TRAINING OR EDUCATING: A CHOICE FOR DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF ARMY LEADERS
Articles
Tue, 01/17/2023 - 11:57pm
Training or Educating
A Choice for Developing the Next Generation of Army Leaders
By
Mark J. Lavin II
Are you informed by your experiences or captured by them?
As the United States Army simultaneously amalgamates new national and defense security strategies, learns relevant lessons from Russia’s War in Ukraine, and accelerates the fielding of the next generation of weapons systems, we must also prioritize our greatest competitive advantage, our people. The Army’s intellectual institutions are struggling to find clarity in a future of competition with peer nations and capable militaries. As pundits hail the successful predictions of Russia’s tactical actions in Eastern Europe, the Army’s intellectual institutions may overlook continued strategic blunders such as understanding how the intelligence community could be so wrong about the capabilities of the Russian military or how 20 years of blood and treasure achieved so little in Afghanistan. The Army’s intellectual initiatives and learning are further diluted by the allure of academic status and accolades. Choosing an identity for Army intellectual institutions at echelon (why) and then aligning core competencies (how and what) will eliminate superfluous efforts and achieve a universal purpose of winning the Nation’s wars and sustaining the Army’s greatest military advantage…adaptive leaders.
Background and Disclaimers
This paper is intended to demonstrate a need for a comprehensive effort like the 1978 Review of Education and Training of Officers (RETO)[1] and corresponding 1983 Army Staff College Level Training Study conducted by then Army War College Fellow, Huba Wass de Czege.[2] The international and domestic conditions have changed sufficiently in the last forty years to warrant a review of how and to what end we are developing our leaders and specifically our field grade officer corps.
In my last year as a lieutenant colonel, I requested to serve as a faculty instructor at the Command and General Staff School (CGSS) following four years as a consumer of their efforts. As the Chief, Future Operations (G35) and later the Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategy, Plans, and Policy (G5) my teams were predominantly comprised of post Command and General Staff Officer College (CGSOC) and School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) trained majors. For the most part I was a satisfied customer because the talent of our rising officer corps is second to none. However, there was one common trait: lack of clarity in thought. I define this term as one’s ability to understand and communicate staff work, organizational process, professional opinions, and leader decision implications in a context that accounts for the nature of the operational environment, established policy parameters, military theory, and history. Said another way, a professional’s ability to show their math; not just have an opinion.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/training-or-educating-choice-developing-next-generation-army-leaders
