Complementing PME with Bottom-Up Learning

Today's military officers need a breadth of knowledge and skills well beyond employing violence. Cross-cultural skills, foreign language, and in-depth cultural understanding of particular regions are vital in most modern conflicts. Knowledge of history, economics, sociology, political philosophy, negotiation, business management, and economic development can be just as important as traditional combat skills--maybe even more important. And of course, understanding strategy is essential in complex, ill-defined conflicts where actions by individual soldiers can have strategic consequences. That's a lot to pile on an officer's plate, especially on top of more traditional warfighting skills, leadership development, physical conditioning, and office work.

Where do we squeeze in this broader knowledge and training? Professional Military Education (PME) is the primary avenue for sharpening an officer's mind, but PME can't do everything. Officers spend relatively little time in the PME environment, especially early in their careers. It is a scarce resource. Some fortunate officers can broaden their educations in civilian graduate schools, teaching assignments, or foreign immersion programs, but these programs are limited in number. Because of the intense demands on our military and the jam-packed career progression ladder, I often hear that there is little room to expand education opportunities. Are there any alternatives?

I propose that we can improve the overall intellectual environment in the US military by integrating continuing learning into daily life. Rather than focus on squeezing new schools into an officer's career or adding more modules to PME syllabi, we should look for ways to seamlessly add broader education into daily life at the installation and unit level. Here are some examples I've been brainstorming. These are rooted in my beliefs about the value of bottom-up, self-organized, network-based learning in contrast to the top-down model of PME.

Create local discussion groups and book clubs. Create voluntary local groups, or a national organization with local chapters, designed to facilitate dialog about strategic concepts and ideas. Hold lunches once a month on base--during the normal workday--where hot topics or current books are discussed. Bring in guest speakers. Lead discussion and debates. Wherever bases of different services are co-located, conduct these jointly.

Wherever bases are co-located, organize informal joint activities and training at the local level. I spent four years at McChord AFB in Washington, a ten-minute drive from Ft. Lewis, but the only time I interacted with Army soldiers was when they jumped out the back of my C-17. Looking back, I wish I'd sought out opportunities to learn more about the Army. Instead of waiting for officers to get joint assignments midway through their careers, why not create a local exchange program between neighboring bases? Nearby installations like Ft Lewis, McChord AFB, and Bremerton Naval Station could conduct a limited one or two-day exchange. Every month, give five Air Force officers the chance to spend a typical day in a Stryker Brigade, let five Army officers spend a day with the Navy, and let five sailors spend a day mission planning and flying with the Air Force. Such exchanges might not be immediately relevant to an officer's career field, but they would give some familiarity with the other services and their cultures early in an officer's career. They would also create a network of relationships between services.

Use AFN commercial time to educate troops. Anyone who has spent times at an overseas military base knows how awful AFN "public service announcements" are. Commercials are replaced with badly-acted Orwellian announcements explaining why we should fill out a power of attorney, stop chewing tobacco, not sexually assault each other, and view every foreigner as a potential terrorist. All this wasted airtime is a golden opportunity for military leadership to reach every military member stationed overseas. Imagine the possibilities: a series of brief messages about the history and basics of Islam, commentary on counterinsurgency principles, geography lessons on the local theater, brief interviews with officers who succeeded in stabilizing violent regions of Iraq or Afghanistan. I would take this kind of programming any day over current AFN PSAs. You won't make military geniuses with sound bytes, but you could provide a solid foundation--as well as take the edge off the resentment toward AFN PSAs.

Create a quality reading list for each regional command, and stock and promote the books. Based on my experience flying all over the CENTCOM AOR, quality reading material is hard to find; quality foreign affairs reading is even rarer. BX's/PX's sell magazines about bodybuilding and cars, and an incomprehensible selection of trashy romance novels, midlist science fiction and mystery novels, and isolated volumes of fantasy plucked out of long series. The military is missing an opportunity here; they have a captive audience. Troops deployed to military bases typically make daily trips to the BX out of sheer boredom. Each regional command should maintain an up-to-date reading list of quality, thought-provoking books relevant to that region. These books should be made available at every base in the AOR. They should be prominently displayed in every BX.

Put Defense Language Institute curriculum online for free. I've been harping on this one for a while. Instead of spending $246M annually and employing almost 1,700 native speakers to educate 3000 students a year in a foreign language, DLI should expand its horizons by becoming a public provider of language resources. It should follow the example of the MIT OpenCourseware project and put everything online for free. Millions of language students would benefit, improving the overall competence of the US in foreign languages. This would also help motivated US military members who wish to independently study a language.

I'm sure we could brainstorm other ideas. All these ideas rest on one assumption: that at least some US military members are willing to go the extra mile in becoming more educated. The goal of these programs is to create a context for self-study; to put good resources into officers' hands and create local communities where they can interact and learn together. Several such communities already exist online, like Small Wars Journal and CompanyCommand. I would love to see a physical network of these communities grow as well.

Is my assumption valid? Would such initiatives generate enough interest to sustain themselves? I welcome your thoughts.

Strategic Communication in the Foreign Classroom

I'm a few weeks into my classes now... long enough that I'm getting a feel for how the university system works here, how classes are conducted, and how my fellow students think. I entered this program expecting that my course material would be of only secondary importance; my primary goal was not to learn international relations (which I've studied for years), but to learn how my Jordanian classmates understand international relations. I intended to listen, ask questions, and learn about Jordanian perspectives on major foreign policy issues. I also intended to be a good representative of the United States--explaining US policy, correcting misunderstandings, and hopefully improving my fellow students' perceptions of the US.

Almost immediately, I ran into an enormous question that I've never properly considered: what exactly does it mean to represent the United States? What aspects of our country should I be defending? This became especially apparent in the second week of my class on foreign policy, when the teacher asked me to get up in front of the class, summarize Stephen Ambrose's history of American foreign policy since 1938, and lead a discussion on the book. I spent much of the time responding to questions or accusations about America's most controversial foreign policy decisions.

Very few Americans defend every aspect of their government and its policy. In fact, one of the greatest strengths of the United States is that we can all be so critical of the government. All these grueling debates hopefully lead to better policy, and when a policy fails, the American people hold their government accountable and demand change. The process is imperfect and imposes severe constraints on politicians, but it works better than the alternatives. Critical debate is foundational to American society. This is true even within government and military circles. Military journals, blogs, message forums, and squadron bars are full of debates about American foreign policy. Dissidents are widely read, discussed, and even agreed with. Journalist Tom Ricks is well-respected in the military and wrote two #1 New York Times Bestsellers about the Iraq War, but he openly says that invading Iraq may have been the worst foreign policy mistake in American history. Andrew Bacevich--also widely respected among military thinkers--presents scathing critiques of the direction of American foreign policy. I identify with many such authors, and believe that my patriotic duty as a US military officer is to scrutinize and critique policy--with the ultimate goal of helping create better policy in the future.

So if I myself believe in closely scrutinizing and debating US foreign policy, and if the government/military circles I follow all believe in scrutinizing and debating US foreign policy, it doesn't make any sense for me to stand in front of a Jordanian audience and defend every American policy choice. If I was in a position where I was actually executing policy (like an ambassador or a military commander) it might be a different story, but I'm in an academic environment. I'm speaking for myself, in the context of personal relationships with fellow students. I would be insulting my colleagues if I put on the rose-colored glasses, talked down to them, and kept silent about the vibrant debates we have amongst ourselves about policy. Also, defending every American policy simply wouldn't work. I wouldn't convince anybody of anything, and I would probably destroy my own credibility in a few minutes.

At the same time, I love the United States, want to improve its image in this part of the world, and care deeply about improving the relationship between Jordanians and Americans.

So what did I do? I decided to be honest. I tried to show my classmates the same respect I would show to American colleagues, and lead a discussion that was as honest, thoughtful, and accurate as possible.

I rebutted conspiracy theories and wrong ideas. Students had a variety of criticisms regarding American policies. Some were valid, some not. I tried to disentangle these and called students on things that were untrue. One student had read Jeremy Scahill's book Blackwater and was very critical about the US reliance on contractors. Potentially valid criticism. He also believed that American soldiers weren't doing any of the fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the US used contractors as disposable slave labor, because they could dump the bodies in the desert and hide the true casualty count. Absolutely false. I called him immediately on that. I talked about how engaged US troops were, the number of Americans killed and wounded, and how US transparency would simply never allow the kind of conspiracy he was talking about. I also talked about why the US relies on contractors and the kinds of roles they play. I also explained how controversial this practice is and how much debate it stirs up among Americans.

I tried to explain policy in the context of constraints. The United States has made plenty of foreign policy moves I don't like, but I understand why many of them were made: because policymakers had to make hard decisions between imperfect alternatives under severe constraints. Arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan had serious long-term consequences, but at the time, it may have seemed like the best option on the table given the Soviet threat. Supporting Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s looks despicable and hypocritical now, but it seemed like a necessary evil in the wake of the Iranian revolution. We talked at length about the decision to drop the atomic bomb--a decision I find morally reprehensible, but which I acknowledge may have been necessary. As Michael Walzer theorizes, wars for national survival may constitute "supreme emergencies": leaders must "embrace evil and accept guilt because, as political leaders responsible for others, they can do nothing else."

I tried to explain policy intentions. One gripe I have of far-left critics is that they attribute the worst possible motives to American policymakers. In truth, many policymakers sincerely believe they're doing the right thing--even if they are dead wrong. Most students in my class seem to believe that the US invaded Iraq solely to control oil and line the pockets of companies like Haliburton. The truth is that the architects of the Iraq war really believed that Iraq had WMD and really believed that they could plant a transformative democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Good intentions don't justify the almost criminal negligence that went into planning the war, but I hope that by explaining these intentions, I was able to show the US government is not the evil imperialist cabal some students might assume.

I tried to focus on the strengths of democratic processes. I tried to show the vibrant debate that surrounds American policy. I also tried to convey how transparent American government is, how much access journalists have, and how much scrutiny decision makers face. My professor rallied to my defense here, chastising one student for conspiracy theories and explaining that the opposition party in the US would expose and crucify any leader who tried to implement one of these conspiracies. My happiest moment of the class came when one student expressed sincere wonder that Ambrose was allowed to write so critically about the US government. That observation sounded funny to me, because the book is so mild compared to a lot of political commentary in the US, but I was happy the light bulb clicked on for him--he got a glimpse of how democracy works in America.

This was only the first of what will probably be many discussions about the United States, its policies, and its role in the world. Knowing how to approach these discussions is a learning process for me, but I feel confident that respecting my peers enough to have an honest discussion will be a better long-term approach than trying to sell propaganda. I invite feedback and advice from any of my readers.

My micro-level experience in the classroom is giving me a lot to think about regarding broader public diplomacy/strategic communication efforts, although I don't have any clear conclusions yet.

Warnings from Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction

Starbuck has never missed a chance to apply science fiction to world affairs. This week he and Adam Elkus stepped up the discussion with an article on speculative fiction at SWJ. Even Tom Ricks jumped on board. I'm a SF geek myself (ssshhh!) so I thought I'd add to the discussion.

This year I've been on a post-apocalyptic reading kick. I've always enjoyed the genre, and this year I've had the pleasure of reading some of its finest works. I started with Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It is a lean book told in a spare, straighforward style that still manages to convey a tremendous depth of meaning. What made the book sing, for me, was the protagonist's efforts to protect his son's innocence in the barbaric aftermath of the world's destruction. Next I read Stephen King's The Stand, which will probably reign over the genre for decades to come. In King's nightmare vision, a weaponized superflu virus kills most of humanity in a couple weeks, setting the stage for a cosmic showdown between good and evil among the survivors. After that I read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, in which biological engineering and nanotechnology run amok and destroy civilization. Next was One Second After, which follows one man's efforts to save his daughters and his small North Carolina town in the wake of an electromagnetic pulse attack that instantaneously sends the US back to the Dark Ages. It's not a very good book, but the ideas are interesting. I've read other post-apocalyptic and dystopian stories in the past: stories about nuclear war, stories about asteroid impacts, stories about a nearby supernova that destroys all electronics on the planet, stories where American government gradually ceases to function and gangs and megacorporations rule over the anarchy that's left.

These are works of fiction, but they're giving me plenty to think about. It really is remarkable how interdependent our world is today. This has brought incredible benefits, but it also has created critical vulnerabilities. To function, our world requires a constant flow of... well, almost everything. Electricity. Water. Food. Raw supplies, intermediate parts, finished goods. Information. People. If these flows get disrupted, our advanced civilization turns into an anarchic jungle in very short order. Look at New Orleans. Very little resilience is built into our communities. In "One Second After", every US town and city becomes an island. People who rely on medicine (such as those with diabetes) begin to die almost immediately. Within a few weeks the East coast is starving to death.

Most people assume our complex, interdependent world is not capable of crashing. I often wonder if that is a valid assumption. History has produced plenty of black swans that nobody anticipated; even when people did anticipate them (as the author of "The Black Swan" predicted the financial crisis), nobody took them seriously because the ideas sounded so ludicrous.

Are we vulnerable to threats so serious that they can crash the whole thing? These SF authors explore a variety of scenarios that don't seem entirely implausible. It was chilling reading "The Stand" in the midst of the unfolding swine flu crisis. The EMP scenario is particularly frightening, although I don't see this being a realistic threat in the near future.

I'm actually less worried about apocalyptic events than I am about the confluence of natural economic and political forces. Look at how fast the global economy crashed. A vast amount of the world's wealth vanished almost overnight. The US has taken on an unprecedented amount of debt, confidence in the dollar is falling, and new economic train wrecks like the bankruptcy of social security loom like thunderstorms on the horizon. Worse, government seems incapable of solving any of these critical problems. Few of the root causes of the economic crisis have really been addressed, and heated debates on social security, health care, and immigration have only led to paralysis. The Guardian recently ran a sensationalist article titled Will California become America's first failed state? An Economist article this summer wasn't much different in tone. California's budget crisis: Meltdown on the Ocean paints a gloomy picture of a gridlocked state government paying its bills in IOUs because it can't legally declare bankruptcy. These dramatic events are unfolding against a backdrop of an increasingly angry, polarized, hostile American public. When you look at these trends, the dystopian futures of Margaret Atwood, Neil Stephenson, and Octavia Butler don't seem so unrealistic.

I'm not wearing sandwich boards and proclaiming the end of the world, but the ideas in these SF novels merit discussion. Are there ways to dampen the volatility of such a highly globalized world? Can we bolster our resilience to disruptive events? Most American homes (let alone towns or cities) don't have the resilience to survive more than a day or two when disconnected from the global economy. What does it mean when so many American citizens have completely lost faith in their government to solve problems? What does it mean when they are arming themselves at unprecedented rates? What will happen when the bills come due for our enormous debt?

Good SF doesn't necessarily predict the future, but it should force us to think carefully about the direction our society is heading, anticipate possible developments, and consider how we will respond.

Image is a screenshot from the post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 3.

More on the UNCRC

My post yesterday prompted one comment and a couple private e-mails, pointing out why there is so much reluctance in the US to ratify the UNCRC. If you're curious, you can read some of the reasons at Parentalrights.org. Some hot issues include the erosion of parental rights, elevating the authority of government (and the UN) over how parents raise their children, the prohibition of spanking, and granting children some questionable rights (such as a "right to be heard" and a right to leisure). These are all important issues worthy of debate. Frankly, I'm sympathetic to some of these concerns and can understand why the US has not ratified the convention. According to one of my friends, the real marvel about the UNCRC isn't that the US has refused to sign it; it's that 193 countries in the world have. In his view, this makes the UNCRC simply a joke. I certainly see his point.

But here's the conundrum I'm pondering; when it comes to politics, appearance is often more important than reality. Let's say the Taliban stages a massacre and falsely claims that fifty women and children were killed by a US airstrike. There can come a point when the truth no longer matters to the strategic outcome; the mere perception of US aggression has a bigger strategic impact than the event (or non-event) itself. Creating the outcomes we want depends heavily on managing perception.

The UNCRC has flaws that make the US understandably reluctant to ratify it, but by refusing to do so, the US is damaging its reputation on human rights and contributing to a perception of hypocrisy. At least some of the 193 countries which ratified the treaty have little or no intent of enforcing it; they are playing the perception game. The US is not playing that game, and is consequently paying a price in legitimacy on human rights issues. How do we escape this dilemma?

This is important because the dilemma doesn't just apply to the UNCRC; it applies to many international agreements.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'm all ears.

My Most Embarrassing Moment in Jordan

This evening brought my most embarrassing moment in Jordan so far: trying to explain to my Jordanian classmates why the United States is one of only two nations in the world to not ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The other country is Somalia.

The context was a guest lecture by a distinguished European human rights lawyer. My professor had invited her to explain the UNCRC and provide a background on child human rights issues. She gave a fine lecture and she wasn't out to beat up the United States; she mentioned a few times that two countries hadn't ratified the treaty, but she never specified which countries until a student teased it out of her in the question and answer session. I think she felt kind of sorry and embarrassed for the United States; she was apologetic and gave a vague, rather lame explanation that "there are a number of reasons" the US has not yet ratified the treaty. Still, the damage was done.

As the only American in the room, I cringed when she named the countries. The United States and Somalia. And we're not talking about controversial global warming treaties, we're talking about basic rights of children. I mean, really, how much more embarrassing could this get? I could see the stir among the students and I could imagine the rolling eyes. I've heard enough Jordanian frustration about American hypocrisy to guess what my fellow students were thinking: Of course, it would be America. The country that invades Muslim countries to promote freedom, preaches human rights around the world while condoning torture at home, and despises international organizations that try to solve global problems.

These Jordanian conceptions are based on serious misunderstandings of the United States are I believe they are largely wrong. I do whatever I can to represent the US in a more favorable light. But it sure doesn't help when such glaring examples confirm all the worst stereotypes about the United States. President Obama apparently agrees, as he has called the US failure to ratify the convention "embarrassing."

I know very little about human rights law and don't feel qualified to weigh the arguments for or against ratification. On the one hand, I think there is room to debate about the convention itself, the proper relationship between the state and parents, the effect of UN treaties on state sovereignty, etc. On the other hand, if you evaluate actual pragmatic effects in the world, it seems to me that the damage to American credibility by refusing the treaty (it's us and Somalia vs. the world, mind you) does far more damage than any deficiencies in the treaty itself.