Bret Devereaux

And yes, since I am critical of how military education works - the place I've spent my career - I will say more at another time about it. But the problem with PME is simple: It's run by the military. /1

That is, PME institutions are intended to create a fusing of civilian and military education to produce a better officer corps, more agile, more intellectually flexible to face the challenges ahead even if we can't be sure what they are. /2

My own school - FOR WHOM I DO NOT SPEAK, if that's not clear enough - has for 50 years been trying to prevent the intellectual civil-military rift that created Vietnam. VADM Turner's convocation address back in the 70s is very clear on this. /3

And my institution is the best of them, in that we control the curriculum more than most military schools. But in the end, we are asking the military what the military should study, which always creates pressure for *training* rather than *education*. /4

Our schools are governed by the Pentagon, which for as long as I've been in PME wants more training and less intellectual squishy stuff. This is normal. If you ask military officers what military officers should study, that's the answer you'll always get. /5

This is why Petraeus argued in favor of sending more officers to CIVILIAN graduate schools, and he had a point. He noted that being the smartest boy in an Army school and then getting as ass-kicking at Princeton made a difference. /6

Not sure that's an answer, but can't solve the civil-military problem - which now is far more of a danger to us than foreign adversaries - by having the military define "education" and then sending officers to war colleges at the *end* of their careers and not the beginning. /7