A misguided attempt to reform professional military education (JPME) in the 1980s led by the late Ike Skelton and other military reformers in Congress mandated that masters-level degrees be granted at all command and staff colleges, as well as a required study in "jointness." This forced all the military midlevel colleges to make room in their courses of study to accommodate the requirements of civilian academia to grant an advanced degree....Command and staff colleges had traditionally been the places where aspiring senior commanders really learned their trade as majors or lieutenant commanders. This used to include a serious study of military theory, history and staff planning. That is not currently the case.Today, seminar groups are led by two instructors -- one a uniformed officer and the other an academic. There is generally no requirement that either be an expert in combined-arms combat on land, in the air, or on the sea. In some cases, they're simply not knowledgeable about the study of war.
Well-meaning reforms sometimes go astray. "Jointness" definitely has its uses: the story of the Gulf War victory is a study in the military branches interoperating in a form of maneuver warfare that let Army and Marine land forces draw smoothly on Air Force and Naval air support.
Yet why should a military college be "forced" to issue Masters of Military Science degrees, say, on the terms of a civilian school? Presumably that was a choice; there's no reason that the School of Advanced Military Science should have to ask any civilian school what its requirements are for a Masters degree. As for accreditation, who is going to tell the US military that its Masters of Military Science isn't valid?
China, maybe, if this keeps up.
5 comments:
Was it to have that degree on their resumes when they left the military and went to work for defense contractors or whatever? Or even in other government agencies. Gov't agencies are notorious for having inflexible requirements for employment, such as "Masters degree in blank or a related field required."
China?
Nope
Russia via the Ukraine is going to tell the US military that its Masters of Military Science isn't valid.
We are going to colapse just like the USSR because the Lying Comunist military & political class are that arrogant and stupid.
https://mundabor.wordpress.com/2023/09/25/the-downfall-is-approaching/
Pass the popcorn please,
Greg
There's a sub-genre of pundits who blame everything bad that has happened since the mid-80s on Goldwater-Nichols or acquisition reform. It's too pat of an answer-- it allows you to ignore any number of alternate explanations, such as the remarkable consolidation of the military contractors, or lack of clear strategic goals from the political factions, or the negative effects of sharp reductions in force on the remaining officers/senior enlisted, or unstable budgeting (like, ahem, right now), etc. etc. etc.
Were they "forced" to offer masters degrees? No, not really. The Navy started it, saying that their command and staff college was a *real* college; they also then could brag that they were the most educated service, since all of their officers past lieutenant had master's degrees. The other services followed suit. When I was at the "Ft. Leavenworth short course" (long course was prison, yuk yuk), maybe a third of the students got one; it required a modest amount of extra work, and since most of us had just come from Iraq/Afghan, and would be sent off early to go back, the majority just wanted some down-time with their families. I did get one, in military history, mostly because I like military history, and we did "staff rides" to places like Little Bighorn and Chickamauga.
The instructors were about 50/50 military and civilian. The civilians were almost all retired military, and were by far more effective than the active duty assignees (who, also, had mostly just come back from Iraq/Afghan, and would be going back shortly, and just wanted some down time with their families).
Why did they do the whole certification thingy? Well, because you can't get federal funds for a college if you aren't certified by the Department of Education, which outsources the work to regional accreditors. And the school very much did get funding from the federal government! PS, nobody actually treats the "Masters of Military Arts and Sciences" degree as anything at all, even the holders of one.
Meh. The Afghan rout was due to highly political senior officers who didn't want to displease their boss, and their boss, who didn't want to hear it. They spent 20 years insisting to the president that we can't POSSIBLY pull out, it will be a disaster, and eventually Trump and then Biden finally said, you're just stalling, do what I say and stop whining. Troop numbers down from X to (X-5000) at the end of each month until we're gone, I won't sign deployment orders for more than (X-5000) total. At that point, even logical things like, we should maintain Bagram AB, were just seen as the military trying to evade an order they didn't want to do.
Janet
Janet, I freely admit no relevant experience but my initial take on this mirrors yours, especially that the more proximal cause of the disaster was a bunch of people who really didn't want to leave Afghanistan, stalled the withdrawal under Trump, and were caught flat-footed when Biden made the same demand.
When I, and 23 other Marine majors, attended the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS in 2008-09 we were not required to get a masters. It was an option offered if you wanted one. The instructor for my group was a retired Army LTC. He was an amazing instructor.
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