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Innovation in Education

The Innovation in Education column highlights new or updated praxes, pedagogies, and activities associated with 

learning and teaching in Professional Military Education. The column is meant to share high impact practices and 

novel methods of teaching according to the latest research from the field of educational science. Dr. Bell’s article 

originated from a presentation to the Centre for Land Warfare Studies as part of the Pragyan Conclave 2022 on the 

Future Wars and Counter Measures held in New Delhi, India from 03-04 February 2022. The article addresses the 

persistent debate regarding the role of training and education.

Doing and Thinking: 

Integrating Training and Education for the Best 

Outcomes

Written by1

Mary Bell, PhD

Training and the military are almost synonymous. Militaries have emphasized training since 

fighting began thousands of years ago. It is right to recognize there is a difference between 

training and education in the military, which requires understanding the military purposes and 

distinctions for each.1 Of course, there has been, in modern times, consistent debate about the 

distinction between training and education in the military. While it seems there is a great divide 

between the two camps, it is more often a case about nuance. To that nuance, what is less 

considered and infrequently discussed is the time at which education becomes relevant, both in 

terms of individual development and in the greater conversation of military advancement. 

Specific to the U.S. military, education seems to date to the beginning of the U.S. Revolutionary 

War in 1778. The nation’s founding father, George Washington, directed his Army chaplains, 

religious guides embedded in the ranks, to teach the soldiers to read.2 Perhaps surprisingly, he 

made the order, not to improve their performance as a soldier, but to improve their quality of life. 

Although he likely recognized that literacy would improve their perspectives, their attitudes, and 

therefore, he seemed to suggest, literacy would also improve soldiers’ ability to perform their 

duties. In all the huffier and puffier, the real debate—the nuance of the debate about training 

versus education—comes down to the purposes to define and apply them appropriately.

Joint Publication 1 as the capstone publication for all US joint doctrine defines military power as 

the integration with other instruments of national power to “advance and defend U.S. values, 

interests, and objectives.”3 Only when military power is combined with diplomatic, 

informational, and economic power is the U.S. able to achieve its objectives. In a singular 

summary, General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that “our children are 

the real reason that we in uniform all serve. Some say it's education, some say it's money, or for a 

1 The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Joint 

Forces Staff College, National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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variety of other reasons. No, it's for others. We serve for others. And most importantly, we serve 

for our children.”4 If the sole purpose of the military is not merely to be destructive—to break 

things and kill people, but to advance and defend interests and objectives, making the world a 

better place for future generations, then the question naturally follows: What does the military 

need to do to effectively integrate with the other instruments of national power? And: How does 

the application of training and education allow military actions to create positive operational and 

strategic effects?

Defining Training and Education

According to Daniel Burrus, training is task-oriented; training is skills-based.5 In this case, a 

military organization trains someone to do something in a specific way for a specific purpose. 

That training is meant to increase someone’s proficiency through standardization, but it depends 

on the quality of the training effort. You get out of it what you put into it.6 Here are some 

common examples of training: 

• Training how to disassemble and assemble a rifle

• Training how to fire a weapon and hit a target

• Training how to survive when your aircraft is shot down 

• Learning how to input data into a spreadsheet

• Training to run faster or longer

A trained person may get better at hitting a target. They may get faster and stronger. In both 

examples, however, they are unlikely to find a new and better way to do something or find a 

novel use for the same skill. Because training has a skills-based focus it does not provide the 

depth needed for creative problem solving and innovation.7

Alternatively, Burrus defines education as concept-based.8 Education is a form of learning, like 

training, but education encourages people to think, analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize 

information and apply creative thought to rebut an argument, solve a problem, or reach a 

conclusion. Education is learning to see the big picture of why and how things work together, 

integrating and innovating.

Some examples of education are:

• Learning about theories of war

• Learning what Sun Tzu, Carl Von Clausewitz, or Giulio Douhet thought about the 

relationship between politics and military power or how to best apply military power to 

create a desired effect

• Learning about the art of war

• Learning how Chairman Mao viewed the world

• Learning the extent to which international relations theories explain, or don’t explain, 

how nations and national leaders think about the world

• Understanding cause and effect in World War II and deriving principles of conflict and 

politics
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An educated person sees connections and embraces a wide perspective of events and 

possibilities, even gaining empathy for actors within and without an organization. Education 

includes thinking about and understanding diverse cultures and how to perceive a situation from 

multiple perspectives. Training is narrowly focused, and education is widely focused.

Purposes of Training and Education

In a 1997 monograph, Kime and Anderson write that the U.S. Founding Fathers considered it 

important to provide both training and education. The idea that military personnel are only 

trained to kill became increasingly anachronistic in the late 20th century. The lines formerly 

drawn between those who need education and those who need training have become blurred, if 

not irrelevant. Education without training is correctly understood as folly. When the military 

considers including senior enlisted officers in traditionally officer focused courses, they are 

wrestling with the training and education paradigm. However, it manifests organizationally and 

hierarchically, the military cannot train the uneducated, and the educated need the grounding of 

training.9 Yet, despite the obvious and practical necessity, the debate about the importance of 

both training and education rages on.

The military prizes health and fitness. Many of the fitness tests try to identify whether a 

servicemember has endurance or strength. Which is more important for a servicemember, to 

have greater endurance or more strength? It is a fraudulent question based on a false dilemma. 

The real question should be: What is one without the other? A physically fit servicemember must 

have both endurance and strength. A servicemember with only strength will not last a protracted 

conflict. A servicemember with only endurance may last the duration of a conflict but may not 

have the strength required for specific moments. Both capabilities are necessary for true fitness 

and the combinations of events conflict presents. 

While serving on the US Army III Corps targeting cell, one of the soldiers who worked with me 

was a bodybuilder. He won many competitions and worked hard to display beautifully developed 

muscles. In fact, sculpted might be the more accurate term; he took that much pride and love in 

the process. A Michelangelo of muscles he might have monikered himself. One night I asked 

him to help me lift and move some heavy equipment and he told me, “These muscles are for 

looking at. They ain’t for working.” We chuckled, but he meant it. His body was pure form and 

not function. Here was this seemingly precisely developed physique, that was unwilling—if not 

incapable—of doing real work. He had what appeared to be extreme strength, but it wasn’t 

useful as it translated to creating enduring power.

Balancing endurance and strength, like balancing training and education, shows the 

interdependent requirement for generating power. Balanced endurance and strength in physical 

fitness lead to physical power. Balanced training and education in the military lead to combat 

power.

A servicemember trained to do only certain tasks lacks the education necessary to employ those 

skills in ways that create power beyond the specific tasks. A servicemember only educated on 

theory and history lacks the specific training necessary to apply that knowledge. To think it is 
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either-or is foolhardy. Each enables the other. The combinations of training and education, 

education and training enable the military to create operational and strategic effects.

Balancing Training and Education

Consider the paradigm of training and education in terms of escalation dynamics. In my 

hypothetical scenario, there are three officers.

Officer A is well trained. 

Officer B is well educated. 

Officer C is well balanced in both training and education.

In the hypothetical example, there is an escalatory situation on the border between the US and 

Mexico. A drug cartel is operating on the U.S. southern border and cartel operatives are 

escalating the level of violence to increase their ability to traffic drugs and people into the United 

States.

Officer A, the one who is only trained, sees her response options as rather binary. She can either 

lead her soldiers to use all weapons at their disposal to defeat the enemy, or she can cede the 

initiative and allow the cartel operators to conduct their cross-border operations. The officer does 

not have the education she needs to understand the ramifications of her decisions. She does not 

have the concept of how to make a decision to support the broader concepts related to escalation 

management. She lacks power because she has limited ideas and options. Remember, power is 

not merely destructive.

Officer B, the one who is only educated, is thinking about what the theorists would do. If he 

thinks about how to apply the concepts of theorists such as Von Moltke, Mitchell, Galula, or 

Trinquier, then he is thinking about how to mass effects. The problem is he does not have the 

necessary training to translate the theories into action. He does not have all the tools he needs to 

create an operational or strategic effect that escalates or de-escalates appropriately. He does not 

have the right training to make a decision and translate it into action to support the broader 

concepts related to escalation management. He lacks power because he lacks the knowledge of 

how to organize people and sequence tasks to achieve it.

Officer C, the one who has both training and education, knows how to employ their forces to 

best create an environment to manage the escalating situation. Officer C can combine their 

training with their education and move out of the theoretical environment. They understand how 

to leverage their military forces to change the situation to achieve an operational and strategic 

objective. Their education allows them to envision and recognize opportunities; their training 

offers them organization and interpersonal conduits to direct and achieve that vision. They have 

power because they have both ideas and the physical instruments to implement those ideas.

The notion of balance is inexplicably absent from the conversation at most institutions. Walking 

through the halls after engagements with two major think tanks, the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, and members of the Joint Staff, two of the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) 
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international fellows stopped me. They explained how the education at the School is changing 

their perspectives and lives in ways they never imagined. Two Colonels, exceptionally well 

trained had not been exposed to military education at the graduate level like the Joint Advanced 

Warfighting School. Their point was that the education at JAWS was revolutionary because it 

didn’t tell them what to think; it showed them how to think.10

Conclusion

Though called by different names, servicemembers across militaries are required to undergo 

fitness reports and fitness evaluations. A truly fit servicemember has the perspective of education 

and the training of the organization. The fit servicemember can draw from history and theory to 

think through options and then implement their decision through the ranks, wielding the force as 

an instrument appropriate to the context.

Looking the part is not enough; wearing the uniform is not enough; good grooming, a good 

physique is not enough. Likewise, thinking big thoughts is not enough. Reality has a way of 

puncturing the dreams and thought bubbles of idealists.

Managing escalation in the 21st century is more complex than ever before. The strategic and 

operational environments are more complicated than ever before. Competition and conflict can 

go awry in more ways, more quickly than in previous eras. A soldier must be grounded in the 

fundamentals, which means better training and greater education. Training to know what can be 

done and having the skill to do it. Education to understand the adversary and to conceive of the 

options, leverage timing, and make insights. Managing escalation requires both training and 

education to avoid being more than a force of destruction and to achieve the interests of a nation.

One of the most crucial factors in improving graduate outcomes is engaging with people with 

different types of training and education. Faculty at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) 

facilitate learning while also leveraging student experience, so students can learn how to think 

differently and account for the ways others think. Students hail from all six military services, the 

Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, 

and nations across the globe to create seminars of students with varied backgrounds and 

experiences.11 A nation can spend an exorbitant amount on money on the most advanced military 

equipment, sure. But without an educational system in place to ensure the military personnel 

operating that exquisite materiel are balanced between training and education, the nation will not 

be able to effectively create military power. Military power integrated with diplomatic, 

informational, and economic power will “advance and defend [that nation’s] values, interests, 

and objectives.”12

1 David Morgan-Owen, “Approaching a Fork in the Road: Professional Education and Military Learning,” 

War on the Rocks, July 25, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/approaching-a-fork-in-the-road-professionaleducation-and-military-learning/. 2 Steve F. Kime and Clinton L. Anderson, “Education vs.Training: A Military Perspective,” by Steve F. 

Kime Director Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges and Clinton L. Anderson Senior Consultant, 1997, 

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED404452.pdf, p. 6. 3 U.S. Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 1, Volume 1, Joint Warfighting, Reference Copy” 

Washington D.C., June 19, 2022, p. II-8.
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4 Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army, “CSA’s Speech at Change of Responsibility Ceremony,” 

U.S. Army, May 4, 2016, 

https://www.army.mil/article/154050/csas_speech_at_change_of_responsibility_ceremony. 5 Daniel Burrus, “Teach a Man to Fish: Training vs. Education,” Burrus Research, June 10, 2015, 

https://www.burrus.com/2015/06/teach-a-man-to-fish-training-vs-education/. 6 Burrus. 7 Burrus.

8 Burrus.

9 Kime and Anderson, p. 7-9. 10 Paula Thornhill, “To Produce Strategists, Focus on Staffing Senior Leaders,” War on the Rocks, July 20, 

2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/to-produce-strategists-focus-on-staffing-senior-leaders/. 11 The six U.S. military services include the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy and Space 

Force. 12 Department of Defense. Joint Publication 1JP 1, p. II-8.