However, three thoughts occur. I have three good friends, all retired COLs. the Tanker went to Leavenworth and later taught there. He agrees with you on all counts but even he admits that the length is nice to have as opposed to totally necessary. The FA guy went to the AFSC at Norlfolk, shorter and he later served on two Joint staffs and commanded twice as a LTC, one FA Bn and one more exotic outfit. He was quite comfortable with the AFSC as opposed to CGSC. The Infantry Aviator OTOH didjn't go to any comparable course and contends he never missed 'em. Different strokes...

In any event, that's above my pay grade; you Field grades can sort that out...

Second thought is that in seven years as a Civilian Instructor and Branch Chief at the Armor School, I noted that a surprising number of the Advanced course Classes adopted "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" as the Class song. Sort of funny but that was actually the case, honest.

At the same time, the AOBC classes generally felt short changed on time. When Shy Meyer as CoS, Army tried to change TRADOC's approach, he didn't succeed in getting the OBCs to nine months to a year but he did get them all increased by a month or more. His attempts to get the Advanced Courses chopped to two to twelve week courses tailored specifically to the individuals next assignment flopped totally. Most cited the rationale you cite, the extended learning environment, for their resistance to his ideas. Unfortunately, the TRADOC Manpower audit process that determines School staffing on Instructor (to student) Contact Hours would have had a significant bearing on that proposal in the form of manpower cuts and thus made those arguments at least a little suspect...

Lastly, back then, when we at the Schools developed a new POI, we had to simultaneously develop a Mobilization POI for the course (or a replacement or similar course) to be taught in the event necessary. Those POIs were invariably more intense, covered more tasks and were much shorter in duration than the peacetime versions. I always wondered about the logic of that.

You also said:
"This trickles right on down the line in different ways and in different measures, and hopefully never impacts the basic things we need to do in order to meet the primary mission of defending the Constitution and the state from the Huns - but does get back to why you have a military - and what types of policies will require (or stand a chance of requiring) military power to achieve. At that point I think is where we get (or should get) rational we need for basing agreements, long term contracts, how many C-17s and TSVs we buy, etc. (with a healthy dose of domestic politics for good measure) - but our foreign policy often seems "jumpy", inconsitent, and sometimes vague about what is really important to us - which should drive all the DOTLMPF train - maybe that is the nature of who we are -but it makes focus not so easy.
Boy, ain't that the truth...