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ACSC 23 and the Evolution of Professional Military Education – Autumn 2019
Cdre Heber Ackland, Director ACSC
PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION (PME) is in a state of transition for the Information Age and nowhere is this more true
than of Advanced Command and Staff Course (ACSC). It did not take me long to realise after I joined as Director ACSC in May 2018
that ACSC 23 would be a major developmental point on this journey. And so it is proving.
ACSC is designed, so we say, to ‘develop mastery in the profession of arms and deliver the intellectual edge required to achieve success on operations and leadership in government.’ That’s quite a mission statement, if you think about it, and a big ask for
a course that is now just 39 weeks in duration. Within this time, we cover: command, leadership and ethics; the international security environment; national and military strategy; operational planning; capability and acquisition; in the process enabling students to develop their powers of critical analysis and conceptual thinking (think the course values of open mindedness and willingness to take intellectual risk). All while undertaking a Masters degree with Kings College London (in most cases) and having
a good time with family and new friends from
across the world. I suppose if I really had to define
the essence of ACSC, I see it is a developmental programme for future Defence senior leaders from the UK and across the world.
So why change and what is new? On the first question, it would be somewhat trite to say because the world and Defence are changing but that is true. Building on work undertaken by the staff before
my tenure, we identified the trajectory towards
new conceptual thinking in response to emerging opportunities and perceived threats, notably the prominence of new domains (space, cyber) and
the impetus towards integration, both strategic
and operational. This has shifted our focus from
the structures and equipment of the individual UK Armed Forces, and supporting joint enablers, to
a more holistic view of concepts, capabilities and competitors across multiple domains. Connected to this, we seek to give greater prominence to NATO
as well as Russia, China and, programme space permitting, Iran. We are have also asked ourselves whether the Western approach to operational planning is optimised for an era of ‘persistent competition’; as a result, we have sought to increase war- and decision-gaming, ‘pre-mortems’ (think what if-ing) and our effort to share the full value of peer knowledge across the cohort.
Related to this latter point are a couple of big themes: trust and choice. Trust in our staff and
“
students to take learning where they judge it should go. Choice that enables students to decide as far
as possible what themes and modules to pursue, in the context of how they envisage their future careers developing. The new programmes and streams that Dr Hallams outlines are here to stay, in my view,
and I hope that the choice will increase substantially over coming years. This choice must also work for Defence, both in shaping some of these themes and also in more tangibly benefiting from the results. The course cannot, and does not, operate in an intellectual bubble and is now more responsive to external influences and ideas even as it is underway; a shift towards horizontal connections and the burgeoning of high quality PME products on social media ensures this. We will also increasingly exploit digitisation to ensure that Defence can benefit from some of the best research and thinking that goes on within the student body, while encouraging everyone to treat education as a lifelong professional and personal journey whether they attend the course or not.
I believe that ACSC 23 is set to be a major development in PME not just in its own right, but also – and here I must thank staff, students and stakeholders alike (provisionally at least!) – in shaping PME for future generations.
I believe that
ACSC 23 is set to be a major
development in PME. ◆◆◆