Page 8 - The Cormorant Issue 14

The Importance of Military Education during a Period of Austerity
By Lieutenant General A J N Graham CBE, Outgoing Director General of the UK Defence Academy
A number of commentators have sought to define the characteristics of the twenty-first century security environment in terms of concepts such as symmetric/asymmetric, hybrid, regular/irregular. No characteristic is entirely new but suffice it to say that for me it is the fact that the characteristics appear to have a tendency to converge in terms of time, space, style and range of participation that gives the evolving international security
environment and the confrontations and conflicts it spawns their peculiar flavour. Military officers, as well as leaders in all spheres of life, are facing an environment characterised by four trends:
• The certainty of uncertainty is unprecedented as frictions are creating dynamics we cannot see, and whose effects we cannot foresee.
• An exponential rate of change.
• The notion of competitiveness which means that traditional assumptions of who is on top or in power will be overturned as organisations compete for the initiative and a position of advantage using asymmetric, non-traditional capabilities and expertise to do so.
• The trend towards decentralisation. The question here is whether a centralised, hierarchical network can defeat a decentralised one, or is it more likely to be completely out- manoeuvred.
Those 4 trends bear as much on our national posture as it does for the current and future military commander preparing himself and his people for the complexity of what lies ahead. They also raise the question whether our institutional and individual ability to adapt to the certainty of surprise and of the unexpected is fit for purpose. We in Britain are not alone; in a speech to the Association of the United States Army the then CG TRADOC – General Dempsey - explained his belief that military power in future will be measured in terms of the ability to adapt.
My first deduction is that if the world is uncertain and the identi- ties and behaviour of adversaries are unpredictable and fluid, then versatility and agility – mental and physical – will be the essential and decisive qualities in maintaining, sustaining and evolving balanced, ready, campaign-quality armed forces as part of our hand for ensuring our national security and well-being. The significance of this deduction is that it is not only Defence, but also its partners in the wider game of national security, that need to recognise this, and then do something about it.
My second deduction is that since agility is the ability to switch at tempo between different activities and postures as dynamics and priorities and policies shift, then it is enabled by individuals with a deep and finger-tip sensitive understanding of the context in which military forces might be used alongside other instru- ments of power – diplomacy, economics, social, politics, infor- mation, development. Being agile is a bit like being modern; so we need to define an end result which might be an enhanced ability to deal with the wicked problems of future conflict respon- sively and effectively. We are not looking for a fair fight here so
the ability to adapt needs to be based on an ability and a prepar- edness to look, understand, learn, anticipate and then flex more swiftly than any adversary.
But what about preparing the young and not-so-young who are at the point of the spear? I must first make the rather obvious point that the commanding officers and brigade commanders, and their staff officers and subordinate commanders are at Dart- mouth, Sandhurst and Cranwell now; while the CDS/CNS/CGS/ CAS of 2030 may be sitting at Shrivenham on his/her intermediate staff course today. If the DCDC work defining the Future Charac- ter of Conflict is correct – and I think that it is pretty close to the mark – then as our relative technological advantage diminishes in some areas, so it is our people who can and must become our strategic edge, and we must invest in them to restore the bal- ance. This is a matter of selection, training and education; and I am clear that it will not be good enough simply to follow the Colin Mitchell dictum about developing young officers – ‘throw them in at the deep end and let them bloody well swim’.
I often cite a quotation from President John F Kennedy. Speak- ing on 7 July 1961 he said: ‘You (military professionals) must know something about tactics, strategy, logistics, but also eco- nomics, politics, diplomacy and history. You must know every- thing you can about military power, and you must also under- stand the limits of military power. You must understand that few of the important problems of our time have, in the final analysis, been solved by military power alone’. That presidential sagac- ity is reflected in President Obama’s observation speaking in Cairo in 2009: ‘Education and Innovation are the currency of the Twenty-first century’.
You would expect me to advocate the value of education as a prerequisite for success in a difficult, uncertain world that needs agile, versatile and perceptive people to chart a route. Without reflective leaders stove-piped thinking and behaviour is inevita- ble, the ability to come to reasoned responses to unpredictable situations will be stunted, the capacity to think beyond experi- ence, plan beyond tenure and avoid failures of imagination will be constrained, the tactical level of thinking will be the dimension of choice, leaving the strategic dimension with its characteristics of time, scale, breadth and choice to our adversaries. Above all the imperative for developing our national cross-government capa- bility to think and operate on the joint, multifaceted, international, coalition canvas that a globalised, interconnected and increas- ingly fractured and fractious world is providing will be still-born.
And all that is, after all, what we here at the Defence Academy to do for our country as we work to develop Armed Services and Civil Service people better equipped to (among other things):
• Command, lead and manage people.
• Underpin Defence strategic, operational and business inno- vation, thinking and execution.
• Build the future; think strategically.
• Succeed on operations, be ready for the tasks of tomorrow and have the capacity, understanding and skills to work in a Multi National/Agency environment.
6