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West Point: A New Type of Military Education
Some say if the military is to truly transform and fight in a new way
it has to start here at West Point, and at the other service academies
where tomorrow's officers are minted. Public Affairs officer Lt. Colonel
Kirk Frady suggests that reverence for traditional hierarchy underlies
everything here.
Before lunch, 4,000 blue and gray clad cadets line up in orderly formations
in front of the immense, gray, stone dining hall. Platoon leaders report
to company commanders, who report to battalion commanders, who report
to the regimental commander, who then - and only then - gives the order
to have lunch.
Two centuries of tradition are a matter of pride here, and sometimes
the butt of jokes. Some cadets will tell you
irreverently that West Point is "two hundred years of tradition,
untouched by progress," but in fairness, even West Point is not
insulated from the winds of change, nor does it want to be. Colonel
George Forsythe is Vice Dean for education here.
Forsythe says the Academy has been revising its curriculum so that
it better reflects a changing world. "The new curriculum that we
put in place with the class of 2005 gives greater emphasis to information
technology, to the study of foreign cultures. We are a hi-tech and globally
engaged army," he says.
Classroom discussions do reflect new realities: the role of technology,
global terrorism, military transformation. Cadets debate the merits
of actual weapons programs; they deem some necessary, others out-dated
and wasteful, and learn how politics shapes the calculus. Cadets are
also thinking about their futures in a world where the nature of warfare
itself is changing.
Lately, these cadets are encouraged to think of change in terms of
Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's goal to transform the Army to a
more agile fighting force. Second-year cadet Jesse Hall from Houston
says not to allow change is a foolish man's ideal. "We cannot maintain
our military supremacy by refusing to change, and I think General Shinseki
has the right idea and he's forcing change upon the Army even though
some people don't want it. After it happens, they'll look back on it
and say it was the right thing to do."
However, when Cadet Hall offered his own opinion about the Army's role
in global peacekeeping - he's against it - the public affairs officer
cuts the conversation short. It's fine to talk about change, it seems,
but not if it challenges the official line.
This raises a difficult issue for the military in general: how to encourage
independent thinking and change in a world where the coins of the realm
are tradition, discipline, and hierarchy?
Stephen Rosen says it's not hard to understand the resistance. "No
organization is going to have these top people say : you know, the kind
of thing that I'm good at, that doesn't matter anymore, and people like
me, you should get rid of us. "He says, "So what you're waiting
for is a generational shift in the military."
Colonel Forsythe, the Vice Dean at West Point, offers an example of
this challenge. Groups of young Army officers have established their
own websites to exchange ideas and solutions about their work. The Army
brass frowns on this lateral flow of information because it falls outside
the chain of command.
It's an old discussion according to William Crowe, the former Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Crowe recalls his own experience in Vietnam
when the U.S. Navy launched a new Riverene force to patrol the rivers
of Southeast Asia. He says officers showed up and were unable to operate
without the clear doctrine and hierarchy they were used to. Others came
in and were able to function better without strict rules and orders,
solving problems as they came up.
His main concern is to "train people who are amenable to change."
Crowe says, "You have the problem of training people to be disciplined
and do what they're told to do. Then, all of a sudden to be independently
minded. That problem is centuries old. It's not just recent."
The debate over the future shape and mission of the U.S. military is
a story about identity crisis. Think about it: the Army is trying to
remake itself from large, heavy, and slow to a more nimble fighting
force. And across all the services, there is a dash toward the future
and the promise of new technology, but reluctance to give up the old,
which prompts the question, can the country afford to have it all? But
most important, can the U.S. military keep its edge against a new generation
of adversaries whose tactics defy conventional defense? As William Crowe
suggested, this is ultimately a story about change and how hard it is,
especially with so much at stake.
