Mission Orders must have commanders thoroughly analyze the enemy situation no matter how complex it is. It must not be relegated to the S2, "Intel guy", a young staff officer.

Since Soldiers fight for each other then the mission's purpose must be truly defined in relation to the enemy, higher HQ and the units on the left and right. Once the fight begins, tasks may change.

This nesting of purpose (Gen Depuy) enables for trust and initiative once the battle ensues.

We must go well beyond the basic task "blocking and tackling" that can be easily defined.

Field Grade level thinking should define the purpose. However, if we contine to train and educate Company Grades to analyze and define it then we will truly unleash the initiative that they must operate with in the platoon and squad level fights on today's complex battlefield.

Sir, Great article on trust and mission command. For that last several years, I have been arguing that character is the foundation of leadership and that trust is the cornerstone of that foundation. In my talks with NCOs, I teach that their Sergeants and Soldiers will only take initiative if they trust the Officers and senior NCOs will stick up for them when they make imperfect decisions in the absence of orders. Absent that trust, they will sit around doing nothing perfectly awaiting their next tasking.

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Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Army — The Importance to Educate or Train Leaders Army

The Importance to Educate Or Train Leaders Army

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Published: Dec 16, 2021

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Works Cited

• Morgan-Owen, D. (2018, July 25). Approaching a Fork in the Road: Professional Education and Military Learning. Retrieved from War on the Rocks: https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/approaching-a-fork-in-the-road-professional-education-and-military-learning/Piggee, L. G. (2017, February 28). The next evolution of Army training. Retrieved from U.S. Army:
• https://www.army.mil/article/182946/the_next_evolution_of_army_trainingVergun, D. (2012, October 24). Austin says 'Soldiers Army's greatest asset'. Retrieved from Army.mil: https://www.army.mil/article/89816/austin_says_soldiers_armys_greatest_asset

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The role of military history in the contemporary academy.

A Society for Military History White Paper byTami Davis Biddle, US Army War College, and Robert M. Citino, University of North Texas.

The resort to war signals the failure of far more satisfactory means of settling human conflicts. It forces us to face and wrestle with the darkest corners of the human psyche. It signals the coming of trauma and suffering—often intense and prolonged—for individuals, families and societies. War-fighting concentrates power in nondemocratic ways, infringes upon civil liberties, and convulses political, economic, and social systems. From the wreckage—the broken bodies, the redrawn boundaries, the imperfect treaties, the fresh resentments and the intensified old ones—altered political and social patterns and institutions emerge that may help to prevent future conflicts, or sow the seeds of new ones. All of this creates a difficult, complicated, and fraught historical landscape to traverse.

Though the study of war is demanding, both intellectually and emotionally, we cannot afford to eschew or ignore it. Examining the origins of wars informs us about human behavior: the way that we create notions of identity, nationality, and territoriality; the way that we process and filter information; and the way that we elevate fear and aggression over reason. Analyzing the nature of war informs us about the psychology of humans under stress: the patterns of communication and miscommunication within and across groups; the causes of escalation; and the dynamics of political and social behavior within nations and across populations. And studying the consequences of wars helps us to understand human resilience, resignation, and resentment; we learn to identify unresolved issues that may lead to further strife, and we develop a heightened ability for comprehending the elements of political behavior that can lead to sustainable resolution and the re-building of broken—indeed sometimes shattered—social, political, and economic structures and relationships.

Research in military history not only informs and enriches the discipline of history, but also informs work in a host of other fields including political science, sociology, and public policy. Students need this knowledge in order to become informed, thoughtful citizens. If the role of a liberal education is to hone analytical thinking skills and prepare young people to accept their full responsibilities in a democratic society, then it is more than ever imperative that we prepare our students to think critically and wisely about issues of war and peace. Among its many roles, scholarship has a civic function: it facilitates our understanding of the institutions we have created, and opens a debate on their purpose and function.1

The members of the Society for Military History have a broad and inclusive sense of our work and our educational mission. We see our realm as encompassing not only the study of military institutions in wartime, but also the study of the relationships between military institutions and the societies that create them; the origins of wars, societies at war; and the myriad impacts of war on individuals, groups, states, and regions. Our mission encompasses not only traditional studies of battles, but also of war and public memory. The cross-fertilization in these realms has been extensive in recent years, and each one has influenced the others in salutary ways.

Several decades ago the phrase “new military history” arose to highlight a shift away from traditional narratives that focused on generalship and troop movements on the battlefield. But events have clearly overtaken the phrase. The “new military history” is simply what military history is today: broad-based, inclusive, and written from a wide range of perspectives. In an essay for The American Historical Review in 2007, Robert Citino wrote: “Once controversial, and still the occasional subject of grumbling from a traditionalist old guard, the new military history is today an integral, even dominant, part of the parent field from which it emerged. It has been around so long, in fact, and has established itself so firmly, that it seems silly to keep calling it “new.’” 2

Those of us who labor in this realm believe that our work, which is regularly published by some of the most discerning presses in the world, deserves not only a wide readership, but serious scholarly attention. The increasing number of university presses initiating military history book series reflects our field’s vitality. And the National Endowment for the Humanities has signaled its support for our work by launching a major new initiative to fund military history research: http://neh.gov/veterans/standing-together. Beyond this, we believe that for our democracy to remain healthy, the study of war must be included in the curricula of our nation’s colleges and universities.

The short essay that follows will argue the case for integrating a broadened, revitalized military history subfield into history departments nationwide. And it will highlight the potential dangers of failing to do so.

Overcoming Old Stereotypes

The phrase “military history” still stirs conflicted emotions or hostile reactions among those who teach history in the nation’s colleges and universities. Indeed, this fact has convinced some of those who study war to distance themselves from the phrase, or to eschew it altogether. But there is a case to be made for retaining and reinvigorating the term, linking it to the body of innovative scholarship that has been produced in recent years, and continues to be produced today. The first step is open communication and exchange between those inside the field and those outside of it. Within the academy, conversation and education ought to be the first steps towards breaking down stereotypes.

The challenges facing those who study war extend beyond the fact their terrain is challenging, morally-freighted, and emotionally-draining. Wariness towards the field persists despite its evolution in recent decades. Other historians—for instance those who study slavery, or the history of Native Peoples, or the dictatorship of Josef Stalin—work in fraught spaces without finding themselves the object of suspicion or stereotype. Part of the problem stems from the way that military history is, and has been, identified and categorized inside American popular culture.

Anyone walking into a large bookstore will find, in most cases, a sizable section labeled “military history.” Some of the work located there will be of high quality – serious, deeply- researched, and conforming to the highest scholarly standards; but some of it will consist of shallow tales of adventure and conquest, written for an enthusiastic but not terribly discerning audience. Some of it will cover esoteric topics that appeal to those with highly particularized interests, such as military uniforms, weapons types, or aircraft markings. Popular military history varies immensely in quality, and there is a great gulf between the best and the worst it has to offer. Outside the subfield, all this work tends to be lumped together, however, and academics with little exposure to serious scholarship in the field may assume that it is a discipline defined by the weaker side of the spectrum.

Popular television also complicates the lives of academic military historians. “Info-tainment” via commercial media shapes ideas about what military history is, and how its practitioners allocate their time and energy. The academic subfield struggles also to free itself from association with popular writing and popular film that grasps too readily at “great man” theories, triumphalism, nationalism, gauzy sentimentality, or superficial tales of derring do. We face a suspicion that those drawn to the field are mesmerized by the whiz-bang quality of arms technology, or the pure drama of organized violence. We find ourselves called upon, sometimes, to answer the charge that by studying armed conflict we are glorifying it or condoning it. Because the field was predominantly male for a long time, many of our colleagues assume that it remains so, and is hostile to women.

Unfortunately, many in the academic community assume that military history is simply about powerful men—mainly white men—fighting each other and/or oppressing vulnerable groups. The study of the origins of war was fertile ground during the 1920s and 1930s as scholars searched for answers about the complex, wrenching, and seemingly incomprehensible event that was the “Great War” -- as it was then called. But by the 1960s, critics had begun to conclude that military and diplomatic history focused too much on presidents, prime ministers, and generals; many felt it had become dry and stale, and had few new insights to contribute to our understanding of the past. In the United States this problem was exacerbated by the Vietnam War, and the terrible, searing divisions it created in the domestic polity. No small number of senior academics today came of age during that war, and, understandably, they resolved to put as much distance as possible between themselves and engagement with military issues of any kind.

Shedding the Baggage and Making a Difference

Shedding these burdens will require ongoing and mutual outreach from both military and non-military historians. Perhaps the best way for military historians to make their case to the broader profession is to highlight the range, diversity, and breadth of the recent scholarship in military history, as well as the dramatic evolution of the field in recent decades. Military historians believe that our work is a vital component of a liberal education that prepares students to be informed and responsible citizens. Young scholars taking up the study of war are broadly-trained and well-trained—and they must be since high-quality military history demands that its practitioners understand the intricate relationship between a society and its military institutions. This requires competence not only in political and economic history, but in social and cultural history as well. Scholars fortunate enough to have grown up in departments that are home to outstanding social and cultural historians have benefited immensely from the privilege, and it is reflected in their work.3

Over time, the practitioners of academic military history have become more diverse, and have looked at war from new angles. As minorities and women enter the field, they bring to it their own unique lenses and fresh perspectives. In 2005 the Society for Military History elected its first woman president, Carol Reardon. In recent years the SMH has awarded a high percentage of his prizes, grants and scholarships to young women, specifically the Edward M. Coffman Prize for First Manuscript. Recent awardees include Ellen Tillman from Texas State University, San Marcos, for “Dollar Diplomacy by Force: US Military Experimentation and Occupation in the Dominican Republic, 1900-1924” (2014); Lien-Hang Nguyen, University of Kentucky, for “Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam” (2012); and Kathryn S. Meier, University of Scranton, for “The Seasoned Soldier: Coping with the Environment in Civil War Virginia” (2011).

Even a quick glance at the program for the 2014 Annual Conference of the Society of Military History reveals a thriving subfield that is diverse and dynamic. Papers delivered this year included: “The Chemists’ War: Medical and Environmental Consequences of Chemical Warfare during World War I” (Gerard J. Fitzgerald, George Mason University); “World War I, Manhood, Modernity, and the Remaking of the Puerto Rico Peasant” (Harry Franqui-Rivera, Hunter College); “British Counterinsurgency and Pseudo-warfare in Palestine, 1936-39” (Matthew Hughes, Brunel University); “War, Disease, and Diplomacy: Transatlantic Peacemaking and International Health after the First World War” (Seth Rotramel, Office of the Historian, Department of State).4

The scholarship in our field entitles its authors to claim a legitimate place among their colleagues in the academy and beyond. Indeed, books about war continue to earn national and international recognition. Fredrik Logevall’s superb work, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, was a recent (2013) winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize. It examined the way that disastrous decisions at the end of France’s war in Indo-China set the Americans up for their own catastrophe in Vietnam. Just over a decade ago, Fred Anderson’s account of the Seven Years’ War, Crucible of War, set a new standard for history that is deeply perceptive, sweeping in scope, and able to comprehend and convey the overarching trajectory and import of the story, including its most subtle and nuanced details. Several of the nominees for the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History – including Rick Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light, and Allen C. Guelzo’s Gettysburg: The Last Invasion – are works not only of breathtaking research but also of profound literary merit. The first book in Atkinson’s trilogy on the Second World War, An Army at Dawn, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2003.5

Contemporary military history has been incorporated into some of the best broad- scope and survey literature written in recent decades, allowing the narrative of conflict to become part of a comprehensive story that includes—rather than avoids—warfare and all of its wide-ranging and long-lasting effects. Here the excellent volumes produced by for the “Oxford History of the United States” series come immediately to mind.6

At the same time as it has branched out into new areas, however, military history retains a footing in “operational history,” the province of war, of campaign, and of battle. As today’s military historians recognize, battlefield history gains maximum impact when it is infused with insights into the nature and character of the organizations taking part. It requires knowledge of their social composition, command hierarchies, norms and cultural codes, and relationships to non-military institutions. Insights from social, cultural, gender and ethnic history have influenced the study of more conventional military history, with scholarship emphasizing aspects of mobilization, training and doctrine, and combat as a reflection of values and institutions in society. Operational history enables us to make sense of the larger story of war because battlefield outcomes matter: they open up or close off opportunities to attain (or fail to attain) important political ends.7

In addition, combat sheds light on the civil-military relationship within states, and the way that societies are able (or unable) to leverage technology by setting up organizations and processes to take advantage of it. What happens on the battlefield also influences, and sometimes crafts, key social and political narratives. For instance, the tactical and operational reasons for stalemate on the Western Front matter precisely because this stalemate shaped the human experience of the war, burdened its settlement, and shaped its legacy. The stalemate also changed the way that European power was understood and interpreted by those peoples under the yoke of European colonialism in the early part of the 20th century. Similarly, one cannot understand the intensity of the Truman-MacArthur civil-military clash during the Korean War— and its long and damaging legacy—unless one understands the power and influence gained by the latter through his military victories in World War II, and, in particular, at Inchon in 1950.

Adding Depth and Insight to College Curricula

Scholarly military history puts big strategic decisions about war and peace into context; it draws linkages and contrasts between a nation’s socio-political culture and its military culture; it helps illuminate ways in which a polity’s public and national narrative is shaped over time. All this gives the field relevance, and, indeed, urgency, inside the classroom. Scholars in our field are well-positioned to draw linkages and build bridges among subfields in history, and to engage in interdisciplinary work. Because warfare has dramatic consequences at every level of human existence, it must be a central element in the way that we understand our own narrative through the ages. To avoid the study of war is to undermine our opportunity to fully comprehend ourselves—and our evolution over time—in social, political, psychological, scientific, and technological realms.

Students long for intellectual frameworks that help them understand the world in which they live—and the study of war and conflict is an essential part of such frameworks. For instance, it is difficult if not impossible to understand the geo-political fault-lines of the 21st century world if one does not understand the causes and outcomes of the First World War. Students will not understand Vladimir Putin’s contemporary Russian nationalism if they do not understand (at least) Western intervention in the Russian civil war, the history of the Second World War, the Cold War that followed it, and the expansion of NATO following the Soviet collapse in 1989.

Through popular media and public discourse in this decade alone, American students have heard about such events as the bicentennials of the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812, the centennial of the First World War, and the sesquicentennial of the battle of Gettysburg. They realize that in order to fully comprehend the significance of these commemorations, they need a basic historical grounding that can explain why the events mark turning points—and have thus become influential pieces of our contemporary narrative.

Our students’ desire for knowledge creates an important opportunity for Departments of History. The late recession has produced a drop in humanities majors as students seek courses that seem more likely to produce an immediate payoff in terms of jobs and wages. Legislative budget cuts have forced even state schools to conform to a tuition-driven model, and departments that cannot attract a sufficient number of students can expect hard times to get harder. University college administrators, particularly college deans and chairs of History Departments, may find some relief in the appeal of military history. Courses in military history tend to fill, not only with history majors and minors, but also with students from other disciplines who are interested in the field. And because military history intersects regularly with the profession’s other subfields, it can serve as an ideal gateway to the other specializations any given History Department has to offer. It may, as well, lure back some of the students who have been drawn away to political science, international relations, and public policy departments. But the central reasons for an embrace of contemporary military history go far beyond the practical realities of departmental budgets.

Civic Responsibility

Military history ought to be a vital component of a liberal education, one that prepares students to be informed and responsible citizens. Since civilian control of the military is a foundational element of American democracy, our civilians must have enough basic knowledge to carry out this function competently and responsibly. In the US today, the burden of military service is carried by only about 1% of the population. The remaining 99% have only limited (if any) contact with serving military personnel, and military institutions; our young people know little about warfare—and its profound costs and consequences—outside of what partial and often unhelpful information filters through via the popular culture. We do little to prepare our citizens to understand their role in owning and controlling a large military institution. Indeed, many of our young people have no idea of how the US military came to exist in its present form, what tasks it has been called upon to carry out in the past (or why), and what tasks it may be called upon to carry out in the future.

This is an unsettling state of affairs, especially since the US military does not send itself to war. Choices about war and peace are made by civilians – civilians who, increasingly, have no historical or analytical frameworks to guide them in making the most consequential of all decisions. They know little or nothing about the requirements of the Just War tradition and the contemporary legal and ethical frameworks that affect jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. They know little about the logistical, geographical, and physical demands of modern military operations; they do not realize that the emotional stresses, profound complexities, and constant unpredictability of war-fighting make it more difficult than any other human endeavor to carry out successfully. And they do not sufficiently link this fact to the family stresses and emotional wounds that veterans endure.

Any use of military force is so consequential on so many levels that it demands serious contemplation and full comprehension by all those in a democratic polity who own some piece of responsibility for it. In a democracy, the burden—including and especially the moral burden—of choosing to use violence for political ends belongs to elected officials and to the people they represent.8 And, once a choice to use force is undertaken, elected officials continue to have a serious responsibility to remain fully engaged in the wielding of violence on behalf of the state. When Americans go to war, they do so because they have been sent by the elected leaders of the Republic; they carry the flag of the United States, and wear that flag on the sleeves of their uniforms. Civilians must respect the requirements of Just War; this is essential not only for the preservation of American leadership in the world, but also for building a foundation on which a stable post-war peace can be built. Just as crucially, civilians must realize that respect for Just War requirements is essential to the mental and emotional health of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen they send to war.

In addition, civilians need to understand how consistently and tirelessly one must work to align means and ends in war. Soldiers will be fully occupied trying to cope with the intense and ever-changing demands of the battlefield, while civilian policymakers will be fully occupied trying to build and maintain support for national strategy. With both groups working round the clock in their own realms, it is easy for them to begin to drift apart. An intentional and unflagging effort must be devoted to maintaining the ongoing civil-military communication that gives strategy its meaning, and that prevents the nation from engaging in counterproductive or even senseless conflict.

The rather cavalier and shortsighted way that Americans sent troops to war in Iraq in 2003 spoke to vast gaps in civilian understanding of the capabilities of blunt military instruments, in the complexity of sectarian political divisions (exacerbated by a colonial legacy) within Iraq, and in the myriad and long-lasting costs of warfare and war-fighting—among individuals and societies. Officers and NCOs who enter the US professional military education (PME) system are educated about the responsibilities they hold in a society where civilians control the military and make decisions about where and when to use military force. At the most senior level of PME, for instance, War College students become well-versed in the special responsibilities they hold on the military side of the civil-military equation. Today’s civilians, by contrast, are under- educated about their responsibilities. Even as the American people built a large military and handed it vast responsibilities, they devoted less and less time to equipping their future civilian leaders with the knowledge they need to interact with the military in informed and constructive ways. This affects the nation’s ability to develop, implement, and sustain an optimal national security strategy for itself, and to adequately address the great range of crucial issues pertaining to the effects and consequences of war.

It is incumbent upon those who train our college and university students—our next generation of civilian leaders—to address the civilian side of the equation. They must teach today’s students about the role of the military in a democracy, the blunt character of military force, and the lasting consequences of the decision to wage war. To ignore the study of such an enterprise is, in the end, corrosive of the Constitutional principles that legitimize choice and action in the American system of government. The strong body of literature produced by contemporary military historians, and the knowledge and pedagogical skills that they bring to the classroom, can surely help in this crucial task.

This White Paper, written By Drs. Rob Citino and Tami Davis Biddle, first appeared in print in November 2014 under the auspices of the Society for Military History. Its purpose was to generate discussion of the key role that military history should play within college and university history instruction. Tami Davis Biddle’s views are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army, Department of Defense, or US Government.

1 Professor Walter McDougall, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, makes this point powerfully in a short essay for the Foreign Policy Research Institute entitled, “The Three Reasons We Teach History,” Footnotes 5, no. 1 (February 1998). See www.fpri.org/footnotes. 2 Robert M. Citino, “Military Histories Old and New: A Reinterpretation,” American Historical Review 112 (October 2007): 1070-90. 3 In her essay for the Times Literary Supplement special issue, “New Ways in History,” Stella Tillyard commented on the productive cross-fertilization between academic and popular history. She specifically cited the influence of social history upon military history. See Tillyard, “All Our Pasts: The Rise of Popular History,” TLS , 13 October 2006, 7-9. 4 Gerard Fitzgerald presented his paper as part of a Presidential Panel on “The Environmental Dimensions of World War I” sponsored by the Society for Environmental History, which has established a productive partnership with the Society for Military History. 5 Atkinson’s “Liberation Trilogy” on the US Army in the Second World War includes: An Army at Dawn (2002); The Day of Battle (2007); and The Guns at Last Light (2013). 6 Two prominent examples include David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). The former won the Pulitzer Prize (2000) and the latter won the Bancroft Prize (1997). 7 This is a point that is made and emphasized in another Pulitzer Prize-winning volume in the Oxford series, James McPherson’s classic analysis of the US Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). This work too won the Pulitzer Prize in history. 8 An illuminating argument about the need for citizens to reclaim this responsibility is found in Sebastian Junger, “Veterans need to share the moral burden of war,” Washington Post , 24 May 2013. The citizen’s role in the use of military power is the central concern in Rachel Maddow’s, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power (Crown: New York, 2012). 9 Richard K. Betts puts the case powerfully: “Any significant resort to force will hurt people on a large scale, without definite assurance of achieving its purpose. For these reasons, force should be used less frequently, with better reason, and with more conscious willingness to pay a high price than it has been in many cases since the Cold War.” He adds, “The presumption should actually be against it unless the alternatives are unambiguously worse.” See Betts, American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 12-13.

10 Richard K. Betts, “Is Strategy an Illusion,” International Security 25, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 7.  

Robert Citino, PhD

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Baltic Resilience: How Estonia's Military Chief Maps Defense Strategy Against Russian Aggression

Posted: May 29, 2024 | Last updated: May 29, 2024

In the shadow of the ongoing war in Ukraine, General Martin Herem, Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, has offered a candid assessment of NATO's readiness and Estonia's defensive capabilities in the face of potential Russian aggression.

Speaking at various events and interviews, Gen. Herem emphasized the importance of swift mobilization, adequate ammunition, and the presence of NATO forces as key components of Estonia's strategy to deter and, if necessary, repel an attack.

Estonia, a front-line NATO member, has been closely monitoring Russia's military operations and preparing for any scenario. Gen. Herem stated unequivocally that there is no doubt about a NATO victory should Russia attack, but cautioned that such a conflict would be anything but clean-cut.

The grim reality is that while a Russian incursion might ultimately fail to occupy key Estonian cities, the invasion could nonetheless wreak havoc and exploit societal tensions, a tactic that Russia has demonstrated a proficiency in.

"The Russian army has no need to occupy Tallinn. It can run rampant in the town of Põlva for a month, turn it to another Bucha, and then withdraw — whereas we will be left quarrelling with each other," Gen. Herem said, outlining the psychological and social ramifications of Russian warfare tactics.

Acknowledging the constant evolution of modern warfare, Gen. Herem commended the success of Ukrainian naval drones in the Black Sea and stressed Estonia's capacity to challenge the Russian Baltic Fleet with anti-ship missiles now in the arsenal of several regional allies.

The regional security landscape has shifted significantly with the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, a move that has been welcomed by Baltic nations and poses a strategic dilemma for Russia.

Estonia's defense plan involves a comprehensive approach that includes manpower, proper equipment maintenance, immediate mobilization capabilities, and ensuring that reservists are well-integrated into the military structure with clear roles.

The general highlighted that the reserve system is only functional when civilians – be they bank clerks, carpenters, or taxi drivers – have been assigned particular tasks in the military and there are enough reserves to meet military needs.

The conversation also touched on contemporary challenges such as cyber and hybrid attacks. Gen. Herem noted that while such non-lethal means can cause disruption, Estonia has proven resilient, quickly recovering from cyber assaults like the three billion DDoS attacks it faced, which went largely unnoticed by the public.

On the topic of Estonia's lack of a permanent NATO brigade, Gen. Herem suggested that there are pros and cons.

While Latvia and Lithuania may benefit from such arrangements, there is uncertainty about when these capabilities will be ready and whether they will precede any aggressive moves from Russia.He expressed a preference for a unit assigned to joint practicing in Estonia now rather than a commitment to have a unit deployed in the future.

Looking to the horizon, Gen. Herem sees three preconditions for Ukrainian success on the battlefield that could also apply to Estonia: decisive provision of military assistance, delivery of aid without limitations, and additional training at all levels.

He also addressed the speculation around foreign troop deployment in Ukraine, clarifying that it could mean western personnel reinforcing the Ukrainian Armed Forces in support roles rather than engaging in combat.

Gen Martin Herem was appointed as the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces in 2018 and is set to step down in 2024. Previously, he held the position of the Deputy Commander of the Estonian National Defence College (ENDC) and became the Commandant of the ENDC in 2013.

Relevant articles: - Martin Herem: A NATO Victory Is Not in Question – But the Fight Will Be Ugly , International Centre for Defence and Security - EDF chief: I am absolutely certain Estonia could win a war , ERR - Estonian defense chief: West now considers Russia threat more likely , ERR

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