Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The academic studies aren't just for jobs after the 12-year team or for improved recruiting success among good school graduates.

It's most relevant for forming thought processes, for opening the mind to learning, science, methodologies, independent work and much more. Studying engineering is for example much, much tougher than the learning in an officer course.

I believe I remember having read that Petraeus confessed that after many years of military service and military learning his experience at some university was a shock. Suddenly, it wall all very difficult and he couldn't easily convince people any more (command authority makes this much, much easier, apparently...). He had to add a lot to his repertoire for success in such an environment.

There are furthermore experiences of armies that did not emphasize academic learning for officers and tended to neglect technical and organisational aspects of the military as well as intellectual thought about what combat arms should do and how.


That being said, I doubt that the German system with special universities for the armed services is a good idea. It would make more sense to expose the students to civilian life more and get a wider choice of specialisations, but that would in turn require that some normal universities introduce trimesters.
The current German officer candidates pay IMHO a very high price for their university education, as they do not get a proper platoon commander training. They start in special officer companies and have seen and led only a few months enlisted men before they are promoted to Oberleutnant. Are they really able to perform their role as deputy company commander?

Compare this with the Reichwehr when a OC had to serve as enlisted man with enlisted men for two years (a little bit excessive:-), then he got 1.5 years officer training (he was now Fähnrich). He was promoted to Leutnant after 3.5 years and served 4-5 years before attending staff officer courses (=university). Why don't we use this template?