Joint PME: Closing the Gap for Junior Officers
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Marine Corps second lieutenant patrols bazaar in Khan Neshin, Afghanistan (U.S. Marine Corps/Michael Cifuentes) Joint PME Closing the Gap for Junior Officers By Rhonda Keister, Robert Slanger, Matthew Bain, and David Pavlik eneral Martin E. Dempsey, necessary to keep pace with the chang- possible, so junior officers begin their Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of ing strategic environment.”1 Further- careers armed with the foundational G Staff (CJCS), has called on the more, the capstone concept of Globally knowledge they need to succeed as part U.S. military to integrate the lessons Integrated Operations states that the of the joint force. This presents a com- of the past 10 years of war into joint military will depend on distributed pelling need for these young leaders education objectives and institutions joint employment at the tactical level to have a basic understanding of the in order to develop “agile and adaptive to have effects at the operational and synergistic effects of joint operations. leaders with the requisite values, stra- strategic levels.2 To achieve this vision, The truth is, junior officers have been tegic vision, and critical thinking skills joint education must start as early as functioning in a joint environment across the globe daily, but unfortu- nately, our educational system has not Lieutenant Colonel Rhonda Keister, USA, is Strategic Operations C4 Branch Chief in U.S. Southern kept up with this reality. Emphasis at Command J635. Major Robert Slanger, USAF, is a Southeast Asia Policy Officer in U.S. Special the junior level must encompass more Operations Command, Pacific. Major Matthew Bain, USMC, is a Logistics Strategist in the U.S. Central Command Directorate of Logistics and Engineering. Lieutenant Commander David Pavlik, USN, is a than broad overarching topics on the Joint Action Officer in U.S. Special Operations Command, Force Management Directorate. unique capabilities of each Service. JFQ 74, 3rd Quarter 2014 Keister et al. 65 Instead, senior Department of Defense at the intermediate career level and up. infrastructure at a forward operating base. leaders should direct learning outcomes The early years of both officer and enlisted He is unexpectedly required to integrate that expose their ensigns and lieuten- education and training have been devoted network capabilities with an Air Force ants to the other Services’ tactics and to becoming proficient in Service and mili- lieutenant when neither has had early doctrines. There are resource chal- tary specialties. A problem becomes obvious joint education. Only after a painfully lenges to overcome, of course, and a fis- when we examine how to provide more joint slow period of developing the necessary cally constrained environment demands education early in military careers: all shared vocabulary and breaking down creative and cost-effective ways to incul- Service courses are already overflowing with Service prejudices are these junior officers cate joint thought in the joint force at Service-specific learning objectives; thus, finally able to focus on the task at hand. an earlier stage of career development. more joint education will have to come at In today’s pace of war, any unnec- Fortunately, the challenge is not as the expense of Service topics, which could re- essary tactical delay can be extremely large as it may seem. duce Service and branch competencies. This costly to the military effort. While our There are good reasons to improve is a delicate balance and requires thoughtful individual Service branches cannot, and joint education and its execution and not consideration as the schools determine how should not, abdicate their unique roles to accept the status quo. A core realization to incorporate the DLAs [Desired Leader and doctrine, they must arm the “doers” of the Goldwater-Nichols Department Attributes] at all levels.6 with the basics of a joint foundation suf- of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 ficient for them to function effectively in was the need for officers to have joint Fortunately, it is not a given that add- today’s environment. education and experience before achiev- ing joint topics must come at the expense Currently the system requires little ing general/flag rank. “The Report on of Service topics. A solution is to enhance to no early joint education. Each Service Military Education” in 1988 was com- Service specialty training at the junior of- implements joint education throughout missioned by the 101st Congress House ficer level by adding specific, appropriate, an officer’s career in accordance with vari- Armed Services Committee as a follow- and targeted joint education correspond- ous CJCS and legislated guiding policies; through to Goldwater-Nichols. The ing to an officer’s specialty training. This however, officers receive the preponder- members recognized that “Experience is approach assumes that young officers are ance of joint education at the O-4 to O-6 the most basic and the most in-depth edu- most prone to absorb joint concepts if grades and beyond. Additionally, the sys- cation. However, in the complex national they directly relate to their own particular tem expends most of its efforts educating security area, no one can directly experi- Service skills or specialties.7 Tying only officers serving on joint and combatant ence everything he or she needs to know, those joint employment concepts that command staffs, not those executing in especially during peacetime. The panel relate to the specific Service course into the field. It assumes that field-grade and recognizes that formal education tours the curriculum will provide just enough mid-grade officers have acquired enough essentially are nodes in what should be “jointness” both to prepare officers to ad hoc experience working with other career-long educational development.”3 employ joint effects tactically and to fur- Services to overcome the friction inher- Currently, junior officers have been ther improve the ability to think critically ent in planning at the joint operational working in de facto “joint tours” at the about joint concepts. level. This assumption places the risk in tactical level during operations and ex- The experiences of the past 12 years the hands of the joint commander, an as- ercises without the benefit of the formal of war bring to light the reality that ju- sumption more often than not based on professional military education (PME) nior officers must routinely resolve joint a false premise. Adding earlier education recognized by the committee. The CJCS tactical problems with little or no formal while preserving current JPME courses provides joint PME guidance to the education in either joint or other Service will mitigate this risk. Services through various policy docu- tactics, techniques, and procedures There are some limited courses avail- ments, including the December 2011 (TTPs). Take the function of communica- able to young officers that specifically Officer Professional Military Education tions, for example. No Service exposes teach joint employment by skill area. The Policy (OPMEP)4 and the recent CJCS their junior communications and signals Joint Engineering Operations Course white paper on joint education.5 Senior officers to the unique methods and views and the Joint C4I Staff and Operations leaders have recognized the need for of the other Services with regard to course both provide a joint curriculum earlier education but have not provided communication employment as part of for military engineers and communica- implementation guidance. Most re- a Service skills course. This is a key point tions specialists, respectively. The Defense cently, the CJCS 2013 “Review of Joint because a desired endstate is establish- Acquisition University offers classes to Education” noted: ment of officers capable of effectively Servicemembers working in contracting working through interoperability chal- and acquisition. There are several more The lifelong learning proposal includes the lenges.8 The idea of deliberate exposure courses like these, demonstrating that idea that joint learning must occur earlier to common skills is not simply pedagogy senior military leaders recognize the for both enlisted personnel and officers. for its own sake. Imagine a young importance of formal education by joint However, most of joint education has focused Army captain overseeing the network function. The problem is that slots are 66 JPME Today / Closing the Gap for Junior Officers JFQ 74, 3rd Quarter 2014 limited, so course designers expect some level of practical experience preceding attendance. Moreover, courses generally take more than a week, requiring com- manders to prioritize waning travel funds. To understand where early joint education fits best, a brief review of the current ju- nior officer education system is necessary. Lack of Joint PME Each Service has variations in training format, timing, and emphasis. Two pat- terns emerge. The first is the expectation that officers quickly develop expertise in their specific skill areas, tactics, and doc- trinal employment. The goal of entry level and initial specialty skill officer training is to produce graduates ready to apply what they have learned as appren- tices and quickly become practitioners. The second pattern is that each Service Navy lieutenant (junior grade) describes navigation system aboard USS Arleigh Burke (U.S. Navy/ lacks a formal joint education program Shelby Wilfong) for its junior officers. It is almost as if each Service seeks only to meet the matter.10 The Air Force no longer requires are tremendous. We want young officers letter of the legislated joint education a basic entry level PME course for newly to trust doctrine and be able to question guidance rather than the spirit. Suffi- commissioned officers. These officers it when it needs to be updated. A truly cient joint PME remains nonexistent for enter skill-specific courses necessary for adaptive force is composed of members at the O-1 through O-3 grades. their Air Force Specialty Codes. Squadron all ranks who have sufficient knowledge Each Service has similar educational Officer School is the first level of commis- to avoid “one solution only” thinking.