In the past three decades there has been a revolution in professional military education (PME) throughout the services. With the introduction of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, Joint PME (JPME) has become a growth industry, and certainly has experienced success. The bureaucratic and personnel policy requirements Congress dictated are largely being met, and the conflicts of the past decade have seen a marked improvement in the services’ ability to work together. Does that mean that the U.S. Navy has got PME right? No.
“It’s only a lot of reading if you do it,” is a common refrain from students of the Navy-run JPME programs, said only half in jest. Today, the majority of Navy JPME students are studying in distance-learning programs. The traditional career paths that our community leaders steer us toward rarely encourage spending a year away from the Fleet studying. Dedicated officers attempt to complete the selection requirement without affecting their career paths. In these programs the officer/student balances the academic requirements of either online or evening classes with their professional responsibilities as a naval officer. This is a recipe for failure. The result, even with today’s officers’ well-meaning hard work, yields students with little time to consider what they are learning and who risk being distracted from their responsibilities leading sailors.
Today’s Navy also struggles with professional questions and challenges that require leadership and character. Leadership is the best way to address a growing list of issues, from commanding officers relieved, sexual assault, and drug and alcohol policies, to senior officers’ efforts to enhance the Navy’s sense of professionalism. Currently attempts to raise the professionalism of naval officers and sailors are being addressed through one-time seminars and new administrative requirements. The study of leadership, however, should be an ongoing process that takes place throughout an officer’s career.
An opportunity exists to address both the challenge of meaningful JPME as well as leadership and ethics education. In the early years of the Naval War College (NWC) the primary course of instruction was called “the summer course.” Officers arrived in Newport in the summer to hear the lectures of such luminaries as Naval War College founder, Admiral Stephen Luce, and Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, and to develop their skills in strategic planning and critical thinking. No degree was conferred, but the officers took their education back to the Fleet where they continued reading, thinking, and writing, on their own time and according to their own interests.
The Navy should return to the summer-course model for the congressionally mandated JPME Level 1 and for education in leadership and character. Three courses should be designed for completion between sets of operational orders throughout an officer’s career. Each course would encompass one of the required Level 1 areas of study, paired with the study of leadership, naval law, and personnel development. The curriculum could be developed jointly by the NWC and the Center for Personal and Professional Development (CPPD). Each of the three new Naval Professional Military Education programs would take 8 to 12 weeks of dedicated study at schoolhouses in each of the Fleet concentration areas.
The program could take advantage of existing programs, such as the NWC’s Fleet Seminar distance learning program and CPPD leadership courses to ease the logistical requirements for classrooms and instructors. The Bureau of Personnel would ensure that all officers complete the three courses of study prior to a certain career gate (perhaps command screen or within two years of promotion to commander). At less than three months apiece, taught in each fleet-concentration area, the detailing challenges should be negligible.
The benefits of such a new program would be threefold. Officers would be able to focus on their study requirements by having dedicated time for study set aside in their career. To give wardrooms thoughtful training on ethics and leadership, rather than leave them to struggle on their own on the deckplates, would drive a rise in professionalism across the Fleet. The NWC would be freed of the JPME training requirements and could develop a Naval Command & Staff College curriculum dedicated to developing critical thinking, operational design, and strategic planning for our Navy’s leaders. The result will be officers who are ready to complete their joint career requirements, better trained in leadership and personnel development, and better educated in critical thinking and military affairs.