Voice The Decay of the Profession of Arms by Major Matthew Cavanaugh, Foreign Policy’s Best Defense
The Profession of Arms is decaying (weakening or fraying -- as opposed to a relative decline), and the primary causes are neglect, anti-intellectual bias, and a creeping, cancerous bureaucracy.
Permit me to explain, to diagnose the patient's condition, in order to arrive at a common understanding of the illness. Let's begin with the Profession of Arms: This is society's armed wing, principally charged with guarding the safety and interests of that society. In some way, every political entity must use force or at least threaten to use force for it to survive in the international system. The members of the Profession of Arms are the custodians of the specific military knowledge that enables national survival. As Don Snider has put it, these commissioned members have one critical function, which is to successfully provide "the repetitive exercise of discretionary judgment[s] ... of high moral content." In essence this is military judgment, which today is decaying and being compromised through apathy, disregard for intellect, and a mammoth bureaucracy…
Comments
The article written makes for some interesting debate, and I agree that the military should be at the forefront of linking critical and strategic thinkers. However, I disagree that our “profession of arms is in decay” and what I truly feel is in decline is the support to our military amongst our elected officials. Likewise, I think the level of dissection of this article missed the point on age and experience when it suggested that West Point “should serve as a bridge between theory and practice. West Point should be home to a "Center for the Study of Modern Conflict" where civilian and military experts, cadets, and officers in the field collaborate to advance the Army's collective understanding.” We are still talking about an age group of 18-23. To put this in context, most attending these respective academies, such as West Point, are simply not ready at this age group for what this article is implying. What they need is what the institution advertises: Develop and build young men and women on the right path to citizenship, service, and community; Develop professional leaders and leadership fundamental; and hoped that when some of these “children,” decides to remain on active duty after their 5 years mandatory commitment. They have gained experiences during these receptive years in the military that will now assist in context and background from key developmental tools from their kit bag to which they pull from to formulate and provide analytical input; they have gained some “experience” at this juncture. Our service academies need to continue to focus on the basics of leadership fundamental. And, please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying that analytical and critical thinking is not needed at this foundational school…it is absolutely required and necessary at every level of educational institution; let’s just not focus our 18-22 at service academies on Clausewitz and Jomini this early on… before they even get a chance to lead a platoon of young men and women that our nation has entrusted upon them.
Today we have many military institutional schools where at different intervals of a career, one can attend a PME. It is after all by design, and it is at these selective Professional Military Education (PME) schools, such as the Captains Career Course (CCC), Intermediate Level School (ILS), Top Level School (TLS), etc… and various unit level PME program to build on the foundation of critical thinking. However, at this phase of these young officers’ career, and after graduating from the rigor of academic only 4 or 5 years remove, now has experiences with Troop Leading, BAMCIS, mission type orders, personnel management, training, exercise planning and many deployments