Beyond Joint – Professional Military Education for the 21st Century: The United Kingdom's Post‐Defence Training Review Advanced Command and Staff Course

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 UK National Audit Office (NAO), Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General HC 537 Session 2001–2002, 7 Feb. 2002, Ministry of Defence: The Joint Services Command and Staff College (London: TSO 2002) p.7. 2 Broadly 110 British Army, 75 RAF, 55 RN, 90 International and the rest made up of students from other UK government departments, including the MOD and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 3 UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), British Military Doctrine 0‐01 (London: TSO 2001); Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre, Joint Doctrine Publication 01: Joint Operations (JDP 01) (Shrivenham, UK: JDDC 2004) p. 2‐1, para. 202. 4 This academic–military relationship to accredit the UK staff course predates the establishment of the JSCSC and began in 1992 at the RAF Staff College, Bracknell and it was extended in 1993 to the Army Staff College at Camberley and the Royal Naval College at Greenwich with a supplementary MA package. 5 MOD, Strategic Defence Review, Cm3999 (London: TSO 1998) p.10, para. 16. 6 MOD, Modernising Defence Training: Report of the Defence Training Review (London: Ministry of Defence 2001) p.3. 7 Ibid. pp. 3, 7 and 8. 8 Ibid. p.19. 9 Ibid. p.20. 10 Ibid. p.16. 11 Lt. Gen. Sir John Kiszley, ‘Defence and the Universities in the Twenty‐first Century’, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Journal 149/3 (June 2004) p.37. 12 MOD, Report of the Defence Training Review (note 6) p.19. 13 For example, ‘The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards’, British Lt. Gen. Sir William Francis Butler (1838–1910), quoted in Volker Franke, Preparing for Peace: Military Identity, Value Orientations, and Professional Military Education (London: Praeger 1999) p.39. 14 MOD, Modernising Defence Training: Report of the Defence Training Review, Vol. 2 Supporting Essays, Supporting Essay Seven: Education for Defence (London: MOD 2001) p.36 quoting Professor Ian Angell of London School of Economics at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Conference, 26 Oct. 2000. 15 Air Vice‐Marshal Brian Burridge, ‘Post‐Modern Military Education: Are We Meeting the Challenge?’, Defence Studies 1/1 (Spring 2001) pp.xi–xii. 16 Leonard D. Holder and Williamson Murray, ‘Prospects for Military Education’, Joint Force Quarterly (Spring 1998) p.90. This kind of measurement of success was also found in the DTR report that ‘Recent operational success has shown our training is of a very high standard’, MOD, Report of the Defence Training Review (note 6) p.13. 17 In the UK, defence differentiates between training and education in the following way. Education is defined as ‘Development of intellectual capacity, acquisition of supporting knowledge and inculcation of attitudes that underpin performance and engender understanding, commitment and ethos’; whereas training is defined as: ‘Activity that aims to impart the specific knowledge and skills and/or inculcate appropriate attitudes required by an individual in order to perform adequately a task or job.’, MOD, Director General Training and Education, Defence Systems Approach to Training (DSAT) Quality Standard (QS) 002:2003 (London: TSO 2003) pp.3 and 5. 18 Jeffrey D. McCausland and Gregg F. Martin, ‘Transforming Strategic Leader Education for the 21st‐Century Army’, Parameters 31/3 (Autumn 2001) p.27. 19 Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, Chair Dick Cheney, Project Director and Editor Bill Taylor, Professional Military Education: An Asset for Peace and Progress (Washington, DC: CSIS, March 1997) p.18. 20 Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press 2006) pp.18–19. The Five Minds are the disciplined mind, the synthesising mind, the creative mind, the respectful mind and the ethical mind. 21 Kiszley (note 11) p.35. 22 Gregory C. Kennedy and Keith Neilson (eds.), Military Education: Past, Present and Future (London: Praeger 2002) p.x. 23 Thomas A. Keaney, ‘The War Colleges and Joint Education in the United States’, in Kennedy and Neilson (note 22) p.150. 24 Kiszley (note 11) p.36. 25 Burridge (note 15) p.xv. 26 Kiszley (note 11) p. 36. 27 Richard Chilcoat, ‘The Revolution in Military Education’, Joint Force Quarterly (Summer 1999) p.60. 28 Kiszley (note 11) p.34. Drivers for change in education and training: ‘SDR’; ‘Shifting Social Trends’ – Sandhurst entry 90 per cent graduates and 20 years ago was less than 40 per cent; RN 80 per cent; RM (Royal Marines) 95 per cent; and RAF 60 per cent, MOD, Report of the Defence Training Review (note 6) p.6. 29 MOD, Modernising Defence Training Vol. 2 (note 14) p.36. 30 At the JSCSC defence has made the investment of having a resident department of King's College London so that all students on the ACSC can apply to study for the parallel degree while studying for their staff course, thus obviating the need for officers selected onto the ACSC to take a year out to study for a postgraduate qualification at a university. 31 Eighty per cent of ACSC10 students had operational experience and 42 per cent combat experience. The average age of UK students has increased from 36 to 40. British Army students are now of Major and Lieutenant Colonel ranks, thus mirroring closer the age profile of RN and RAF than previous courses. Other government departments (OGD) are represented on the ACSC, but historically it has proved difficult to achieve representation of non‐Service or Civil Servants. OGD representation tends to be from the MOD and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. 32 International students are fully integrated into the ACSC. In view of the increasing demand of the course the International English Language Testing System entry standard was lifted to 7 for ACSC10. 33 A number of British Army officers who had attended ACSCs1–9 were invited to do the new course. 34 Historically between 250 and 290 students out of a student total of 320 apply to and are admitted on to the MA in Defence Studies. Even if students do not study for the parallel MA programme, all benefit from postgraduate education. 35 The review and subsequent rationalisation in the HLTOs was made possible by the removal of the Single Service Phases of ACSCs 1–9. The need to meet Single Service requirements and objectives was thus transferred to intermediate officer education and training. 36 The educational aims that focus the ACSC at the postgraduate (Masters) level are as follows: ‘To develop the learner's knowledge and understanding of defence in the modern world. To demand critical engagement with current research and advanced scholarship on defence and its relationship with the fields of international relations, security studies, military history, war studies and operational experience. To encourage a systematic and reflective understanding of contemporary conflict and the issues that surrounds them. To promote initiative, originality, creativity and independence of thought in identifying, researching, judging and solving fundamental intellectual problems in this area of study. To develop relevant transferable skills, especially communication, use of information technology and organisation and management of the learning process.’ The Operational Level professional focus of the ACSC has the following learning outcomes related to the examination of the implications and issues related to achieving success at the operational level. These include understanding the purpose, planning and conduct of operations, and the management of defence to provide and maintain capability for operations. The investment made through the course provides the opportunity to enhance the student's judgement and therefore the value of that individual's contribution to decisions that shape and support operations in all types of subsequent appointments. The educational aims that focus the ACSC at the operational level are as follows: ‘To develop the learner's ability to evaluate the implications and issues for the operational level that arise from the strategic context and tactical realities. To develop the learner's ability to define the critical decisions required for success at the operational level. To encourage systematic and refctive understanding of the challenges and issues confronting commanders and leaders working at the operational level in order to promote personal and team Command & Leadership qualities. To enable analysis of operational level problems and the development of appropriate organisational, methodological and resource‐based solutions.’ 37 For students to achieve pass staff course (joint) they are required to pass three tiers of assessment. There are five assessments for Tier 1: a 4,000‐word essay on Strategy and Policy, a 6,000‐word essay on Componency, a 15,000‐word Defence Research Paper, a Campaigning formal Exercise and a Defence Policy and Strategic Planning Formal Exercise. The criteria that are assessed for Tier 1 are knowledge and understanding; intellectual skills of analysis synthesis and evaluation; transferable skills: application and use of skills, autonomy and self‐evaluation and problem solving and practical skills: management of information, technical expertise and communications. Tier 2 assessments are formal oral presentations and are assessed against the following criteria: intellectual competence: Knowledge: analysis and effective intelligence and professional competence: understanding of doctrine, policy and strategies; quality of work, delivery style and performance in cross‐examination; communications skills; time management. Tier 3 assessment is a through course assessment of broader qualities of leadership, management and inter‐personal qualities: management and organisation; leadership and ability to act as a team member; decision making; motivation and dynamism; courage and values; social engagement and inter‐personal skills. 38 On ACSC10 all students visited the USA, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and France. 39 Partnering institutions include: Bolton Institute, De Montfort University, Coventry University, Durham Business School, University of Greenwich Business School, Kingston University, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool John Moores University, the Open University, Huddersfield University, University of Westminster and London South Bank University. 40 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Professional Military Education: An Asset for Peace and Progress, A Report for the CSIS Study Group on Professional Military Education (note 19) pp.19–20.