To fix PME, first we need to fix a national culture that doesn't value critical thinking

By Victor Glover

Best Defense guest columnist

The professional military education
(PME) system may need fixing, but in the service we don't value graduate
education and that needs to be fixed first. 

The military is a microcosm of
society and we suffer from the same anti-intellectualism (to borrow from Richard Hofstadter) that plagues
modern society.  The military does not
have a critical thinking problem -- the whole country does.  While I agree that we need to address the
range of problems with critical thinking (specifically analysis and
communication) I do not agree that the problem is undergraduate education and I take even
greater exception to the notion that technical education is a part of the
problem.

This problem does not begin in the
field-grade military, college, or even high school.  We've had a critical down-turn in
junior-high/middle school compared to other developed
nations. 
I specifically follow mathematics and science trends, however U.S.
education generally trends the same.  If
you want to attack the worthwhile issue of accession quality, you are biting
off the mother lode.  The data suggest
that we have to go back to around grade 5 to reach a steady-state
solution.  I do work at this task, not
for the military's sake, but for the country's. 
However, this is not something we can directly address from inside the
leaning military machine.  So what then,
are we studying the wrong things?

History, politics, anthropology,
geography, and diplomacy are indeed pertinent disciplines for the officer of
today.  Breadth of education, to include
scientific and technical education, is important for the officer of the
future.  The real problems in life don't
come in boxes labeled "physics" or "sociology;" they demand the efforts of the
broadly and deeply educated and trained. 
I will borrow from Consilience: the Unity of
Knowledge by the polymathic Edward O. Wilson.  I will not try and summarize the wonderfully
complex tome, but please allow a long quotation:

Every
college student should be able to answer the following question: What is the
relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important for human
welfare? Every public intellectual and political leader should be able to
answer that question as well. Already half the legislation coming before the
United States Congress contains important scientific and technological
components. Most of the issues that vex humanity daily -- ethnic conflict, arms
escalation, overpopulation, abortion, environment, endemic poverty, to cite
several most persistently before us -- cannot be solved without integrating
knowledge from the natural sciences with that of the social sciences and
humanities. Only fluency across the boundaries will provide a clear view of the
world as it really is, not as seen through the lens of ideologies and religious
dogmas or commanded by myopic response to immediate need.

Specifically relating to the Treaty
(or Peace) of Westphalia, the impact of this series of treaties on the
relations of sovereign nations is indelible and important for the public
servant.  Likewise are the technical and
contractual details of the multibillion (tax-payer) dollar F-35 Lighting II
aircraft program, their impact on the perceived success of the effort, and the
larger logistical and tactical impact of a single-point strike-fighter solution
on our common defense.  PME is not just
about history.  It is all things
operational and strategic to equip the field grade and above.

We in the military can address and
affect this strategic and operational deficit and the larger PME system.  First, we have to understand the problem by
discussing the nature of the issue (as we are). 
Then we can manipulate our recruitment, retention, and advancement
systems more effectively.

One of the reasons we do not have the
critical or strategic thinking en masse is that it is not always required.  When it is required, we are trying to hone it
from professionals grown in an active warfighting organization, not always
conducive to critical and strategic development.  We also live in a "do" oriented country and
are therefore in a "do" oriented military. 
What we have to figure out is how to do while finding time to dialogue,
debate, philosophize, analyze, study, think, and sit still.  Hopefully the end of this era of war will
encourage us to consider this.

The core of this issue however, is
not education or the availability thereof. 
The large animals in the room are personnel management and
advancement.  To inculcate critical thinking
across the department will require adjustments to our evaluation and promotion
systems.  We in the warfighting
profession do not make up a monolithic bureaucracy.  There are many facets to military service,
but we promote as if everyone is striving for the same goal. 

We do not highlight the junior
personnel content with middle management as their highest aspiration while
mastering that realm.  We also do not
reward the disciplined specialist in the operational force as we all have to be
generalists.  In contrast to my earlier
statement about the broadly educated and trained, we focus too much on the
broadly trained and experienced and not enough on the broadly and deeply
educated.  Somewhere there is balance we
are failing to strike. 

In the Navy F/A-18 community we refer
to our training as being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.  I do not believe the promotion system is
wrong or improper for our mission, just that it is too rigid.  Yes we have to cull the field, yet all
enlisted personnel do not want to be the senior enlisted advisor to the chief,
nor all officers the chief.  Integrating
career flexibility and educational priority into our personnel system would
have a profound impact and I believe we are trying.  If we change the system to value critical
analysis and communication abilities, where then do we attain these?

We are fed from and posses
institutions that can educate broadly and deeply, cultivating critical
thinkers.  In my experience, Cal Poly,
the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Air Command and Staff College are among
these institutions possessing great educators. 
Professors like Dan Walsh, Jim LoCascio, Gary Langford, Mark Rhoades,
and Jonathan Zartman understand the mission, the pupil, and the material, and
mush them together until they get the learning outcome they want.  Put the Peace of Westphalia where it is not,
in the context of the learner, and you will undoubtedly root it in the minds of
your students.  A facet of the solution
lies in the hands, heads, and hearts of the academe.  Once the services reward rigorous graduate
education, we will also see the professorship, military and civilian, evolve
for the better.  We will also see the
opportunities to attend the nations elite institutions grow and expand, also
for the better.  In today's fiscally
constraining environment, civilian graduate institutions may serve as a bulwark
in maintaining a professional and educated officer corps.

Another facet of the solution lies
with the individual service member.  I am
a carrier-based aviator and test pilot serving as a fellow in the legislative
branch of government.  After this stint
in the staff world I hope to return to the operational flying world.  I cannot rightly blame the Navy for the
difficulty in training and educating me to think and communicate effectively.  What are they to train me for next?  At each juncture in my career I didn't know where
I would be next until I got the call to pick up and leave.  However, I have always been given what was
required to do my job whether landing on a carrier, evaluating weapon systems,
or supporting the legislative process. 

An important part of a servicemember's
critical development is his or her personal and professional duty.  We are most useful when equipped to deal with
a range of problems even before we are required to.  I want to give my best in service, so I ought
to grasp the opportunities to get better with both hands.  My career has given me a context to
appreciate subjects that I did not appreciate when I was a full-time student.
Context has helped me grow concern for the way these subjects affect my life
and service.  I would love to go back and
be an undergraduate again but I cannot, so I take every opportunity to learn
while I can.  Does our professional
military education system need righting? 
Not as much as our understanding of the importance of education within
the military.

Lieutenant Commander Victor Glover (@VicGlover ) is
a graduate of Cal Poly, Officer Candidate School (with distinction), Air
Command and Staff College (with distinction), Air Force Test Pilot School, and
the Naval Postgraduate School. He recently completed a tour as a department
head in a strike-fighter squadron and is currently a legislative fellow in the
United States Senate.  The views expressed are his own.