How to Think, Not What to Think at Leavenworth

[marct]

In my opinion, the main problem isn't that they don't know how to think creatively; it's a system that punishes them for doing so. If the Army wants to change that, the key isn't tinkering with the CGSC curriculum; it's changing the way OERs and promotion boards work.

Agreed 100%. What was carefully built as the spriit of the AAR has over time remorphed into the CYAr. Those who follow the former get punished heavily under the latter. Neither bad news nor the messenger who brought it is welcome.

I think that's certainly part of the problem, but I suspect that there is a more serious problem underlying it, namely the fact that the entire training system is predicated on following doctrine. One of the reasons I really like FM 3-24 is that it integrates thinking outside the box as doctrine. It might be a useful exercise to literally go back to basics and try to figure out what situations have what "degrees of freedom" (to misuse a statistical term).