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Teaching and learning the art of war: The future of professional military education.What should constitute the proper education of U.S.military officers?Who should be teaching at the war colleges and command and staff colleges?Until it was knocked out of the headlines by the Iran war, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s criticism of professional military education (PME) unleashed a debate among members of the national security community.Recommended Stories In a Feb.27 memorandum titled “Rebuilding the Warrior Ethos in Professional Military Education,” Hegseth directed that professional military education institutions must return to their fundamental mission of producing strategic thinkers free of bias, grounded in American ideals, and focused on core national security strategy.He emphasized that these institutions should focus on developing the warfighting capabilities of senior leaders and support the “founding principles” of the republic.Accordingly, Hegseth directed the undersecretary of war for personnel and readiness to impanel a Senior Service College Task Force to ensure that the War Department and professional military education institutions — the war colleges and command and staff colleges, which exist to develop strategic leaders capable of fighting and winning America’s wars — are not distracted by political ideology and DEI issues.In a short video, Hegseth said the task force is “going to identify any deficiencies and make sure [professional military education institutions] are focused on core national security issues… We want military leaders who are critical thinkers that have studied the principles on which our founding fathers established this republic, and that are educated and prepared to win wars.” After canceling military fellowships at several prestigious universities, including Harvard, Hegseth questioned even the wisdom of having civilian professors teach at these institutions.“We’re going to ensure that the professors, administrators and curriculum of those institutions are focused on national security, strategy, history and overall excellence,” he said.“[We’ll] confirm that high standards and meritocracy are [at the] forefront.And [we’ll] make sure that what we’ve seen in our civilian institutions never surfaces in our military education institutions.” The education of officers has been a central part of US military service since the founding of the Republic.In the beginning, such education was primarily technical and tactical — training really — designed to produce competent engineers, and infantry, cavalry, and artillery officers.But as the United States emerged as a world power, the military was becoming professional.The result was a new emphasis on education rather than simple training.1884 saw the establishment of the U.S.Naval War College, based on the German model of the Kriegsacademie for education in strategy and policy.Other professional military educational institutions followed.As part of the far-reaching Root Reforms in response to the shortcomings of the Army revealed by the Spanish-American War, the Army War College was established in 1904.Following World War II, the National War College and the Air War College were added in 1946.The Marine Corps War College was added in 1990.War College students are normally senior officers: Navy commanders and captains, and Army, Marine, and Air Force lieutenant colonels and colonels with 15 to 18 years of service.In addition to the senior or top-level war colleges, each service also has an intermediate-level command and staff college, focusing primarily on the operational level of war (the conduct of campaigns to achieve strategic goals within a theater of operations).Students here are Navy lieutenant commanders and Army, Marine, and Air Force majors with about 12 years of service.Officers are selected for both intermediate and senior-level schools by merit.Selection to a senior-level school is seen as a stepping stone to flag and general officer.PME and the ‘cult of lethality’ Writing Feb.26 for the website American Greatness under the pseudonym of “Cynical Publius,” a retired officer offered a list of steps that educational institutions should take to achieve Hegseth’s vision.These include ending accreditation of professional military education institutions by civilian educational boards, reshaping the curriculum to focus on the military instrument rather than diplomacy and the like, eliminating all curriculum that disguises wokeness as a military matter, and firing most civilian faculty.At the website War on the Rocks, another retired officer, Brad Duplessis, responded, labeling Cynical Publius as an advocate of the “cult of lethality.” Duplessis argued that “the problem [with PME] is not a lack of warfighting instruction or too much focus on the diplomatic, informational, and economic instruments of national power… The problem is Washington’s policy and resourcing decisions, which have produced a highly tactically competent joint force that struggles to link tactical actions to achievement of strategic objectives.” He echoes the contention of the late strategist, Colin Gray, that there is “a black hole where American strategy should be.” The ‘black hole’ of American strategy Although I agree with Cynical Publius that “wokeness” has no place at these institutions, I agree with the broader point made by Duplessis and Gray: The U.S.military has excelled at the operational level of war, conducting successful campaigns to achieve strategic goals within a theater of war, while failing to connect that success to the end of national policy.military has produced officers versed in operational planning and educated them to conduct operations in a flexible manner, relying on the adaptability and initiative of subordinate commanders.operations are routinely based on mission orders, which provide the overall operational objective rather than the details of how to execute assigned tasks, allowing subordinates the maximum freedom of action in the context of a particular situation.American professional military education has been instrumental in developing current U.S.doctrine for military operations.In the 1970s and ’80s, American planners concluded that the U.S.lacked the conventional capability necessary to defeat a Soviet offensive against NATO and that our threat to escalate to the nuclear level rang hollow.Led by young Army officers at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, and elsewhere, land and air forces developed a battle-winning operational doctrine that came to be known as AirLand Battle or AirLand Operations, which represented a true doctrinal revolution.The success of that doctrine was based on developing the tactical instrument to include well-trained and educated officers and men, flexible command and control, and operational planning.It proved its worth in both Iraq wars.The Naval War College played a similar role in creating the Maritime Strategy that revolutionized the US Navy.Thinking about fighting and winning wars should indeed lie at the heart of professional military education, but the idea that officers need to learn nothing else is deeply flawed.As Samuel Huntington argued in his 1957 book on civil-military relations, The Soldier and the State, although the functional imperative of the military is the management of violence in the service of the state, throughout history, we have called upon the military to do many other things.In addition, military excellence requires an understanding of policy, which, in our system, is the purview of civilians.Military force is one of many tools that can be used to effect policy.Learning how to integrate military operations and strategy into national policy should be the central focus of educating officers.In short, contrary to the secretary’s implication, these institutions have done a pretty good job of educating officers for warfighting.The problem has been the lack of integrating military operations with other instrument