Why the plans to change NDU worry me

By Janet Breslin-Smith


Best Defense guest columnist

The issue here is
the growth of NDU as a mass of new centers, institutions, et cetera. With
each new president of NDU, there is a new initiative, a new center, a new
mission. Over the decades of this growth, the original idea, formulated by Dwight
Eisenhower and Hap Arnold, tends to get lost. 

War College is a
face-to-face, intensive course focused on presenting dilemmas to senior
military, diplomatic, intelligence community, and other national security
officials. Ask any graduate and they will attest to the quality of the
experience.

This assertion about NDU, that
it must be "one university," is a concept that baffles me. I now sit
on a board of a university in New England, and there is no talk about making
the graduate school of education the same core as the school of business or
engineering. Harvard would not combine the Kennedy School with its Medical School.
Where did this idea come from?

I am familiar with
core programs, online education, and traditional settings. National War
College is unique, with the other war colleges, in making an interagency
student body grapple with national security challenges. Centralizing the selection of faculty, the curriculum, and
decisions on programs is a mistake. There should be autonomy, and those
decisions should reside with the college. The "one university" idea only
seems to enhance the centralization of headquarters, management by those
not in the classroom and not involved in the program. 

Again, this is an
old story. More stars trump fewer stars. Cost-saving arguments cloud the growth
of NDU. This is a normal bureaucratic phenomenon. But to me -- a person not on the faculty, not trying to
protect a job -- I feel I can say that the college and NDU need more
oversight. Active involvement by the new Ike Skelton, whoever that might
be.

I can make a longer
argument for better strategy, more content and area studies at the school, but
those really are decisions for the leadership and faculty of the individual
schools to make. Not a centralized command structure that, according to Tom's article, does not allow for debate.

I am worried. The
idea, the concept, for the college cannot be delivered online, homogenized, or determined
by those not involved in teaching and evaluating. My two cents.

Dr. Breslin-Smith
was a member of NDU's faculty for 15 years, and was the first female to chair
one of its departments. She is the co-author, with Clifford Krieger, of The National War College: A
History of Strategic Thinking in Peace and War .
She recently returned from four years in Saudi Arabia, where her husband was the U.S. ambassador .