Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
I don't think anyone disagrees with this - but - how do we educationally prepare soldiers for full-spectrum ops?

I think the answer lies more in professional education versus training, as I look back at my OBC and CCC I realize nearly all of it was training. In line units, only three commanders (two BN and one CO) of mine had any regular sort of formal OPD program.
Most of what I have seen the Army do is training not education. Training is task oriented while education is concept oriented. There is often a misunderstanding in expectations between the two paradigms. The result is also often the criticism heaped upon academia that what is taught isn't immediately relevant. That is because the educational model creates flexibility to changing environments and adaptability. You educate a student on operating systems not Windows XP. They can then figure out any operating system.

The way you get past limitations in training is you identify the concepts, patterns, and educate troops on those. We often refer to the Army of today as the best, brightest, smartest in history. It may be true that there are officers with doctorates, or multiple masters degrees, but we aren't talking about the outliers. We are talking about the base of the pyramid where the job gets done not talked about.


Well dropping a bunch of superlatives on the deck as evidence does not make it true. A highly trained Army will do specific tasks within that paradigm of training. As a root cause the methods and educational tools used to train soldiers require intensive instruction that is single minded in the execution. That system produces skilled soldiers with silos of training. If you expand that training model you can cross train soldiers through further intensive training and make special operations forces. At some point in time through that model falls apart as we see in the COIN/HIC argument when training resource time runs out.

The problem though is solvable. There is another way but y'all won't like it.

You have to educate soldiers and eradicate the diffidence between academic and military culture. Embrace the scholar soldier and produce thinkers. Then you can educate based on patterns of conflict versus task oriented training. I am not even suggesting you abandon all training. There are specific skills that are required for EVERY soldier and those should be learned. If you want a cross functional Army capable of taking on any mission at any time without large times spent re-training then you will have to change the educational models and expectations.

This is not a discussion of semantics. The vocational training system versus higher education debate has raged for a long time. The result is that thinking, problem solving, risk management, and other thinking strategies are becoming highly sought over. These would be exactly the same skills needed at the root of a fully flexible military branch.

There are a lot more things that could be said but in general the arguments will be around; 1) There isn't enough time in the training cycle (applying the wrong model from the onset); 2) Soldiers aren't that smart (even though they are getting older and more educated, wrong again); 3) We have to train for the fight we have today (again same wrong model as evidence against being prepared); 4) There is no way to integrate that kind of training with the current staff (presupposing the failure based on the inadequacy to develop staff will always fail, but how did we get armor?); 5) Various other similar rebuttals following the same pattern.

The fact is it would be a success, it would work, it has worked in previous conflicts, and as the national education system abandoned liberal arts and social sciences, so did the military drive towards a vocational model that now is seen as a restriction on mission capability.

Put succinctly the abject failure to reform military training to an educational model from a vocational model is a direct and substantial impact on national security capability.