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i 

53–210 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–93] 

CHARTING THE COURSE FOR EFFECTIVE 

PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

WILLIAM JOHNSON, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

TREY HOWARD, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, September 10, 2009, Charting the Course for Effective Professional 

Military Education ............................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, September 10, 2009 ............................................................................... 29 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 

CHARTING THE COURSE FOR EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL MILITARY 

EDUCATION 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight 

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1 

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Barno, Lt. Gen. David, USA (Ret.), Director, Near East South Asia Center 

for Strategic Studies ............................................................................................ 4 

Murray, Dr. Williamson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University, Senior Fellow, Institute for Defense Analyses .......................................... 9 

Williams, Dr. John Allen, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago, President, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and 

Society ................................................................................................................... 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Barno, Lt. Gen. David ...................................................................................... 38 

Murray, Dr. Williamson ................................................................................... 58 

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 33 

Williams, Dr. John Allen ................................................................................. 49 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 35 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 85 

(1) 

CHARTING THE COURSE FOR EFFECTIVE 

PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, September 10, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in room 

210, Capitol Visitors Center, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. SNYDER. Good morning, and welcome to the sixth in a series 

of hearings on Officer in-Residence Professional Military Education, 

which we know throughout the military and here on the Hill as 

PME. 

Our hearings thus far have explored various aspects of the service-specific and joint institutions that make up the current PME 

system. We have examined missions, curricula, and standards of 

rigor, the quality of staff, faculty, and students, and organization 

resourcing at the precommissioning, primary, intermediate, and 

senior PME levels. 

Professional military education is an investment in the most important element of our military, our people. The primary purpose 

of PME is to develop military officers throughout their careers for 

the rigorous intellectual demands of complex contingencies and 

major conflicts. We can’t afford to be complacent when it comes to 

producing leaders capable of meeting significant challenges whether at the tactical, operational, or strategic levels. As a matter of national security, we must invest wisely. 

The PME system bears a special responsibility for staying relevant amid change. As a key mechanism for individual and force 

development, PME must both respond to present needs and anticipate future ones. The PME system must continually evolve in order 

to enable officers to assume expanded roles and to perform new 

missions in an increasingly complicated and constantly changing 

security environment. 

For instance, we know that PME can empower officers to contribute to interagency and multinational operations and to effectively utilize foreign languages and cultural skills. We have heard 

from some of the schools that they are currently striving to embrace these and other important educational priorities. Are they 

doing a good enough job? 
2 

In short, the PME system must consistently improve. Twenty 

years ago, the Skelton Panel report on PME stated, ‘‘Although 

many of its individual courses, programs, and faculties are excellent, the existing PME system must be improved to meet the needs 

of the modern profession at arms.’’ 

That statement is true today. Twenty years ago, we were educating officers to engage against our Cold War adversaries. Clearly, 

much about our military and our world has changed since then. 

Much will continue to change as we look to the future. 

With respect to PME, these questions should always apply: How 

well are we educating our officers presently, and what should we 

be doing to educate them more effectively in the future? 

Our witnesses for this hearing are prominent former senior military and civilian academic leaders, each of whom has significant 

experience with the PME system. I look forward to hearing your 

views. 

I now recognize Mr. Wittman for any comments he wants to 

make. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is an honor and privilege to be here today on this panel, and 

also I want to thank our witnesses for taking time out of your busy 

schedules to join us and give us your thoughts and ideas on what 

we can do to enhance our system of PME here in the United 

States. 

This morning the subcommittee conducts its sixth and final 

scheduled hearing on Officer in-Residence Professional Military 

Education. We began the study with testimony from outside experts who posed issues for the subcommittee to consider, then conducted four sessions in which we heard from many Department of 

Defense (DOD) and military service witnesses, who discussed various components of the PME system and how it all fits together. 

We will conclude this final hearing with additional thoughts from 

you very well-qualified witnesses and your thoughts and ideas on 

what we can do to make sure we round out this PME experience 

for our men and women in uniform. 

I think our approach as a committee is sound and hope that today’s panel will put the issues in perspective for the subcommittee 

and suggest a path forward. 

During the course of this study, I have come to respect and admire our professional military education system. There is nothing 

else in the rest of the Federal Government or, to my knowledge, 

private industry which begins to emulate the significant and continuous investment we make in educating and developing our military officers. 

It is important for all of us to keep in mind that today’s system 

produces quality, successful officers, who operate in a wide range 

of demanding and difficult positions. That does not mean that there 

aren’t areas that need improvement, but we should not lose sight 
3 

of the fact that we have a system that, for the most part, serves 

us well. 

Through this process I have had the opportunity to listen to witnesses, travel to PME institutions, and meet with senior leaders 

alongside Chairman Snyder. In fact, this past Friday I visited the 

U.S. Naval Academy and had the unique opportunity to observe 

some of the quality training our junior officers receive at the service academies. 

By the way, I was there as the football team was leaving to go 

play Ohio State, and I can tell you it was an exciting Saturday for 

our midshipmen there, where they were almost victorious against 

Ohio State. Quite a great day for them. 

From all of these visits and discussions, two recurring themes 

stand out in my mind as the most valuable aspects of PME. First, 

I heard mostly from the students is the value of interacting with 

fellow students of differing background, particularly those from the 

State Department, international students, and those from other 

military services. 

The second most valuable skill these students can develop is critical thinking, as there is no way to anticipate the ever-changing 

situations officers face in today’s world of continuous deployments. 

Whatever we may suggest, I think it is imperative that we retain 

these aspects of today’s PME system. It was time that we undertook this effort, and I am pleased to have been a participant in 

what I think is an extraordinary effort, and I want to thank Chairman Snyder for his leadership and all of his direction in pursuing 

this effort. 

Over the past 20 years, the United States has significantly 

changed the way it employs its military forces, sending troops 

abroad to address regional issues with far greater frequency than 

we did during the Cold War. It is also apparent that the system, 

like any large system involving people, faces challenges in today’s 

dynamic environment of high operational momentum. Even so, I 

think today’s PME system, by and large, serves the Nation well; 

and we should carefully consider any potential recommendations 

from this committee. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership; and I look 

forward to hearing from the witnesses. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 35.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. 

Our witnesses today are Lieutenant General David Barno, U.S. 

Army Retired, Director of the Near East South Asia (NESA) Center 

for Strategic Studies; Dr. John Allen Williams, Ph.D., Professor of 

Political Science at Loyola University, Chicago, and President of 

the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society; and 

Dr. Williamson Murray, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, the Ohio State 

University, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses. 

We appreciate you all being here. Your written statements will 

be a part of the record. I have read your written statements, and 

I am excited about this discussion today. 

We have mentioned our previous five hearings, the visits we 

have had. We have been doing a lot of wading down in the weeds, 
4 

as you know, when you get down talking about tenure of a professor, all those kinds of things that are important to academics. 

I think you all have backed us up a little bit higher to get a look 

at the broad views, which I think is very important as we go into 

the next phase of this. 

The next phase of this, by the way, is now, with a whole lot of 

staff effort, to put together everything that we have learned on all 

their visits and travels and our meetings and our hearings and 

what recommendations can we make to the Congress and the military to move ahead on this. So your comments today are very helpful. 

So, General Barno, do you have a light down there? We will put 

on the clock for you. If you see that red light, it means you have 

gone five minutes. If you still have some things to say, go ahead 

and do it, but it is just an idea to give you an idea where we are 

at. 

General Barno. 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. DAVID BARNO, USA (RET.), DIRECTOR, NEAR EAST SOUTH ASIA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC 

STUDIES 

General BARNO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Wittman. Thanks to all of you and to the committee for the opportunity to appear here today and talk on an extremely important 

topic. 

I feel a bit out of balance on the table here since I am, in one 

sense, probably the only nonacademic in terms of my overall background here. But I hope that, despite having gone through the entire professional military educational system and done some graduate school work in the civilian world as well, but that, combined 

with my time having commanded from lieutenant, as a company 

commander all the way to lieutenant general as a commander in 

Afghanistan, will provide a bit of a balanced outlook to what may 

become academic in some respects. But professional military education is a critical competency of the military. 

I am involved in the academic world today. I have been for the 

last three years as the Director of the NESA Center at National 

Defense University, but I will give my comments today of my own 

personal views, as opposed to speaking for the government. 

I would also highlight to the committee that I have got a personal stake in this, with two sons in uniform; two Army captains 

out there in the field, one who served a year in Afghanistan already. So I have a vested personal interest in ensuring that our 

long-term professional military education remains strong. 

I think I would like to talk a bit about some of my characterizations of where we are today and some of the demands on the force 

today in terms of our leadership and then highlight in my opening 

comments here five recommendations for the committee to consider. 

First, I would note that we are in an environment where warfare 

is changing at a very rapid pace. If we were to have this hearing 

just 10 years ago, in 1999, and we had some distinguished military 

officers up here to ask about what the future of war was going to 

look like, we would have heard them talk about rapid, decisive op-
5 

erations and precision strike and focused logistics and information 

dominance; and they would have drawn their understanding of 

warfare from the 1999 Kosovo air war, which would have just concluded, which involved no ground combat troops at all. 

And if we were to just move them forward a couple of years, they 

would have seen a lot of those ideas played out in the opening gambits in Afghanistan, where we were able to collapse the Taliban regime in about 90 days after a standing start, an important reminder this week with the anniversary of 9/11, and then a few 

years later in Iraq, where in a six-week lightning ground campaign 

we saw our military forces overwhelm an extraordinarily large and 

capable army by really shattering their ability to resist. That would 

have been their view of warfare. 

Today, if we asked that same group what warfare looks like, we 

would have found a very different description of warfare. Today, we 

are clearly actively involved in two major irregular warfare conflicts—one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan—which have taken us down 

a very, very different road than our outlook on warfare just 10 

years ago at the beginning of this decade. 

So I highlight that fact because I think it describes the complexity of the challenge that face our military leaders today, all the 

way from the tactical level as platoon leaders and company commanders, all the way to our senior-most generals. The bloody, uncertain, chaotic nature of war has not changed, but the character 

of war, how it plays out, what the options are, are ever changing 

between irregular warfare, conventional warfare, and now what 

some are now calling hybrid warfare—a combination of the two— 

such as we saw Hezbollah fight in south Lebanon in 2006. 

This is an extraordinarily more difficult environment to think 

about warfare than the environment I entered into in the Army in 

1976, where the Cold War was very much still the centerpiece of 

our very predictable military confrontation. So we have set the bar 

higher for the requirements, I think, for our military leaders. 

I would also I think characterize some of our decisionmaking and 

strategic thinking over the last 10 years as somewhat questionable. 

We have a number of pundits who would certainly ascribe to that 

view. There have been a number of books on the Iraq War that 

have cited what authors have described as a failure of strategic 

leadership. 

I read recently a report by Andrew Krepinevich and Barry Watts 

here from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments 

that had this observation in it: ‘‘The ability of the U.S. national security establishment to craft, implement, and adapt effective longterm strategies against intelligent adversaries at acceptable costs 

has been declining for some decades.’’ 

They went on to say that, ‘‘reversing this decline in U.S. strategic 

competence is an urgent issue for the American national security 

establishment in the 21st century.’’ 

I am not sure I would go as far as my friend Andy Krepinevich 

would in this, but I think he is onto an issue of concern, which is 

our ability to convert our current educational establishment and 

development of officers into effective strategic leadership. 
6 

We have seen articles, such as ‘‘A failure in generalship’’ by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, that have been very critical of America’s military leadership. 

Of course, all of our military leadership, myself included, have 

gone through our professional military schools. So I think it is appropriate to look at how we are teaching, how we are developing 

officers, and ask questions about whether we have got it fully correct or not. 

I would say, however—and I think all the panelists would agree 

with me, as I heard already from the committee members this 

morning—that we have an amazing military. We have an incredible force. We have some of the best leadership we have ever had 

in the field, under the most difficult conditions; and I think that 

that is a hallmark of who we are. 

Preserving that asymmetrical advantage we have and our intellectual capability in the military is extraordinarily important. And 

I would highlight that I think the majority of our investment in a 

lot of ways has been made at the tactical and operational level, and 

I look at the amount of time we are spending at the strategic level 

throughout our programs, especially as officers reach flag rank, and 

I have some question in my mind as to whether we have got that 

quite right. 

Specifically, I think that our educational development for officers 

peters out. It diminishes to near nothing at the flag officer level, 

at the brigadier, at the one-star admiral level. Whereas, as a lieutenant I might go to a course for six months before I stood in front 

of a platoon of 40 soldiers, as a flag officer, the longest course I will 

go to is six weeks long. There is something perhaps not right about 

that, given the complexity and the impact of the demands at that 

level. 

So, five brief recommendations. 

First, I think we need to look at our civilian graduate programs 

and incentivize that for our highest-performing officers. There is no 

substitute for a civilian graduate degree to sharpen the thinking of 

our officers as they move up through the ranks and they become 

senior officers. That helped me more—my graduate schooling here 

at Georgetown University as a captain helped me more than perhaps any other developmental experience at the strategic level. 

Most officers today will not have that experience. The vast majority 

will not. They will have master’s degrees, but they will get them 

from military schools. That is a major change from when I was a 

young officer. 

Second, I think we need to make military intellectualism and 

military thinking and thinking warriors respectable again. We 

have been in a war now for the better part of nine years. We have 

a great muddy boots generation of leadership. We need to make 

sure they are thinking muddy boots leaders, and we need to 

incentivize with our senior leaders in how they speak about thinking about warfare, that being a military intellectual is an expectation of all of our leaders. To be a thinking warrior is what we are 

looking for. 

Senior service college. Our senior service colleges, the Army War 

College, National Defense Universities are the last major investment we make in education for our officers. I think we have to look 
7 

very carefully at that curriculum to ensure it is rigorous enough, 

focused enough on strategy and that we don’t outsource aspects of 

it to fellowships that don’t have nearly the same degree of rigor, 

which is becoming a common practice, particularly in the U.S. 

Army. 

Fourth, service officer personnel systems. Personnel systems 

drive the selection and development of senior leaders. I think we 

have to look very carefully at that. We now have, in effect, a 40- 

year career for our generals. We should invest more of that time 

in their education. The time is available. I cannot be convinced that 

we can’t find time to invest in the most important part of an officer’s education than at the senior and most strategic level. 

Finally, the flag officer program, which reinforces that. I think 

our current six-week Capstone program has major shortfalls in it. 

It has been reduced from a nine-week program just a few years 

ago. It has very little educational rigor and is not representing the 

needs and requirements demanded of flag officers. I think we need 

to revisit that and look at how that might be improved. 

So, again, Mr. Chairman, thanks for the opportunity to present 

these views. I look forward to following up in more detail during 

the questions. Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, General Barno. 

[The prepared statement of General Barno can be found in the 

Appendix on page 38.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Williams. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN ALLEN WILLIAMS, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO, PRESIDENT, INTER-UNIVERSITY SEMINAR ON ARMED 

FORCES AND SOCIETY 

Dr. WILLIAMS. Thank you. I thank Chairman Snyder, Ranking 

Member Wittman, and the distinguished members of this subcommittee for the opportunity to be here today. It is a genuine 

honor. 

Military success requires adaptive leaders and strategists who 

are able to deal with ambiguity, imagine the unimaginable, and 

handle the unruly strategic environment that is upon us. Studying 

theories about war must never make war itself a theoretical exercise, however. Military scholarship must contribute to the primary 

purpose of the force, which is to prevail in combat. The military 

education system must support, not subvert or detract from rigorous military training and the mindset that makes victory possible. 

I propose two goals for the military PME system: first, to develop 

strategists and leaders to meet future complex and ambiguous 

challenges and, secondly, to strengthen civil-military relations. 

During the Cold War, the prospective enemy was apparent. We 

knew how he would fight. We even knew the likely axis of attack. 

With the attacks of 9/11, however, a new, much less certain paradigm emerged. Unfortunately, traditional threats still remain and 

the major military mission became all of the above. 

Domestically, militaries reflect the societies they serve, whether 

it is the Vietnam-era tolerance for drug use or the evolving comfort 

level with diversity of all kinds and with nontraditional roles for 
8 

women. Demands for the military to change accordingly will not be 

far behind. It will require the most educated and adaptive leadership to manage the military successfully as such changes inevitably 

occur. 

The military might also be called upon to operate domestically in 

ways never envisioned, with posse comitatus restrictions waived in 

view of a civil emergency. This could be to restore order in the 

wake of some catastrophe or even to enforce a quarantine. We want 

the most broadly and humanely educated officers thinking about 

how to operate in this environment. 

The military education system should encourage potential strategists, broaden their intellectual horizons, and help them develop 

the skills they need to be effective, and to do so as early in their 

careers as possible. It must also ensure that all officers form the 

habit of thinking strategically. Rigorous educational experiences 

will help students develop the intellectual capital they will need 

later in their careers. This applies to the increasingly professionalized enlisted ranks as well, the subject of further study, I think. 

The mix of technical, social science, moral, and humanist components in curricula at all levels need to be rebalanced if we are 

training officers to lead people as opposed to machines. It is past 

time to reemphasize the importance of the humanities and social 

sciences, deemphasized in the Navy, for example, for at least three 

decades because of the presumed need for all officers to emphasize 

highly technical competence above all else. 

We need to retain also a variety of commissioning sources. Many 

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs at prestigious 

universities were lost in the Vietnam era. These are an important 

link with the civilian society, but there must also be sources of officer accession that are not subject to the political whims of university professors. 

The service academies are repositories of service culture, a source 

of pride to the American people, and, by virtue of the appointment 

process through this Congress, ensure a wide representation of students. Their abandonment would be a serious mistake; and, once 

destroyed, they could never be rebuilt. 

Officer Candidate School (OCS) programs can be expanded rapidly with no need for the government to fund the college education 

for the inductees. 

More engagement with the civilian academic community would 

be beneficial to officer PME. Examples include accreditation programs for the military’s master’s degree programs; first-rank civilian professors at military residential schools; participation in rigorous scholarly professional societies, such as the one I have the 

privilege of heading, the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces 

in Society; and enhanced civilian graduate education opportunities, 

especially at the mid-career level. As General David Petraeus 

noted, this experience helps bridge the gap between those in uniform and those who have had little contact with the military. 

As the Congress considers these issues, I recommend that the following six items be included as important considerations: not to repair a broken system but to make an excellent system still better; 

enhancing the role of the humanities and social sciences, including 

language and cultural studies; considering the effect of the PME 
9 

system on the relations between the military and civil society; encouraging the flow of highly qualified civilian instructors into the 

academic portions of residential military PME programs, whether 

as visiting professors or permanent staff; encouraging the best officers to interact with civilian academic institutions and organizations; making performance in educational institutions a strong factor in subsequent assignments and promotions. Finally, focusing on 

the increasing professionalization of the enlisted force and considering how enlisted educational opportunities can better meet evolving security challenges. 

Thank you, and I look forward to our discussion this morning. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Dr. Williams. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Williams can be found in the Appendix on page 49.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Murray. 

STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAMSON MURRAY, PH.D., PROFESSOR 

EMERITUS, THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, SENIOR FELLOW, 

INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES 

Dr. MURRAY. Dr. Snyder, it is a great pleasure to address the 

committee and yourself. 

I would begin by commenting that, as you well know, the medical 

profession takes its education of its future doctors very seriously. 

I would argue that the military is a profession, perhaps the most 

difficult of all the professions, not only because it is so physically 

demanding, but I would argue intellectually demanding. And it is 

intellectually demanding, I would suggest—and I don’t want to go 

through my paper in great detail—but I think as a historian looking at the past 100 years, we are going to be surprised in the 21st 

century. We are going to fight opponents who we cannot conceive 

of today. 

Maybe all one has to do is think back to the summer of 2001, 

and if I had lectured at one of the war colleges and suggested that 

we were going to send a large force to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan, I would have been laughed off the stage. But that kind 

of surprise is going to come out of the woodwork and bite us in the 

21st century, and we have got to develop an intellectually adaptable officer corps that understands other cultures and other histories. 

Let me—because I think most of you have read my general comments, let me just sort of run through suggestions that I have and 

gave considerable thought to. 

First of all, I think Congress needs to fund a sufficient overage 

of officers at all grades to allow sufficient time for serious study 

without penalty either to their careers or to operational requirements. It is particularly acute now, but once the pressure is off I 

think it still will be useful and important for Congress to make 

available to the military the kind of latitude that allows officers to 

go to the best graduate courses and best graduate degrees in war 

studies, strategic studies, military history, international relations, 

not just in the United States but around the world. 

I think there is another great difficulty—that was my second 

point—and that has to do with, of course, personnel systems, which 

Congress has given, I think, considerable greater latitude than was 
10 

true 20 years ago. But, by and large, personnel systems are not 

using that latitude, if you will, to encourage people to step outside 

of the normal career paths, like General Petraeus did and H.R. 

McMaster, being two specific examples in terms of the Army. 

I would also suggest the professional military education is being 

underfunded. I think this shows in terms of the capacity of those 

institutions to reach out to bring in scholars from around the country. 

The great advantage that the United Kingdom enjoys is that it 

just takes a train ticket to bring somebody from Edinburgh down 

to London. Here, if you want to bring somebody from Stanford, you 

will pay a ticket across the United States. And I think this is absolutely essential, that our military and its educational system not be 

confined too narrowly to the experts within Washington or the experts within particular educational systems. 

The fourth point—and I think this is very important—is the 

presidents and the commandants of the various schools need to be 

far more carefully selected than in the past. I think the services 

themselves, the senior leadership, need to give far more support to 

those individuals. 

If you look back at the history of the last 25, 30 years at major 

successful PME reforms—Stansfield Turner, the Naval War College, 1970, supported fully by the Chief of Naval Operations; Chuck 

Boyd at the Air University in the early 1990s, supported fully by 

the leadership in Washington; Paul Van Riper, establishing Marine 

Corps University, supported by General Gray; and the creation of 

School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), supported with three 

incredibly brilliant officers, Rick Senreich, Vasta Sager, and General Don Holder, fully supported by Army generals at the four-star 

level, Otis and Richardson in particular. We have simply got to be 

willing to do that and not treat these schools as a nice place for 

admirals and two-star admirals and two-star generals to retire in. 

I think that the services need to focus more seriously on professional military education from the very beginning of an officer’s career right through to the end; and having taught at the Naval 

Academy for 2 years—a wonderful experience, great midshipmen— 

I don’t think they are prepared the way they should be across the 

board in issues dealing with military strategy and military history. 

Finally, I just want to give the committee my compliment for— 

I discovered my last, seventh point, is overtaken by events. You 

have done precisely what I recommended. You go out to the institutions and talk to them. 

Again, I think one of the ironies in looking at the landscape of 

professional military education is the Naval War College still remains, by far and away, a world-class institution for the study of 

strategy; and not to have an equivalent type of institution down in 

Washington, a national war college, I think, is a shame. But I 

think the gold standard should be met by the other war colleges. 

Finally, General Barno’s suggestion, I think, is a brilliant one. 

The Skelton Committee report of 1988 or 1989, whatever it was, 

the finest study on professional military education ever done anywhere, anyplace, recommended the creation of a strategic college 

for general officers. I would recommend that Capstone be turned 

into the equivalent of the British higher command and staff course, 
11 

which not only gives officers I think it is a four- or five-month 

course, very rigorous course, but they are ranked at it, and who 

gets the two- and three- and four-star joint assignments depends 

upon how you did in the higher command and staff course. I think 

it would focus the services a little more seriously on preparing the 

officers both for the course and then to more seriously and rigorously educate officers so that we don’t have to make the kind of 

mistakes that were made in the Iraq War and the Afghan War post 

2001, post 2003. 

Thank you very much, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Murray can be found in the Appendix on page 58.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, gentlemen, for your comments. 

We will put ourselves on the five-minute clock and have at least 

two, if not more, rounds. 

The first question I wanted to ask you—I just wanted to give you 

each an opportunity. You all are involved in academic work in 

some way and are used to critiquing things. I would like to give 

each of you the opportunity to either critique or compliment what 

the other folks had to say. 

Is there anything you want to amplify on, General Barno, that 

Dr. Williams or Mr. Murray said? 

General BARNO. I don’t hear too many things I disagree with 

with either of them. I think one of the benefits of this panel is that 

we are not required to defend a position which we may or may not 

agree with in public. I think all of us are free to speak from a lot 

of experience in this arena and a lot of commitment to where this 

goes. 

I think, as I have noted down the comments from both my contemporaries here, I see little to quarrel with. I do think I would 

just reinforce that I think the senior-most level PME is the area 

where I have the greatest concern; and I think that, to a degree, 

is shared on my left. 

We seem to have built a program that has created extraordinary 

tactical and operational officers, and a lot of that I think could be 

attributed to the fact that most of the program is at that level of 

their careers—lieutenant, captains, majors. We have done far less 

well, in most of our estimation—I think I heard that from each of 

the witnesses up here. We have done far less at the strategic level. 

We need to ask why and what can be done to rectify that. 

I am not sure I would agree that that has to occur at the beginning of a career. I think we really have to look at the more senior 

levels and how we grow these people and develop those people 

when they become senior for those senior jobs. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Williams. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I am pleased to hear the General emphasizing the 

importance of civilian graduate education. I am sure Dr. Murray 

agrees as well. But I am more concerned about the junior and the 

mid-career. 

General Petraeus wrote a great article for Armed Forces and Society when he was a major, back in 1989, on the military advice 

on the use of force and how effective it was, advice to the civilians. 

So I think there is a lot more spade work that can be done and development done early. But the time you are in war college, you are 
12 

going to be polishing some things up, but it is too late really to 

start anything, I think. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Murray. 

Dr. MURRAY. I think we are 98 percent in agreement. 

Let me just extend General Barno’s comment. I think it begins 

to a certain extent at precommissioning. But the crucial point, I 

think, is the captain level. If you look at people like Don Holder 

and Petraeus and various other individuals who have gotten the 

mark as first rate strategists, they have gotten that mark really in 

terms of beginning to fill their gas tank at the captain level. 

And here I think sending individuals out to graduate school for 

a couple of years to get a master’s or Ph.D.—in fact, at Ohio State, 

we got a significant number of our officers through in two years, 

All But Dissertation (ABD), and able to write their dissertations at 

the next level. 

So, again, I think this sort of education developing and opening 

officers’ minds to the wider aspects of their profession is crucial. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Murray, I think you in your written statement 

referred to the challenge of the whole system educates in stages. 

Wasn’t that your phrase? Early on, you compared PME with medical education as a family doctor. 

But we don’t educate in stages in medical school. You come right 

out of medical school, then you do your residency, then you may do 

an additional fellowship. So, for example, a cardiologist, four years 

of medical school, three years internal medicine residency, then 

probably a couple of years, at least, of a fellowship. But that is 

probably it for the career. For the next 50 years, they will practice 

based on their continuing medical education. But it is a different 

system, isn’t it? 

Dr. MURRAY. It makes it much more difficult. Because I think 

the crucial element—talking to people like Tony Zinni—the crucial 

element in developing I think great military leaders comes down to 

the willingness of the officers, with certain encouragement from 

their senior commanders, et cetera, to continue each stage the educational process. That it shouldn’t be just you get something at the 

basic course, you get something at the captains’ course, at the amphibious warfare school—or it’s now called expeditionary warfare 

school. In fact, it should be a continuous process in which the officer is educating himself for the next level. And I think that is very 

difficult to do, particularly given the kinds of commitments our 

forces have today. But a significant number of officers do it, and 

they are the ones who should be rewarded, providing they are 

doing equally well. 

Dr. SNYDER. There is an old line about what do you call the person who graduates last in a medical school class? Doctor. You don’t 

call the person who graduates last at West Point General. I think 

that is the challenge we have. 

Mr. Platts for five minutes. 

I am not sure we have formally welcomed you to this subcommittee. It is great to have you. Todd and I have talked about 

some of the issues involving professional military education. He 

has had an interest in it for quite a few years now. We appreciate 

your being on this subcommittee and being here today. 
13 

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to join you 

and all of the fellow members on the committee. 

I am a new member to the Armed Services, all of about 3 

months, although I have been trying to get on it for 81⁄2 years. So 

delighted to be here with you. 

I appreciate each of our witnesses’ testimony and your important 

work, both civilian and in uniform. 

General Barno, I had the pleasure a good many years ago. Although not on the committee, I have been to Iraq nine times now 

and Afghanistan five and continue to educate myself out there 

hands on and hopefully will be back in Afghanistan in about two 

weeks. So I appreciate your long service. 

I guess the first question to all three of you is: In my interactions 

overseas, and especially in Afghanistan, I have seen the importance 

of our work between our military commanders and U.S. Agency for 

International Development (USAID) Foreign Service officers, Department of State Foreign Service, but especially USAID; and in 

Afghanistan in one of my visits in the Jalalabad area that partnership was clearly critically important to the success we were having 

in the work of the civilian and military personnel. 

Do you think we need to strengthen that in the training or the 

education programs, the PME opportunities, and have a greater 

presence of the Department of State Foreign Service officers or 

USAID Foreign Service officers as part of this education process 

and suggestions in what way or to what extent should that occur? 

General BARNO. Great to see you again. I live on the edge of your 

district there in Dickinson Township. So I have spent a lot of time 

at the Army War College, and you have been a tremendous supporter of that great institution as well. 

I think that we are seeing a very slow growth of players from 

across the U.S. interagency participating as students, and particularly the war colleges now to a lesser extent, the more junior 

schools such as command and staff college. I think that is very 

good. 

What I find as the limiting factor, though, is that the other agencies—government and USAID, Department of State, Justice, and so 

on—simply don’t have enough people to be able to spare any to go 

to school. In the military, as we alluded to earlier, we have a pool 

in the Army called the training transient holding and school account of people who are basically over-strength to allow a substantial number of officers to always be in school. So if I take someone 

out of a seat, I have got someone else that will take the job for the 

year the captain or major is gone. In the State Department, that 

is not true. In USAID, that is not true. So they are so tightly controlled with the number of oversees requirements they have that 

they simply can’t get people to go to school. So perhaps that should 

be addressed. 

But the benefit of that is huge for both their people that go to 

these schools, such as the Army War College or National War College, and it is equally huge for the military people that get exposed 

to this other thinking before they get to meet these people on the 

battlefield, which is not how you would like to see that evolve. 

Dr. MURRAY. I think there is a larger issue here, which is that 

the other government agencies simply don’t have the school system 
14 

that the military has. I think—not only that. One of our best graduate students at Ohio State in the late 1980s came to Ohio State, 

wanted to get a Ph.D. He asked for a leave from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and they said no. No interest in terms of the 

external world to that kind of broadening experience. 

I think Congress—it is obviously beyond the purview of this committee, but I think the larger issue is that the other agencies of 

government need to have something along the lines similar to the 

military’s broadening experience if we are going to have the kind 

of interagency cooperation in places like Afghanistan. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I think Congressman Platts raised an important 

question. It is difficult to do, get the services to come together and 

do joint education and work in everyone’s career path. It becomes 

exponentially more difficult when you have the interagency process 

as well, with different career paths, different gates they have to go 

through as well. Plus, they are perhaps even less robustly staffed 

than the military. The military has enough problems. 

To make it even more complicated in that environment, you are 

also dealing with nongovernmental organizations of various kinds 

that you have no control over, and they may not be American ones 

at that. So it becomes a very, very complex environment. 

I accept the problem. I had no idea to how to solve it. 

Mr. PLATTS. I appreciate all three of your perspectives. 

Dr. Murray, your focus about the other agencies not emphasizing 

education or allowing for those opportunities I think is kind of the 

catch–22. Because they are not yet—they are expecting their Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) to be out there right with military 

leaders hand-in-hand and not have that opportunity to build that 

relationship ahead of time. 

With Lieutenant Colonel Linda Granfield and Michelle Parker, a 

USAID officer, it was an amazing partnership that I saw and actually have kept in touch with both of those individuals since they 

have come back and have taken on new assignments because of 

how impressed I was with their abilities. 

I will save my additional questions until the next round. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Platts. 

Mr. Wittman for five minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I will ask all of you this question. In looking overall, 

we have heard a lot recently about the whole-of-government approach to our contingency operations. In taking that in perspective 

with the current PME system, how do you think this system can 

emphasize interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational aspects of our future military activities into the instructional efforts 

that we are currently undertaking now in our PME system? 

General Barno, we will begin with you. 

General BARNO. I think that is evolving and is under way as a 

result of the experiences that Congressman Platts described out in 

the field in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Now military officers are much different than 10 or 15 years ago, 

running into all these people and finding in many cases that they 

now have to have a partnership that works with these other parts 

of government in order for them to accomplish their military mis-
15 

sion. That is a completely new environment than what anyone 

would have envisioned 10 or 15 years ago. So they have already 

brought that knowledge with them when they come to these military PME courses. 

I think where we could probably add some more capacity is having instructional support at the colleges, the war colleges and the 

command and staff colleges, that are either from those agencies in 

the government or are retired members with experience in the field 

doing those types of things. It is not good enough for a colonel of 

infantry to talk about USAID operations and how they are structured and what their culture is and how they think and how they 

approach things. The credibility simply is not there. That is what 

we have to rely on because of how we are set up at some of our 

institutions. But having them on the staff and faculty, having more 

than the students, as we noted before, I think would be very, very 

valuable; and it is replicating what is already happening in the 

field. That’s the irony in a way, is that the school system in some 

ways is behind best practices out there in Iraq and Afghanistan 

today. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. One of the purposes of the education system is to 

plan and game through things before you are in a crisis. The kinds 

of initiatives that the General is talking about are quite good. We 

open up as many opportunities for people from those other agencies 

and abroad to come and study in military colleges. If they need to 

increase their funding to be able to do that, I would hope that Congress would support that as well. 

This tends to be something that builds on itself. Because as they 

become accustomed to working with one another and understanding the need to do it, it would become a higher priority for 

everyone. Plus, personal connections will be formed. I think this 

will benefit in the long run. 

Dr. MURRAY. Let me put a caveat here. Because I think we have 

to realize that, for example, a year at the command and staff level 

or a year at the war college level is a very limited time in an academic sense. And these institutions have been created specifically 

to study war and strategy. I don’t think in many cases they do 

enough of that to prepare officers for the complexity of the kinds 

of wars and the character of the wars that we are going to be involved in. 

What we have seen over the past 20 years to a certain extent is 

not only stuffing more and more stuff into an officer’s career, gates 

that they have to pass, but stuffing more and more various subjects 

into what are supposed to be graduate level programs. I absolutely 

believe they have to be graduate level programs. And we want to 

take two weeks away from the strategy and policy course at Newport, which is a world-class course, to teach something which 10 

years from now our officers may not be involved in. 

Again, I realize the importance of it, but I think we have to understand the difficulties inherent in terms of just getting our officers to the level that they need to be in terms of understanding 

war and the use of force. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
16 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask about an issue that came up at our 

very first hearing. And you all may not be able to have a comment 

on this. 

The phrase was used in terms of how to help move this process 

forward. The comment was made by at least a couple of our opening panel witnesses, I believe it was, that the Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs I think the word was ‘‘needs to take more ownership 

of PME’’ in terms of making sure that I guess it has a champion, 

that he or she knows what is going on, that they have a resource 

issue. 

Do you all have any comments on that concept? 

General Barno. 

General BARNO. I think that is the case today, in talking with 

Admiral Rondeau, who is the new president of—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Which is the case? 

General BARNO. That he is taking a greater role in this. I have 

seen here even recently with regard to at least National Defense 

University—I can’t speak to whether he has that charter for the 

service schools or not. I would argue that for joint PME that he is 

the right point of contact, and he needs to be a visible champion 

of that. That is beginning I think to evolve from his relationship 

with the new National Defense University president. 

I also think it is equally if not more important that the service 

chiefs are visible champions of their PME programs of their service 

colleges or their staff colleges. And that varies widely, as we would 

expect, given the demands that the service chiefs have, their personalities, their backgrounds, what schools they went to or didn’t 

go to; and so that becomes rather erratic. 

But I think the broader issue that I have got in my notes here 

is that we have to have four-star champions of military education. 

And I would argue that in a lot of ways all four-stars have to be 

champions of military education. They have to talk about it. They 

have to make it respectable. They have to convince up and coming 

officers this is part of their professional responsibility. Even though 

what we want to have individuals, service chiefs or the chairman 

have ownership, I think all senior leaders have got to spend a lot 

more time talking about the seriousness of study of this profession. 

During my time on active duty, I rarely, if ever, heard that, especially in the last five years or so. I think that is extremely important. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Williams. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I think it is important that the most senior officers of the services and, of course, the chairman himself do take 

ownership of this. Because at first it sets the culture. It becomes 

all right to be a strategist and be an intellectual. You can see examples of people who manage to be very effective warfighters who 

are also intellectuals as well. 

Also, of course, in terms of resource acquisition, the higher your 

proponent, the more likely you are to get them. Also, the four-stars 

are in a uniquely good position to ensure that follow-on assignments and that promotion boards and such take the proper notice 

of these accomplishments of the officers and their education. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Murray. 

Dr. MURRAY. I couldn’t agree more with what has just been said. 
17 

I think a couple of additional points. One is in terms of promotion boards. I think an officer’s record and standing performance 

in whatever PME school they have attended should be as important in terms of judging that officer for promotion as service in the 

field. I think that there has also been, unfortunately, as I said earlier, far too little—and General Barno obviously feels this way, 

too—far too little attention paid by four-stars to professional military education. 

I can tell you the innumerable times I have heard, sitting in the 

various auditoriums of the war colleges, four-star generals say, 

have a great time here, play golf, get to know your family. And 

that is just the worst kind of irresponsibility. But it happens far 

too much. And only a few times have I heard somebody like Tony 

Zinni say, this is the most important year of your military career. 

And it is. I think it really is, given the kind of environment we confront in the 21st century. 

Dr. SNYDER. I am going to run out of time. I want to spend some 

time talking about the issue of the civilian graduate degrees. Let 

me set myself up for the next five minutes. 

But do you all have any hard numbers right now—because I 

don’t; I don’t know if staff does—on what percentage of our general 

officers have civilian—meet the standard that you are setting? Do 

you prefer they have a degree from a good civilian school? Does 

anybody have those numbers? 

General BARNO. I don’t have any with me. I know that Professor 

Leonard Wong at the Army War College did a study on this in the 

Army, one-star selects, just a couple of years ago; and he compared 

it with one-star selects about 10 years past. And that the number 

of officers plummeted to single-digit percentages in the newest 

group compared to 10 years ago because all the officers in the 

newer group had graduate degrees, but the vast, vast majority 

came from military institutions. Whereas 10 years ago there were 

a substantial number that came from civilian institutions. 

I am sure we can get that study. That pertains only to the Army. 

Dr. SNYDER. I would assume the number is fairly small. 

Dr. MURRAY. Dr. Snyder, let me give you one figure which the 

committee might find interesting. 

General Scales, when he was commandant at the Army War College and I was working for him as the Johnson Professor of Military History, came up with a figure which I think is truly astonishing in 1999. I can’t vouch for it today, but it would be interesting the look at. 

Basically, he discovered the PRC, the People’s Republic of China, 

its officers, it had more officers in American graduate schools than 

the services had in American graduate schools. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mrs. Davis for five minutes. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am sorry that I haven’t been here for your remarks earlier, but 

I did want to ask you about an issue that I had a chance to go over 

and hear a number of people speak on the other day. There was 

a summit, if you will, held on sexual assault and prevention of that 

in the services, and different services presented, as well as a number of other experts. They met both Monday and Tuesday. And I 

am wondering if you believe that there is sufficient focus—is there 
18 

focus on these issues as it relates to military culture within the 

education of our men and women and the programs that you are 

very much engaged in? What are we doing at that level and what 

do you think about that education and where should the focus be? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. Well, of course, the Tailhook scandal turned out 

to be a teachable moment for everyone. I think from that point on 

it was a very high priority of the Congress and therefore of the 

military, but also people inside the military who were horrified by 

the events and other things that occurred. 

It became no longer part of the culture to regard women as the 

other rather than regard the women officers and enlisted as part 

of the us and part of the total force. You can’t operate without 

them. They are absolutely vital. They need to be treated at all 

times with dignity and respect. And when those occasions occur 

that they are not, it is and should be a career-seeking missile to 

anyone who would behave inappropriately. 

So I think—and even in the civilian world it doesn’t ever reach 

perfection, but I think it is so much better, and I think it deserves 

continuing attention so it can continue to be a priority. 

General BARNO. I am not sure I have visibility today currently 

on how that has evolved, since I left active duty three-plus years 

ago. I do know at that time it was an embedded part of all the 

training programs as well as a unit training requirement. There 

has been a tremendously larger emphasis placed in the three years 

since I last looked at it, but I can’t give you any current information, particularly at the senior levels. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

One of the concerns that has been expressed is that, as people 

are looking at advancement, how our leadership handles those 

issues as part of their unit, that that should be considered as seriously as any other issues that would go before any panels. Would 

you concur with that? Do you think it should be an important metric, if you will, of whether or not somebody actually is seen as moving up in leadership? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I would hope anybody reaching senior levels would 

be sensitized to this issue. Obviously, there is always the possibility of someone having an undeserved bad reputation over some 

issues, because people differ on what happened and when and what 

was done. So as long as the standards of fairness are observed, obviously I quite agree with you that this does need to be a consideration. 

General BARNO. I would look at it I think from the overall performance standpoint. This is an important part of their leadership 

responsibilities. Are they exercising it inappropriately or are they 

involved at the right level? 

There is some risk that if we get too focused on individuals’ performance in this area that we get across some legal thresholds, because most commanders have got legal responsibilities. I think we 

would be not well advised to intrude and make decisions or make 

judgments based upon what their legal decisions were in that system. But I do think it is clearly and I am very confident that all 

senior officers look at this as part of the leadership responsibilities 

that every officer has out there, and how they perform in that obviously will dictate their future promotion potential. 
19 

Dr. MURRAY. I would argue that it is a training issue that needs 

to be hammered home from the first class that an individual takes 

at a service academy or at a university in terms of ROTC. I am 

not sure it is an educational issue, because if they haven’t gotten 

it by the time they are an O–3 then they shouldn’t be wearing the 

uniform. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Platts. 

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just first echo Congresswoman Davis’s focus on the issue of sexual misconduct. In the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the past session we have had hearings on the National 

Security Subcommittee specifically focused on the service academies. And, you know, thankfully there is more focus and attention 

to this issue, because I think it is at a critical stage where we do 

send that message that there will be zero tolerance for this type 

of misconduct and it will be treated. 

Unfortunately, when we had that hearing and we had, I believe, 

all the commandants or the senior officials from the academies in 

the one hearing, and only one of them ever used the word ‘‘crime’’ 

in their remarks. Because that is what we are talking about here 

in the type of conduct being considered. And that message that this 

is a crime, whether you are in a service academy or wearing a uniform and you sexually assault another person, that is criminal, and 

that needs to be dealt with. And that message needs to be reinforced day one at the academy or the ROTC programs, wherever, 

so that they are not wearing the uniform if they engage in that 

conduct. So I appreciate the importance of that. 

I think I know the answer, General Barno, to the question, based 

on your statements and written testimony. It is a little bit of a follow-up to where the chairman concluded. And that is on the issue 

of advanced degrees, Ph.D.s. My understanding is the service-specific schools and the joint PMEs are looking at increasing Ph.D. 

possibilities for their students. That seems to run contrary to your 

belief in the importance of getting our senior leaders into civilian 

institutions for those higher degrees and to have that education opportunity outside of the cocoon. Am I taking your remarks in the 

right context? 

General BARNO. No, I think it is encouraging to see that there 

is movement forward to try to expand the number of Ph.D.s. But, 

in my judgment, that ought to occur in civilian educational institutions. To try and build that—again only my opinion—to try and 

build that inside our military educational establishment really deprives you of an existing world-class capability that the United 

States has that is recognized all around the globe and also, again, 

doesn’t advantage the military officer by getting them into the civilian world and the thinking out there, nor does it provide access 

to the military officer around those civilian faculties and among 

those civilian students. We lose out in both regards there. 

One footnote I would also I think add on. That is that I do have 

some concerns about the high-grade civilian educational opportunities both for master’s and Ph.D.s if those military officers who go 

to those programs come back into our military and are then 
20 

marginalized and are no longer part of the command track in the 

military. There is some risk that as we expand these opportunities 

that we are specializing these officers into fields that don’t any 

longer include command. 

The Army has a wonderful program called Functional Area 59 

Army Strategist. And, typically, at the senior captain/major level, 

a few lieutenant colonels, they go into this program, they get an 

educational experience at the Army War College, and they go out 

to the field and they serve on senior staffs as strategists. Wonderful program. 

None of those people will ever command again. They are in a 

specialty now that they have been designated a strategist, and they 

will never be a commander because they are now single track in 

that specialty. I think that is very risky; and there is many more 

examples of that I think out there, particularly in the Army, from 

what I have seen. 

Dr. MURRAY. It is worth noting that one of them has actually just 

been promoted to brigadier general, Bill Hix. Because nobody 

thought that anyone would ever be promoted to general but Bill 

Hix. He will not command. 

I think there is another issue here, which is I have watched as 

a military historian over the past 25, 30 years of my career, and 

that is the significant decline of military history programs and 

strategic studies programs in the United States. It is worth noting 

in Canadian universities and in British universities there will always be one professor, and usually two or three, dealing with these 

issues. The number of major university programs in the United 

States dealing with military and strategic history is down to about 

two or three, and that is I think a significant weakness and a dangerous weakness. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. General Petraeus talked about the importance of 

civilian education and the importance of the military going outside 

the cloister, close to what you said, Congressman Platts. I think he 

is right on that. 

In terms of civil-military relations, I want our elite military officers meeting the brightest, most elite civilians, and I want them 

interacting with each other. I want them to put a human face on 

one another. I want the military to get how civilians think, and I 

want the civilians to get how the military thinks and not be lured 

into stereotypes. I think it would be beneficial for civil-military relations, especially since they don’t really have to come together on 

many occasions. 

Mr. PLATTS. I agree wholeheartedly. Because as we have a smaller percentage of the population having any tie directly or family to 

the military, and we are blessed with amazing military families, 

and having the privilege of representing the Army War College, 

where I see my senior officers that come through there and then 

their sons and daughters are the second lieutenants coming up, you 

know, it is an amazing commitment those families make. But it 

means we have a smaller percentage of people who understand the 

sacrifices being made. 

I use my family as an example. My dad was one of nine children. 

He and his four brothers and all four of his brother-in-laws all 

were military. One generation later, one of us five boys and girls, 
21 

son or daughter or in-laws, one of five military service. And that 

is not good I think for that understanding of our history and the 

needs of our military and the important role. So the more interaction that we can promote, I agree, is critically important in whatever way we can do it. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. The fact that reserve forces are actually mobilized 

and actually used and interact and are themselves so penetrating 

in the community, I think that fills in for some of it. 

Mr. PLATTS. Yeah. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. That is something that isn’t often thought about 

in terms of reserve forces. But the civil-military dimension is crucial there. 

Mr. PLATTS. In the current environment, you are right. That is, 

I guess, one of the silver linings of the demands we are putting on 

the Guard and the Reserve, is that the population as a whole 

maybe is getting better educated because of that level of deployment. 

Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Platts. 

We will begin another round of questions. 

I wanted to talk more about the civilian degree issue, too. Give 

me some practical—your practical thoughts about how it would 

work if you are all recommending that that be increased. And I assume you mean increased in fairly large numbers. So, you know, 

what kind of numbers of people would you be talking about? 

I assume this would primarily be master’s degree levels, but 

some Ph.D.s. Would there be like a list of schools that would be 

considered acceptable? I think you all say civilian degree at high, 

you know, quality institutions. Would there be a list of kind of approved colleges, universities that the military would have? Would 

there be a list of fields that it would be in? 

You all are advocating in terms of broadening of experience and 

visions and all. But there are some very narrow graduate fields, 

you know. You can get into a very specific field of advanced mathematics or chemistry or information technology. Give me your 

ideas—and we will start with you, Dr. Murray—on some of the specifics of how you would flesh out that in terms of numbers and expense and all. 

Dr. MURRAY. The only place where I have real experience with 

that is the Army at West Point. Because Dr. Allan Millett and myself, running the military history and strategic studies program at 

Ohio State for a 20-year period, there was the history department 

at West Point had a very clear list of institutions that they regarded as being first class in military history or western European 

history or American history. And the officers were given latitude in 

picking which institution they went to, but they were constrained, 

and they had to get accepted at the institutions. 

Given the quality of the officers—and here I think one isn’t really 

talking about sending the entire cadre of Army captains to graduate school. I think it should be an elite program. I recommended 

to General Mattis when he was down at Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC) that the Marines try a program for 
22 

captains, and maybe six or seven a year to go out to get a Ph.D. 

and then come back into the Marine Corps after two years. 

Dr. SNYDER. The Ph.D. I think all of us would recognize would 

be a fairly small number. But if you are talking about master’s degree programs—you are advocating master’s degree programs at civilian institutions, I assume those would be in much greater numbers. What kind of numbers? 

Dr. MURRAY. Again, I don’t think you want to send a huge number out. And, again, the people who I would send out, I would send 

them all out to get master’s, and some of them within the two-year 

confines of certain universities get the ABD when they walk out. 

And I think West Point is a wonderful example. They are then 

brought back to do a two- or three-year tour at West Point teaching 

their specialty. The services could bring these officers back to any 

number of institutions for a two- or three-year payback. 

The crucial element General Barno mentioned is they absolutely 

must not be punished for—and there is an element in the service 

cultures that somebody who has gone out, gotten a Ph.D. or a master’s degree for two years and then taught for three years is no 

longer qualified to be an outstanding officer. And, you know, H.R. 

McMaster is an example of how stupid that approach is. 

Dr. SNYDER. Would you have some restrictions on what fields 

they could go out and get the master’s—would that be a list of approved subject areas? 

Dr. MURRAY. Yes. I think so. I think there are certain things that 

the military is interested in, should be interested in. And this, of 

course, includes hard sciences as well. I think it is absolutely essential that some officers go out and get master’s or Ph.D.s in engineering and et cetera. 

But, again, I think it should be guided by both the short-term interests of the service—and, for example, the Navy would right 

away say, well, we are to send everybody to get an engineering degree. And yet if you look at people like Admiral Stavridis, Admiral 

Blair, very clearly they are individuals who have gotten degrees in 

something other than hard sciences and profited by it. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Williams, do you agree that the numbers even 

for the master’s degree program would be small? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I don’t think it would have to be for everyone. And 

I think the nonresidential programs do serve a need. You can’t 

send the whole military to graduate school. That is not feasible in 

a whole lot of dimensions. 

I have no problem with outlining what courses of study would be 

most acceptable for the military to pay for or to give time off to do. 

And certain locations. Obviously, some of the great programs out 

there. And I think there would have to be some flexibility for someone who proposes something especially interesting and useful, to 

make exceptions. I mean, for a student to be able to go study with 

Charlie Moskos back in the day at Northwestern was a great idea, 

even though there are lots of places at Northwestern that would 

not at all be useful for a military person to go to. 

In the case that Dr. Murray was talking about, if you know your 

follow-on assignment, they can have some impact on that. In the 

case of West Point, it is perfect. Because they know what they 
23 

want, they know where they have had success, and it works very 

well. 

But I would reinforce the comments made. You can’t punish 

these people because they were out playing at an educational institution rather than standing on the bridge of a ship at zero dark 

30 with binoculars around their neck. Because every week you are 

at graduate school it is a week you are not doing that. 

Dr. SNYDER. Any comments on that, General Barno? 

General BARNO. I have got several thoughts on this. And I note 

in my written testimony that I think that it ought to be focused 

and probably incentivized for officers that are promoted early, that 

that should be an expectation maybe not the first time but from 

then on anyone who is promoted early ought to have gone to a civilian graduate school. And the service ought to design a program 

to do that. 

Interestingly, the Army offered—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Excuse me for interrupting, but, by putting an incentive for that, that makes the numbers really, really high in conflict with Dr. Murray. 

General BARNO. No, that is about five percent of each year group, 

roughly. It is quite small. 

What is interesting to me in this is that the Army, to its immense credit, in my judgment, about five years ago, four years ago, 

put a program in place to offer top-notch up-and-coming Army captains a two-year option either to go to graduate school with no follow-on assignment to West Point that would take them away from 

the field for even more years. They could go out, they would go to 

graduate school, they would sign up for a little bit of additional required duty in the Army, but it was designed to retain high-quality 

officers. 

And anecdotally is what I heard from that is that, after running 

it for three years, it was undersubscribed, and it was not attracting 

the top tier of candidates. Just the opposite of what you would expect. 

And this gets into this issue of the muddy boots Army at war 

right now. And we all recognize that the Army is in a major fight. 

The Marine Corps, the services are all fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the expectation has been that I am either back here getting ready to go to Afghanistan as a captain or I am in Afghanistan 

or Iraq as a captain. And if I am out at graduate school in a time 

of war, this is even more debilitating for officers’ careers than it 

would be under normal conditions. So we have got to again change 

the senior leadership mind-set of what is most valued. 

And I note in my written testimony as well that, you know, in 

talking to some individuals that are involved in one-star selections 

here recently, those repeat operational tours are what counts. 

Dr. SNYDER. A bias towards tactical—— 

General BARNO. Absolutely. Absolutely. When we take people out 

of the pipeline for even two years of graduate school in the midst 

of a war, and that is not really incentivized by a requirement that 

I can’t get promoted to early promotion to my next rank if I don’t 

do this, if we don’t connect that as almost a requirement, then we 

really have devalued that in force. 
24 

A final note is that I think West Point assignments are—and I 

saw this even when I was a captain—are broadly looked down upon 

inside the operational career force. That those are viewed now as 

assignments that you will pay the five-year price to go there following graduate school, but you will come out of there and you 

won’t be a commander any more. You will be a specialist. You will 

no longer be competitive for command. You won’t be the Dave 

Petraeuses of the future or the Marty Dempseys of the future because the system simply isn’t going to give you that latitude. Especially among your peers, again, who have spent the last five years 

rotating back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan. 

So we have created, particularly in the last 9 years or so, an absolute muddy boots force, the results of which may play out in 

some not happy ways for us 10 or 15 years down the road in terms 

of who is available to be our senior leaders. 

Dr. MURRAY. Let me add something, because I think this is a 

very important point. There are some exceptions. H.R. McMaster is 

a very good exception who not only was the outstanding squadron 

commander at 73 Easting, destroying with his squadron an entire 

brigade of Iraqi tanks, went to the teaching program, graduate program at University of North Carolina, wrote a dissertation, wrote 

the finest book on how we got into Vietnam, a sad story indeed, 

and then went out to I think it was al-Anbar or one of those places 

out there—no, north of that—did an extraordinary job as cavalry 

regimental commander out there and had a very difficult time getting promoted to general even with this extraordinary record behind him. 

So I think we are dealing here with a very difficult problem; and 

it goes across all the services, not just the Army, a cultural problem that somehow you haven’t been doing the right thing if you 

have been out in school or teaching at West Point. And I think that 

is very, very deleterious; and I don’t know what to do to change it. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, in our last question we talked a little bit about how 

do we emphasize the interagency experience a little more in PME; 

and some of the feedback you all said was we want to make sure 

we get folks there from the different agencies, from State, from 

USAID there as instructors. And I think not only in addition to 

that, we probably ought to get them there also to study. 

The question is, are there enough qualified people within those 

agencies to be instructors or to get to the PME experience to study? 

And, if not, what do we do within those agencies to create policies 

or initiatives to direct people into the PME system both to instruct 

and to study, to sort of round out that experience? 

And I know we have heard from some other folks in the past that 

there is some inertia there within the agencies that say, hey, listen, 

that is outside of our bailiwick. We don’t want to participate. They 

don’t see value in it. But it seems like to me if we are going to really round out this experience we have to have that, and we have to 

find ways to make that work in a way that the agencies actually 

want to make that happen, rather than to say or internally to say, 

well, yeah, you can go that path, but, guess what, it is not going 

to help you professionally down the road? 
25 

General BARNO. Well, perhaps a couple thoughts. 

My expertise in the other agencies is not deep at all. But having 

worked with them in the field, I think that one of the great benefits 

the military has that perhaps could be mandated in the other agencies of government is to at least establish a small schools account 

of officers, of 10, 15, 20, whatever the right number is, that that 

agency is required to keep in a school environment. And, theoretically, you could build their end strength, their resource end 

strength up to that level. 

State Department actually did this when General Powell was 

Secretary of State a few years ago. But the immediate expansion 

of State requirements consumed all those people, and they went 

out right out to Iraq and Afghanistan. So they had the right idea, 

they got it all the way to fruition, and then they were consumed 

by a new, unexpected requirement. 

And in many of these other agencies I think it could be a much 

smaller number. But the fact that the number today is zero gives 

them no incentive. Even if they were to establish a school float, if 

you will, of 10 people to attend schools on a regular basis, that 

would help give them the top cover to be able to do that. 

On the instructional side, I tend to think that was almost too 

hard for them and that perhaps retired Foreign Service officers, retired AID employees at the senior level could be recruited in to do 

some of the school work. But I think from the student standpoint 

you have to build that institutionally into their organizations. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. You know, we talk about how hard it is to get all 

the services on board and sending the best people to joint schools 

and then rewarding them when they get out of it. I mean, how 

much more difficult is it for people looking at their own career 

when they are outside of the military thinking, well, do I want to 

send this person here, and why would I want to go there? Because 

I am going to be hammered when I get home in my own agency. 

That is a problem. I don’t know how to get into that one. 

Dr. MURRAY. I would argue that the problem goes even more 

deeply than that. That, for example, the Army War College, which 

I have had the most recent experience with there, and there is an 

extraordinary number of colonels who come in or who eventually 

retire there, but who have been the West Point route or some other 

route and have a Ph.D. in military history or strategic studies or 

international relations, an outstanding academic background, and 

the problem is that if you bring people in from the CIA or from 

Treasury, whatever, they have no academic background at all. And 

so you are dealing with then you are almost making the interagency process look like a catastrophe. 

Because the people who are brought in, unfortunately, my experience has been that the various war colleges—and maybe it has 

changed now—is that the agencies don’t pick their best people to 

go there. Some of them do go there, but it is usually idiosyncratic 

or somebody just simply is interested and wants to do it. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Murray, we met a student at one of the colleges 

from the State Department who was there spending I think it was 

almost a full academic year, but he was a State Department security guy. And he was there and he was a good person, he was a 
26 

very good security guy, but they kept coming and asking him to 

comment on foreign policy. And he said, I am the security guy. But 

that was the problem that the State Department has currently 

with their lack of a float. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Maybe just following up on that question, because I think that 

one of the frustrations that we have certainly had is that when it 

came to the individuals serving over in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 

professional military education as well as the training that people 

had received put them at such a much higher level than State Department personnel and others that were coming from other agencies in terms of their, you know, their breadth of experience really 

at that level. 

And what you are saying about the interagency, that in fact people coming from other agencies don’t have the academic background to be able to actually fit in and to be able to make a contribution—I mean, I think that is what I heard you saying. And 

that is interesting. And I am just wondering, how do we mitigate 

that? What are your thoughts and ideas about that? 

Dr. MURRAY. I am not sure there is an answer. I think there is 

an additional problem to the one you just raised, which is the fact 

that military officers from the beginning of their career are used 

to running things, running a large group of people. Even a platoon 

commander is going to have 40 or 50 people who he is responsible 

for. And he has got to organize his training. He has got to deal 

with seniors in a very complex environment. 

And that is not simply true of the experience of officers in other 

agencies. They don’t run large groups. And they are staff. They are 

part of a bureaucracy which is very important and essential, and 

so they are coming from a handicap from that point of view. 

And it is very difficult. I don’t have any answers. But it is well 

worth sort of underlining the difficulty, because somebody needs to 

start thinking about addressing the problem. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yeah. Anybody else have any thoughts? 

General BARNO. I think it is a huge issue. The fact that we are 

having to put people there at all doesn’t make it any better. The 

only mitigating possibility could be to try and either encourage or 

require those participants to have served in the field in that setting 

with military officers so that at least they have an experiential 

background, even if they don’t have an academic background, to be 

able to contribute to the dialogue at the senior level that is going 

to go on at the War College. And there are going to be an increasing cohort of those people out there in all these agencies. So I think 

tapping them then for follow-on school assignments could be quite 

valuable. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yeah. Part of it is the openness of the services as 

well. Because I think that, again, this is really more at a different 

level rather than education, but clearly the military has a much 

deeper bench than the civilian community does, certainly than the 

State Department does, and so people can float more easily. You 

don’t have as many people to pull. 

And I thought your idea about trying to preserve a number of positions that actually are not just—it is almost not just for their own 
27 

education, but it is also for their opportunity to provide their perspective to others. I mean, they are in a very different role when 

they are doing that; and we need to try and facilitate that process. 

I am not sure of the answer either, but I think it is an important 

one. 

I wanted to just ask you briefly about the role that professional 

military education has in ROTC. I mean, typically, that is a recruiting and perhaps a superficial level of training in some ways 

that ROTC has had a role in that way. I know just speaking from 

my own experience with a number of ROTC instructors, wonderful, 

wonderful people, but probably were not able to play a broader role 

in terms of the education of many of the men and women in ROTC. 

Do you think that we should be focusing more on that? Should 

DOD and should the schools be trying to use that as a much 

stronger vehicle for helping to at least inspire young people, whether they actually go into the service or not, but learning more command and control structures, how to get things done, whether it is 

a national security, homeland security? Is that a role and would 

that be of benefit to you as you see young people coming into your 

schools as well? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I have a vested interest in this, I guess. I did 

teach at the Naval Academy, and I came from OCS myself. But I 

worked closely with the Navy ROTC (NROTC) program at Northwestern University, because Loyola students go up there on a 

crosstown arrangement. It is an excellent program, and the people 

that go through there are as fine as any I saw at Annapolis. They 

have a very rigorous and a very serious military component to their 

program; and they have required courses that put them in my 

classes, for example, and other classes at Northwestern that sort 

of meet the requirements I would hope that they would be doing. 

So it is an excellent program. I strongly support it. Plus it has the 

civil-military implications I discussed earlier. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I am glad to hear the strength of the programs that 

you have seen. I suspect that is probably not the same throughout 

the country, although there are exceptional programs, yeah. 

Dr. MURRAY. Let me just add something, too, because I think it 

is a rather interesting perspective. And it may well be out of date 

because I retired from Ohio State in 1996. What I think Allan 

Millett and I noticed over that span in terms of ROTC programs 

is there were outstanding officers sprinkled here and there 

throughout the various cadres. But the only service that consistently placed outstanding officers and only outstanding officers in 

positions of the ROTC was the Marine Corps. Consistently, Marine 

officers, the POIs were outstanding. In fact, sort of along those 

lines, with the huge number of officers that came through Ohio 

State to teach in ROTC, the only people who got advanced degrees 

in military history and strategic studies were the Marines, which 

I think says a great deal about the level of professionalism that the 

Marines—in terms of the selection of officers. And my sense is that 

in the other services it is not regarded as a crucial key billet, 

whereas I think very clearly the Marine Corps regards it. And it 

should be. It should be. 

General BARNO. If I could just add, I think it absolutely needs 

to be reinforced. And it is the production mechanism for the major-
28 

ity of officers. Although in the Army it is beginning to be 

outsourced or outcompeted by officer candidate school in the last 

couple of years. And this issue of the quality of the cadre who lead 

the ROTC detachments is absolutely essential. Those are the role 

models, those are the motivators, those are the recruiters that 

bring the best people into these programs. And in the environment 

we are in today, I can think of no better place for someone who has 

come out of combat in one or two or three tours to go and to mold 

young people and to have that experience and be with them for 

three years or so to be able to get them to come into these programs. Because that is going to be the future high-quality officers 

we are going to have. 

Now, that, too, has been stressed by a variety of factors. In the 

Army, a number of ROTC detachments, I think most ROTC detachments now have at least one wearing a uniform on the detachment 

who is a contractor, that they have taken a lot of the deputy professors of military science and contracted those positions out. So that 

is probably not in a lot of ways a helpful development in terms of 

the ability for those people to be role models for young 18-, 19-, and 

20-year-olds. They are not in the force anymore. They are not going 

to be as energetic as someone who is a 32-year-old captain just out 

of two tours in Iraq. So I think we have to look very carefully at 

that. 

And then keeping these people, keeping these quality graduates 

beyond that, we haven’t really talked about that in the hearing 

today. But this issue of how we preserve this talent once it comes 

into the force, particularly the intellectual talent, and not let it 

leach out of the force at year six, year seven, year eight, year nine, 

I think that is something that is part of PME indirectly, it is part 

of this professional education system and the development system 

of officers that we don’t want to have the wrong officers at the year 

20 or 25 mark out there because all the real high-powered officers 

have gotten out because they have gotten discouraged because of 

their prospects. 

Dr. SNYDER. Gentlemen, we appreciate you being here. Those 

buzzers are we have a series of votes going on. We may have some 

questions for the record, if you would respond to them in a timely 

manner. 

Let me suggest to you, too, if there is anything additional, written comments that you would like to make, would you please send 

that to us. And we will consider this an open question for the 

record to amplify anything you would like to talk about today. 

But thank you for your service here today and for all three of 

your long careers for helping our country. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 

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SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Dr. SNYDER. What lessons can be gleaned from current and foreseeable contingencies for educating officers? How should the PME schools vet lessons learned from 

current operations into their curricula? 

General BARNO. There are a myriad of lessons that today’s contingency operations 

in Iraq, Afghanistan, and globally can provide to our PME programs; likewise, the 

prospects of other ‘‘foreseeable’’ or unforeseen contingences should help us assess 

where we are today and how we can better prepare for an uncertain future. Army 

Colonel Joseph Buche, currently a fellow at the Center for New American Security 

has written that while training can play a central role in preparing us for well-understood threats, only education can help our leaders truly prepare properly for 

threats characterized by deep uncertainty—I wholly agree with this premise. Today’s operations, especially in the field on counter-insurgency, have now been well 

captured in military doctrine (e.g., the Army-Marine Corps Field Manual 3–24). This 

‘‘institutionalization’’ of COIN will now create spillover effects in many other military arenas, which in concert with focused deployment training for units about to 

embark to Afghanistan or Iraq, will instill a solid depth of understanding in these 

sorts of wars. I am confident that the military school system will rigorously incorporate the tactical (battlefield) lessons of current operations into their curricula; I 

am much less sanguine that they will even attempt to understand and incorporate 

the operational and strategic ‘‘lessons learned’’—in fact, I have seen little to no effort in this arena. Even more troubling is the likelihood that today’s wars will only 

partly resemble tomorrow’s, and that leaders will not have sufficiently ‘‘opened the 

aperture’’ of minds strongly influenced by current experiences and training to the 

wider prospects for rapidly evolving forms of war. Broad and demanding educational 

experiences—either in civilian graduate institutions or in improved senior level military colleges—are essential prerequisites to future success in America’s wars. Unfortunately, there is too little emphasis accorded to the vital importance of this level 

of military education. The efficacy of today’s PME to produce skilled leaders comfortable not just in joint operations—the focus of the 1986 Goldwater Nichols legislation—but in national military and national security strategy has been largely 

unexamined. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the PME system doing enough to integrate PME curricula, emphasizing joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (HIM) concepts? 

How should lessons incorporating these concepts be extended to junior officers to 

best prepare them for engagement in combat, security, engagement, and relief and 

reconstruction operations? 

General BARNO. I believe that the PME system has done relatively well in attempting to integrate the concepts of JIM into today’s curricula, particularly in light 

of the lack of structural or conceptual integration of these disparate entities in the 

real world! Increased civilian participation in PME establishments would significantly strengthen this exchange of ideas and experience, and might require some 

directed ‘‘educational float’’ within the civilian departments of government to support educating this population as well as connected them in PME to their military 

counterparts. We no longer have the luxury of sparing civilian leaders from the demands of working in these organizations and we need to address ‘‘junior’’ civilian 

education; however we should avoid adding additional JIM curricula into junior 

level officer schools that must continue to focus on tactical and operational unlikely 

subjects. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the only way to achieve the Skelton Panel Report’s recommended 

joint (and now increasingly interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational) acculturation through in-residence education or should distance or blended learning 

opportunities be more broadly embraced by the Services? 

General BARNO. Beyond in-residence education, I believe that providing more 

cross-departmental assignment possibilities would help each department’s officers 

gain a better understanding of the challenges, capabilities and limitations of their 

colleagues across the government. These experiences should also have a structured 

educational component (such as visiting senior leaders, seeing different parts of the 

department’s responsibilities) so that the experience is as broadening as possible. 
86 

Characterizing and structuring such assignments as ‘‘intergovernmental fellowships’’ might be a way to highlight their importance and encourage a selective application process. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your testimony you stated that ‘‘fellowships (with very few exceptions) should not be a substitute for SSC [Senior Service Colleges], but an additive 

experiential development opportunity.’’ Would you please elaborate as to why there 

shouldn’t be substitutes? 

General BARNO. The recent nearly unconstrained expansion of fellowships at the 

Senior Service College (War College) level—especially in the Army—diminishes the 

number of highly competitive Lt Colonels and Colonels who can attend the structured War College (Joint or Service) programs and sometimes provides little by way 

of a substitute in comparable fields. While all fellowship attendees must attend the 

JPME 12 week program at Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, this often occurs 

years later and does not in itself provide any educational exposure beyond planning 

joint operations; national military and security strategy is not included in any 

depth. The second-order effects of these proliferating programs is that the competitive quality of the officers attending service war colleges is declining; to fill slots left 

vacant by fellowships in the Army, for example, the service is dipping deeper into 

the reserve components and non-operational career fields with a resultant notable 

dearth of active duty combatant arms commanders in war college seminar groups 

this year. The quality and rigor of fellowships vary widely; certain fellowships (e.g., 

Harvard’s program) have been in existence for years and are rigorous and productive, others (to include several inter-governmental) have little or no academic component and can become simply ‘‘work’’ programs using ‘‘borrowed military manpower’’ to fill a seat vacated by an absence. This approach in particular provides 

very little in the way of educational development for the ‘‘fellow’’ but simply offers 

the experience of how another organization works from within. These type of programs in particular ought to be separate developmental opportunities characterized 

as ‘‘experiential’’ rather than ‘‘educational’’ and be viewed as an additional opportunity above and beyond SSC schooling—not as a substitute. Broadly, one would expect that the threshold of educational achievement required to graduate from a senior service college-level program would be rigorous and demanding; and if so, a significant number of fellowships on the books today should be excluded. Unfortunately, there is no such threshold established as to what specific knowledge, skills 

and attributes attend to a graduate of SSC fellowships, so virtually anything goes. 

Dr. SNYDER. How should officers be selected for in-residence PME and JPME? 

Would you use any kind of quality cut? How would you decide who goes to the joint 

PME institutions, the National War College, the Industrial College of the Armed 

Forces, and the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS), in residence? 

General BARNO. Selection for in-residence PME and JPME should be rigorous and 

competitive to reinforce the highly valued nature of these programs. Non-resident 

programs of continuing education should once again be employed primarily for those 

who were not as competitive for in-residence selection—as was the case at least for 

the Army until about 2004. Approximately 50% of each ‘‘year group’’ should be able 

to attend in-residence PME; this should perhaps be slightly higher for those in the 

command-track/operational career fields given the nature of both school curricula 

and the needs of that population. One would this reasonably expect as a result that 

nearly 100% of those that command at the Lt. Colonel level should have attended 

in-residence intermediate PME. The most significant aspect of returning to this system would be to increase the prestige and importance of attending full-time in-residence PME. Spending ten months devoted to education in the art and science of war 

at intermediate and senior levels alongside carefully selected peers from sister services and agencies creates an intellectually stimulating environment of shared learning with those very officers and civilian interagency leaders with whom one will 

spend the rest of a professional career. These officers at intermediate and senior levels should be identified by competitive selection boards similar to those used to 

screen for command today: again, this harkens back to the model used in the Army 

post-Vietnam until the mid-2000s with much success. The services could continue 

to ‘‘slate’’ attendance at both joint and service schools from within this overall competitive selection; that is, the board selects the individual and the service ‘‘slates’’ 

them to the appropriate service or joint school, based in part on individual preferences. The protections built into the quality thresholds extant in JPME schools 

would ensure those institutions continue to receive an exceptional quality of student; that has been an unchallenged outcome of establishing this requirement in the 

1986 legislation and will remain so. 

Dr. SNYDER. Your testimony asserted that: ‘‘no officer in a command track should 

be promoted below the zone to lieutenant colonel without a civilian degree from a 

first tier institution.’’ How should the Services’ personnel systems identify and select 
87 

the best candidates to pursue these civilian programs? How would you balance command potential versus intellectual qualifications? 

General BARNO. One of the pernicious dangers of the current system, particularly 

in the Army, is that there is increasing potential for the most intellectually gifted 

officers, beginning at the rank of Captain, to be weaned away from the operational 

(or ‘‘command-track’’) career path in order to become specialists who will neither 

command nor in most cases ascend to senior rank. If this trend takes hold, many 

of our future commanders may become among the least broadly educated and the 

least intellectual members of the force—hardly a recipe for sustained military success. In some ways, this outlook harkens back to the rightfully maligned British 

interwar system wherein the ‘‘regimental officer’’ was seen to be most highly esteemed by his peers—in part, because of his utter lack of outside education and experience beyond ‘‘the regiment.’’ The current Army Officer Personnel System inadvertently supports this type of model for combat arms and operational track officers. 

It is a ‘‘single track’’ system as opposed to the ‘‘dual-track’’ system that produced 

the current generation of Army leaders. Those in the single track operations career 

field today are expected to spend all of their time either in the field with troops or 

in operational or training staff billets, such observer controllers at the Army’s Combat Training Centers. Despite the recent promise held out by the Army’s so-called 

‘‘Pentathlete’’ program under then CSA General Pete Schoomaker, graduate education for the most competitive operations career field officers has faltered. The 

‘‘Pentathlete’’ concept posited that Army officers should aspire to be, must be multiskilled warrior-diplomat scholars and seek out a broad diversity of career and academic experiences. Unfortunately, the demands of two wars and the competitive nature of repeat combat assignments have caused many of the most highly talented 

and competitive officers to avoid time ‘‘out of the line.’’ Those that seek out civilian 

graduate schools are often en route to teaching assignments at West Point, a route 

that more and more commonly now leads officers to leave their basic branches and 

convert to ‘‘specialty’’ career fields. These deeply educated captains and majors thus 

often do not return to the operational force but become single-tracked as ‘‘Army 

Strategists’’ or ‘‘Information Operations’’ gurus. Incentivizing operations/command 

track officers to attend civilian graduate schooling must take many forms, including 

citing it as a waypoint institutionalized in officer career development roadmaps. But 

to put teeth in the system, it should also be written into selection board guidance 

as a pre-requisite for a second (not first) below the zone early promotion. This would 

provide additional time for officers to reach this goal—at least 12–14 years. Regarding ‘‘command potential’’ as intellectual qualification, I do not believe that command 

selection should be somehow tied to any set of intellectual criteria—performance 

and potential for future contributions in command of troops should remain the most 

important criteria. That said, we should strive to increase our numbers of well-educated commanders—this must be a talking point for senior leaders, and most importantly—must be a serious criterion for selection to flag rank. Education for strategic 

leadership and dealing with wicked problems may not be essential for battalion and 

brigade commanders, but it is vital for flag officers. Our system, paradoxically, will 

serve up the best tacticians to be selected for flag rank—where we will expect them 

to magically re-create themselves as strategic leaders. We must find, educate and 

retain intellectual talent in our commanders—for it is from this group that our senior-most leaders will derive. 

Dr. SNYDER. How would you alter force development policies (in the Services’ personnel management systems and in the PME system) to address the challenges associated with the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational operational environment? 

General BARNO. Given the increasing demand for officers to serve in developmental assignments and receive educational experiences, there may be a need to 

provide additional officer authorizations to ensure sufficient officers can receive 

these experiences without impacting the fill of operational billets in the force. This 

‘‘buffer’’ of officers above unit and staff billets is absolutely essential to achieve the 

goals of dominating the intellectual battlefield; the uncertainty of the future environment argues for greater numbers available for schooling, not fewer. This is also 

manifestly needed at flag officer rank. 

Dr. SNYDER. Considering the demands of the twenty-first century security environment, does the United States need more theoretical strategists (i.e., idea generators) than the few contemplated by the Skelton Panel Report? Do we need more applied strategists (i.e., practical implementers) than we did twenty years ago? 

General BARNO. We need more of both, and we need far more of both to populate 

the ranks of our flag officers. Again, our system generates the very best tactical 

commanders to be teed up for selection to flag rank. We then continue to pick from 

this very small cohort for all of our flag positions—and ultimately, our three and 
88 

four-stars as well as other positions with a myriad of duties requiring strategic leadership understanding and skills. If a service picks forty brigadiers per year (Army) 

or ten (Marines), that is the entire bench from which their future four-stars are selected from. In the Army and Navy, that bench is further reduced by internal selections for division (Army) or battle group (Navy) command at the one/two-star level. 

From this limited pool comes virtually all of the service four-stars 5–8 years hence. 

Thus the importance of selection for the first star becomes overwhelming, as do the 

internal thresholds thereafter which may artificially constrain even among the 

broader flag officer population who may be competitive internally for four-star rank. 

Dr. SNYDER. How might the PME system better enable strategists to become fluent in geopolitical trends and potential causes for conflict in the next quarter century? 

• Trends in: demographics, globalization, comparative economics, energy supply 

and demand, food production and distribution, water scarcity, climate change 

and natural disasters, pandemics, cyber connectivity, and the utility of space; 

and 

• Contexts for conflict like: competition with conventional powers, regional influences, weak and failing states, nonstate and transnational adversaries, the proliferation of WMDs, technological advancements, strategic communications, and 

rampant urbanization. 

General BARNO. Strategists (either full-time specialists such as the Army’s FA 59 

program or future generals) absolutely need civilian graduate education to fully 

hone their skills and expand their thinking to the broadest dimensions of strategy 

in a non-military, intellectually diverse academic environment. 

Dr. SNYDER. How should rigor be defined within the PME system in the future? 

Should the Skelton Panel Report’s notions of rigor (i.e., challenging curricula, student accountability, and measurable student performance) be updated or expanded? 

General BARNO. Rigor in PME at Command and Staff and War College programs 

should be re-examined. Some schools do this well through an environment more 

akin to a civilian graduate program with competitive grading and characteristic 

graduate programs (Naval War College, for example). In other programs, grading is 

pro forma and has no impact on the student for good or ill; no one can ‘‘fail’’ in effect, regardless of academic performance. There is also an argument to be made that 

academic performance ought to be a ‘‘plus’’ for future promotion (including early promotion) and assignments; today, it has little or no impact on either. 

Dr. SNYDER. Your testimony asserted that we have not invested adequately in the 

education of our senior military leaders, especially with regard to strategic thinking. 

You essentially concluded that PME ends just as flag and general officers reach the 

apex of leadership responsibility. What ‘‘measurable educational objectives’’ should 

we apply to ensure that flag and general officers receive rigorous PME? In your testimony, you mentioned the United Kingdom’s program for educating flag and general officers as a potential model for reform. Would you please describe the UK 

model and its potential benefits? 

General BARNO. Given the fact that I am not an academic by trade, and that most 

of my time in uniform has been as a commander, I am ill-suited to define 

‘‘measureable educational objectives’’ for any level of PME. That said, I believe that 

flag officers should be held to a high post-graduate level standard of writing and 

speaking; that their performance in one-on-one interviews and persuasive conversations should be evaluated; that their knowledge of war and warfare at the strategic 

level and underpinnings of conceptual understanding of war should be assessed; and 

that each of these objectives should be facilitated by a robust course content in an 

academically challenging higher command and staff course of 6–10 months duration, 

offered to Major General/Rear Admiral-selects before their first O–8-level assignment. 

This course could be modeled upon the British Higher Command and Staff course. 

Although the British course is designed for brigadiers, the advantage of an O–8 select course in the U.S. would be a narrowing of focus and of students—no more than 

about sixty O–7s are selected for O–8 each year, thus creating a precise cadre of 

future three And four-star officers. The Higher Command and Staff Course conducted by the British Joint Services Command and Staff College, is a 14-week 

course for officers (O–6—O–7) destined for higher joint command and senior staff 

positions (O–8 and above). The course is primarily focused on the military-strategic 

and operational levels of war set in the wider strategic context. The course is intellectually demanding. Graded tests, exercises, and a written dissertation are required. Most importantly, future assignments and promotions are influenced by the 

official academic report produced by the college. In the final analysis, a more robust 
89 

1Parenthetically, the Navy needs to create such a second year program as a follow-on to the 

Naval Staff College and support the second year programs of the other services with officers 

who are on the fast track to command. 

program, based on the British Higher Level Staff College would be of great value 

to the US PME system. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your testimony, you asserted that ‘‘it will only be our imagination 

and intellectual agility, or lack thereof, that will determine our success or failure 

in navigating an uncertain and dangerous future’’ and that ‘‘[o]nly an educational 

background that has prepared the senior officers of the United States to understand 

the fundamental nature of war as well as the enormous variety of contexts within 

which it may take place can provide officers with the mental agility to adapt.’’ 

Would you please elaborate as to how the PME system should best support the 

breadth of knowledge and nimble adaptive qualities that you think are required of 

successful officers? 

Dr. MURRAY. There are two clear parts to this question. First, I believe that the 

whole system from pre-commissioning through to war college in all the services 

needs to focus more clearly and effectively on the fundamental nature of war than 

is the case at present. Such an approach demands a deeper and more thorough emphasis on military and strategic history for those officers who are to rise to the senior ranks. Thus, study at the staff and war colleges must have war, its history, and 

its present dimensions at the heart of what they teach. At present, only the Naval 

War College and specialist programs like SAW, SAAS, and the Army War College’s 

Advanced Strategic Arts Program have such a focus. 

The second part of the question, as to how promote the qualities of intellect that 

lead to the nimbleness of mind and ability to adapt, is more difficult to answer. I 

believe that at its heart such an improvement in the PME system would demand 

a more careful selection of officers for command level billets—a selection process 

that would place performance in the school house as being as important as service 

in the field for command at all levels. Those officers who excel at the staff college 

level would then receive the opportunity for additional educational opportunities in 

civilian and military (such as SAW, SAMS, and SAAS) graduate schools to widen 

their intellectual horizons. 1 In addition, the services need to select a smaller number of officers at the O–3 level before they even reach the staff colleges for serious 

graduate study in strategic studies, military history, and area studies. Such changes 

would demand a fundamental shift in the cultural patterns of the services, particularly in their personnel systems as well as their career patterns. 

To facilitate such a program I would urge Congress to increase the number of O– 

3, O–4, and O–6 slots (the last strictly for input to war college faculty) that each 

service is authorized with these additional slots specifically targeted for officers enrolled in Ph.D. programs dealing with military and strategic history or strategic and 

national strategic studies (such as Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School). Authorizing 

ten slots each year for each service (five for the Marine Corps) would result in a 

steady output of officers who were not only well educated, but who had intellectual 

contacts with some of the best minds in academic life outside of the military and 

produce future great military strategists like Admiral William J. Crowe and David 

Petraeus (both of whom earned doctorates at Princeton). One might designate these 

fellowships Congressional fellowships with serious competition for these places. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the only way to achieve the Skelton Panel Report’s recommended 

joint (and now increasingly interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational) acculturation through in-residence education or should distance or blended learning 

opportunities be more broadly embraced by the Services? 

Dr. MURRAY. Here, I would suggest that what is need is not more education, but 

better education. Thus, I would argue that sending more outstanding officers out to 

graduate schools early in their careers represents a major step in the right direction. Distance education can also improve the system of professional military education, but only if it is properly resourced, and the record of the services on this 

issue has not been uniformly good. But a first-class distance educational system that 

allowed for smaller, in-residence staff and war colleges would provide a substantial 

improvement both in the quality of the student bodies and the faculty at these institutions by allowing a more careful selection process of the very best. 

Dr. SNYDER. You emphasized in your testimony that the Service’s personnel system are both outdated and out of synch with the PME systems, and you have advocated ‘‘significant reform.’’ What specific reforms would you recommend to ensure 

that PME becomes a higher priority in the promotion, command selection, and assignment processes? 

Dr. MURRAY. In the largest sense what is needed is a detailed examination by the 

HASC of the whole personnel system of the services. Such an examination would 
90 

need to go into the kind of detail that your committee is involving itself in with its 

examination of the PME system. I am not an expert on personnel systems; I am 

an educator. But there are several suggestions that I am willing to make. 

First, as suggested above, the performance of officers in the various schools must 

play a major role not only in the selection of those for early promotion, but in the 

command selection processes. Those who do not measure up as outstanding academic performers in the staff and war colleges must be eliminated for command selection, just as those who do not measure up in performance in the field are eliminated from command selection. 

Second, the attendance at staff and senior service schools must be by selection 

boards. 

Finally, Congress must not only allow waivers to mandates, but demand that the 

service personnel systems utilize such exceptions. 

Dr. SNYDER. The Skelton Panel Report considered faculty as the determinant factor in quality education. What policies would you suggest be implemented to ensure 

that the highest quality civilian and military faculty and senior leaders are assigned 

to the Services and joint PME institutions? 

Dr. MURRAY. Faculty along with the nature of the curriculum is the basis of excellence in any academic program. Unfortunately, while there have been considerable 

improvements in the faculty over what was typical in the late 1980s, there remains 

considerable room for improvement. There are a number areas that need improvement: 

First, there is too much emphasis on academic credentials instead of academic 

and teaching excellence in the selection of faculty. This has been driven by the desire to give students attending staff and war colleges master’s degrees. This has 

added an entirely unnecessary burden on selecting outstanding faculty. 

Second, the service personnel systems have consistently refused to give waivers 

to those applying for programs to earn a Ph.D. in a civilian institution in order to 

teach at a war college (and then have sufficient time for a pay back tour). Here the 

competition for such slots should be open to all O–6s regardless of the time they 

have remaining until retirement with the understanding that they will serve the 

necessary years beyond 30 to satisfy the requirements for pay back. 

Third, a number of staff and war colleges have adjunct faculty not only to teach 

in distance-learning programs, but to augment special programs like ASAP at the 

Army War College. The whole payment system treats distinguished professors and 

academics (like Rick Atkinson and Eliot Cohen) as well as other serious contributors 

to PME from the outside as if they were making widgets for F–22s. Congress needs 

to give the war and staff colleges the latitude to pay such outside professors and 

augmentees as special cases. 

Fourth, if the United States is going to possess world-class faculties at its PME 

institutions, then it needs to provide them not only with salaries above those in the 

Title 10, but the manning levels to allow their faculty to have sabbaticals to expand 

their knowledge and understanding of war and strategy which in turn will contribute to the knowledge of these difficult topics they impart to their students. 

Finally, let me note that there is a serious impediment to the bringing on board 

of world-class faculty in the power that service and joint personnel offices exercise 

over the hiring of new professors and the setting of their salaries. 

Dr. SNYDER. Will the future security environment require shifts in the way we 

formulate and execute military strategy? Will it require changes in how strategy is 

taught in PME institutions? If so, can you describe these shifts and changes? 

Dr. MURRAY. Let me stress here that the fundamental approach to the study of 

strategy and policy that the Naval War College developed in the early 1970s under 

Admiral Stansfield Turner remains the clearest and deepest examination of strategy 

that has ever been developed. Some of our greatest academic institutions (Yale and 

Ohio State) have based their grand strategy courses on that of the Naval War College. What needs to change is that the other PME institutions should come up to 

the same benchmark. Humankind has always lived in a world of change; but the 

fundamentals of human behavior remain the same. We do not need new gimmicks 

in the study of strategy. What we need is not to forget the past. We have repeated 

all too often in my lifetime the mistakes that previous generations of civilian and 

military leaders have made. And we should not forget George Marshall’s comment 

in an address at Princeton in 1947 that if you want to understand the strategic environment, read Thucydides. 

Let me emphasize here that I am not advocating the teaching of academic history, 

but rather using academic history to examine and help in understanding the 

present as well as to think about future possibilities. The ‘‘Joint Operating Environment,’’ published by Joint Forces Command in November 2008 represents an example of how history should be used to think about the future. 
91 

Dr. SNYDER. Considering the demands of the twenty-first century security environment, does the United States need more theoretical strategists (i.e., idea generators) than the few contemplated by the Skelton Panel Report? Do we need more applied strategists (i.e., practical implementers) than we did twenty years ago? If so, 

what percentage of the officer corps would need to exhibit these skills? 

Dr. MURRAY. There is no way to measure the right number. One would be sufficient, if she or he were in the right position. The crucial issue is not necessarily 

to develop theoretical strategists, rather it is to insure that those at the highest levels in the American military have a thorough intellectual grounding in strategy. And 

they can only gain the insights necessary for such grounding in a deep education 

in war and strategy, gained through the study of history. 

Dr. SNYDER. How might the PME system better enable strategists to become fluent in geopolitical trends and potential causes for conflict in the next quarter century? 

Dr. MURRAY. I do not mean to be flippant here, but most of these can be readily 

grasped by a coherent reading program of the nation’s great newspapers (readily 

available online) and by reading an intelligent selection of major news magazines. 

The hard part comes in understanding what such trends might mean. As Joint 

Forces Command’s ‘‘Joint Operational Environment’’ makes clear, humankind has 

confronted throughout history an environment of constant change. We have been 

caught by surprise in the past and we will be caught by surprise again and again 

in the future. Only by having a grasp of what the past suggests can we begin the 

processes of preparing to adapt. 

Dr. SNYDER. How should rigor be defined within the PME system in the future? 

Should the Skelton Panel Report’s notions of rigor (i.e., challenging curricula, student accountability, and measurable student performance) be updated or expanded? 

Dr. MURRAY. The improvement in academic rigor in the staff and war colleges has 

been considerable since the late 1980s, but most of the other PME institutions have 

not come up to the standards of the Naval War College or the mark set by the Skelton Panel. Above all, intellectual rigor depends on the presence of a first-class faculty. The crucial issue to me, however, is that until performance at the staff and 

war colleges becomes a major player in promotion and selection for command billets, 

rigor will remain almost meaningless in the development of a military leadership 

with strategic and operational vision. 

Dr. SNYDER. Are there elements of rigor that should be standardized among all 

PME institutions? How much discretion would you afford each individual institution 

in defining rigor? 

Dr. MURRAY. Here I believe that the institutions must define their own approach 

to education. Having watched the services and the joint world operate for the past 

fifteen years, my sense is that should there be efforts to achieve uniformity in a 

common approach, standards would fall to the lowest common denominator. The 

crucial issue is that each staff and war college should render to each individual officer’s service an academic report that has rests directly on the student’s academic 

ranking in his class: A ranking that would delineate the top 10 percent; the second 

ten percent; and the rest with a clear, rigorous examination of each student’s 

strengths and weaknesses. 

Dr. SNYDER. You have asserted that the PME system is ‘‘seriously underfunded,’’ 

and you have noted that this undermines the ‘‘quality of faculty’’ at PME institutions. Would you please describe how increased funding for PME might alleviate 

that problem and any other problem for which you think funding is the issue? 

Dr. MURRAY. I believe there is a fundamental mismatch between the stated desire 

of possessing a world-class faculty and the reality. 

First, if you want the best people, then you should be prepared to pay them. 

Equally important, if you expect them to do serious research in military or strategic 

history and issues, then these institutions must make sabbaticals available. This, 

in most cases, will not only involve fully paid leaves of absence, but travel funds 

so that faculty members can visit archives, attend conferences, and visit U.S. commanders and their staffs not only in the United States, but in other parts of the 

world. 

Second, these institutions need to have the funding to sponsor major conferences 

of leading academics, theorists, strategists from around the world, not just from the 

immediate area, as is so typical of what passes for strategic conferences in this 

town. Travel is expensive, but the cost needs to be borne, especially in exposing the 

students to great thinkers from elsewhere than just the United States. 

Third, greater funding is needed for inviting outside speakers to address the student body on fundamental issues of military and strategic history. 

Finally, I believe that the National Defense University remains still part of the 

Army’s budget. If this is so, it should receive its own funding line, independent of 
92 

any service within the Department of Defense. Moreover, it should be directly 

placed, if possible, under the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the JCS. 

Dr. SNYDER. What are your views on the current military and civilian leadership 

and academic requirements for: Presidents, Provosts, Commandants, Deans, CAOs, 

Deans of Students, and Chiefs of Staff? Should we adjust any of these requirements? 

Dr. MURRAY. I can only give the most general of answers, because I have been 

an observer rather than a participant in the PME world for over a decade. But in 

general, I would suggest that most of the individuals who head up the staff and war 

colleges have received their appointment not because of their academic qualifications, or because of their intellectual interests. Instead, most have been selected on 

the basis of providing them a sinecure before they retire. Let me stress that this 

has not always been the case, but it has been the case too often, given the importance of these institutions. 

Moreover, those who are qualified for the job because of their interest and qualification, rarely have the time to make major changes in the quality and culture of 

an academic institution. A three-year assignment, which is the consistent practice, 

is simply too short a time to make major changes in most cases. Here, it is not so 

much a matter of adjusting requirements, but rather encouraging the appointment 

of senior, qualified general and flag officers to these positions for sustained periods 

of time. And I would recommend that the position of president or commandant at 

the war colleges should be a three-star position rather that two stars. 

In conclusion, let me emphasize that I have been honored to participate in your 

effort I would also like to express my admiration for your efforts to repair some of 

the deficiencies that exist in the current system of professional military education. 

Dr. SNYDER. You concluded in your testimony that, ‘‘maximum exposure to rigorous civilian academic standards will strengthen PME, better prepare the military 

to deal with future challenges, and strengthen the bonds between the military and 

society.’’ You also noted that the military will be increasingly called upon to perform 

its missions among civilian elements both at home and abroad in a new ‘‘hybrid’’ 

security environment, blending international, transnational, and sub-national 

threats. How should civil-military relations be taught within PME curricula to optimize preparedness for civil-military future requirements? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. The best curriculum for teaching civil-military relations in both the 

military and civilian environments begins with a solid grounding in the classics of 

the discipline, starting with the works of Morris Janowitz and Samuel P. Huntington. At the risk of omitting other scholars whose work I also admire, Charles 

C. Moskos, Sam C. Sarkesian, David R. Segal, James Burk, Peter Feaver, Richard 

Kohn, Eliot Cohen, Don Snider, Deborah Avant, Moshe Lissak, Bernard Boene, 

Christopher Dandeker, Anthony Forster, and many others come to mind as scholars 

who revised and supplemented this early work in important ways. 

Most military officers are familiar with the theories of military professionalism of 

Samuel P. Huntington. These reinforce the dominant internal narrative of a professional military occupying a distinct and somewhat separate position with respect to 

civilian society. There should also be a deeper understanding of work of Morris 

Janowitz, especially his view that the military is closely related to society—growing 

out of it and sharing its values. 

The discipline of civil-military relations is well developed and has a rich literature. Much of the best work is found in the pages of Armed Forces & Society, 

an interdisciplinary and international scholarly journal dedicated to the study of 

military professionalism and the relations between the military and society. (This 

journal, edited by Patricia Shields, is the official journal of the Inter-University 

Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, which I have to privilege to chair.) 

Prior to this detailed study, however, officers need to be educated in such a way 

that they are intellectually curious, able to analyze complex and ambiguous situations, understanding of foreign cultures, and capable of expressing themselves clearly. These are core competencies not only of budding strategists, but anyone who will 

conduct military operations in situations where the human terrain is a factor and 

victory is not based on firepower alone. These competencies are best developed in 

highly demanding academic programs based on the social sciences and humanities. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the only way to achieve the Skelton Panel Report’s recommended 

joint (and now increasingly interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational) acculturation through in-residence education or should distance or blended learning 

opportunities be more broadly embraced by the Services? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. There is no substitute for in-residence educational experiences of 

the highest quality as early in an officer’s career as feasible given the requirement 

for specialty training at that stage. Education and training go hand in hand, and 

in-residence training is irreplaceable for education. The acculturation recommended 

in the Skelton Panel Report requires face to face interactions with members of the 
93 

groups with whom officers will be called upon to serve. Only in that way can members of the various institutions get to know one another and understand their respective institutional cultures. It is not always true that ‘‘where you stand depends 

on where you sit,’’ but institutional factors powerfully affect the attitudes and positions of otherwise similar individuals. It would be best for officers to have a visceral 

understanding of these before they work together in a crisis environment. 

From a budgetary perspective, distance learning makes a great deal of sense; from 

an educational perspective, it makes less—especially in the humanities and social 

science courses required to develop critical analysis and communications skills. 

Whatever the budgetary implications, distance learning does facilitate access to the 

far-flung military population. One could imagine some kind of blended program in 

which fact acquisition—as opposed to acculturation and socialization—is performed 

outside the traditional classroom, but the ratio of in-class interaction to online actions should be as high as possible. Of course, a great deal of individual self-study 

is required for professional development before, during, and after formal educational 

experiences. 

Dr. SNYDER. Your testimony was very encouraging of increased civil-military 

interaction, especially in the academic arena. Would you please elaborate on how 

specific types of scholarly interactions might benefit the PME system, and the officer corps as a whole? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. There are many opportunities for the sort of civil-military interactions that would benefit both the PME system and the officer corps as a whole: 

• Broadly based ROTC programs at our best universities are an important link 

with civil society and provide a diverse infusion of new officers. 

• Civilian graduate education brings the most talented military and civilian students together in the most demanding educational settings; it also exposes highpotential officers to civilian academic ways of thoughts and to the highest intellectual standards and puts a human face on the military for future civilian leaders. It goes without saying that the selection process for these assignments 

must be based on individual merit and potential for distinguished future service. 

• Highly qualified civilian instructors in military PME institutions, either on a 

permanent of rotating basis, bring a bit of the civilian education experience inside the military PME system. 

• Participation in appropriate academic conferences promotes meaningful professional interactions between the civilian academic community and the military, 

to the advantage of both. It also stimulates officers to write papers and eventually publish their work. 

• Membership in scholarly societies such as the Inter-University Seminar on 

Armed Forces and Society provides important professional interactions and a 

network of professional contacts. 

• Publication in rigorously reviewed scholarly journals ensures a wide audience 

of expert civilians for the authors’ work and the publication process generates 

a great deal of useful intellectual feedback. 

Dr. SNYDER. The Skelton Panel Report considered faculty as the determinant factor in quality education. What policies would you suggest be implemented to ensure 

that the highest quality civilian and military faculty and senior leaders are assigned 

to the Service and joint PME institutions? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. Others are better positioned to comment on specific assignment 

policies, but I would note that training future strategists and implementers has implications for recruitment, future assignments, and promotion. The most appropriate 

officers must be selected for PME positions as both students and faculty. All must 

utilize the competencies they develop in their future careers, which must be long 

enough for the Services to benefit from their educational experiences. In addition, 

time spent in educational institutions must not be in itself a negative factor in subsequent promotion decisions. 

Dr. SNYDER. Considering the demands of the twenty-first century security environment, does the United States need more theoretical strategists (i.e., idea generators) than the few contemplated by the Skelton Panel Report? Do we need more applied strategists (i.e., practical implementers) than we did twenty years ago? If so, 

what percentage of the officer corps would need to exhibit these skill sets? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. As the question implies, both idea generators and practical implementers are needed in an increasingly complex and ambiguous security environment. Both benefit from highly rigorous training in a broad humanistic curriculum. 

This is especially useful because the future grand theorists may not be identifiable 

early on, but they will sort themselves out during the course of study proposed here. 
94 

What the precise ratio should be is impossible to predict in the abstract, but it is 

not possible to have too many idea generators. Those officers would likely also have 

the ability to implement policies, although the reverse cannot be assumed. 

Dr. SNYDER. How might the PME system better enable strategists to become fluent in geopolitical trends and potential causes for conflict in the next quarter century? 

• Trends in: demographics, globalization, comparative economics, energy supply 

and demand, food production and distribution, water scarcity, climate change 

and natural disasters, pandemics, cyber connectivity, and the utility of space; 

and 

• Contexts for conflict like: competition with conventional powers, regional influences, weak and failing states, non-state and transnational adversaries, the proliferation of WMDs, technological advancements, strategic communications, and 

rampant urbanization. 

Dr. WILLIAMS. Despite the importance of technological sophistication in the early 

part of some officers’ careers, especially in the Navy and Air Force, there is no technical education that will produce strategists able to deal with the complexity described above. The only solution is a comprehensive education broadly based in the 

social sciences and humanities with an emphasis on history, such as Admiral 

Stansfield Turner instituted over great opposition at the U.S. Naval War College in 

the early 1970s. 

This does not seem to be the path the Navy, at least, is taking. Recent Navy policy to require that 65 percent of midshipmen at the Naval Academy and in NROTC 

programs have technical majors seems shortsighted, especially in view of the heavy 

technical course requirements required of all midshipmen, regardless of major. Indeed, all USNA midshipmen graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree anyway. 

This is not a new trend in the Navy, and was accelerated under the otherwise beneficial influence of ADM Hyman G. Rickover and with the assumption that a high 

proportion of the U.S. Navy fleet would be nuclear powered. There does not seem 

to be a significant constituency inside the Navy (or perhaps the Air Force, which 

I know less well) to combat this trend successfully. Its reversal will not occur without outside inquiry and direction. 

For a more detailed exposition of these points, the Subcommittee may wish to consult ADM James Stavridis and CAPT Mark Hagerott, ‘‘The Heart of an Officer: 

Joint, Interagency, and International Operations and Navy Career Development,’’ 

Naval War College Review, Spring 2009, pp. 27–41, and RADM (Ret.) Jacob 

Shuford, ‘‘Re-Education for the 21st Century Warrior,’’ U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 2009, pp. 14–19. 

Dr. SNYDER. How should rigor be defined within the PME system in the future? 

Should the Skelton Panel Report’s notions of rigor (i.e., challenging curricula, student accountability, and measurable student performance) be updated or expanded? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I cannot improve upon the Skelton Panel Report’s criteria for academic rigor. The challenge will be to operationalize these criteria so they can be the 

basis of an effective program. The most important student outcomes—developing innovative strategists and effective implementers—may not be apparent for years. I 

would offer the caveat that an overemphasis on achieving measurable outcomes will 

increase the focus on the technological issues that can be measured most easily but 

which contribute the least to developing strategists. Fitness/efficiency reports for periods of academic study should be used to help determine future assignments. 

Dr. SNYDER. Are there elements of rigor that should be standardized among all 

PME institutions? How much discretion would you afford each individual institution 

in defining rigor? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. Different programs should be alike to the extent that they provide 

a challenging and intellectually open environment in which officers can develop 

their cognitive and expressive skills as effectively as possible. They will differ in the 

ways in which they go about achieving this result. Too much standardization is not 

desirable, as it stifles initiative and experimentation. I would allow a great deal of 

discretion to the educators and administrators at the various PME institutions, subject to a common understanding on the importance of academic rigor as stated 

above. 

Dr. SNYDER. Each PME school has a different internal organization. Is a unique 

organizational character necessary at each of the schools to optimize the PME mission? What, if anything, should be standardized among the schools with respect to 

their organization? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. I can think of no particular organization of the schools in the PME 

system that would further the goals of the Skelton Committee Report most effectively. Standardization should be at the level of a common understanding of the 
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educational purpose and the seriousness with which it should be pursued, not at the 

level of organizational details. There is also much to be said for maintaining the 

unique character of the various schools. 

Dr. SNYDER. What are your views on the current military and civilian leadership 

and academic requirements for: Presidents, Provosts, Commandants, Deans, CAOs, 

Deans of Students, and Chiefs of Staff? Should we adjust any of these requirements? 

Dr. WILLIAMS. The leading academic officers of PME institutions must have 

strong administrative skills, but they must also understand the academic process 

and support its goals. I am not sufficiently familiar with the details of current statutory requirements or administrative regulations in this regard to have an informed 

opinion on specific guidance. It is imperative, however, that appointees to these key 

positions have strong academic qualifications and are committed to promoting a rigorous educational program in their institutions. Continued Congressional interest in 

this issue will be helpful to focus attention on these criteria and ensure that appointees are of the highest quality. 

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