Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan,” President John F. Kennedy remarked ruefully in the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Kennedy might well have been speaking of education in the United States. Testimony to the failings of education has become commonplace; few are willing to accept blame.
Evidence that the education of U.S. military leaders is not altogether satisfactory often surfaces as well. For example, The Naval Officer’s Guide notes: "With the heavy emphasis on engineering, it is not generally possible for the average [Naval] Academy graduate to attain the level of liberal arts education a naval officer should ideally have.”1 If one is given to deplore the shortcomings of strategic thought in the United States, here is a partial explanation. Military education has become increasingly specialized, with predictable results: an insufficient emphasis on knowledge as a good thing in itself and a failure to cultivate imagination in future military leaders.
A nimble mind is indispensable not only to strategic analysis, but also—given the spiraling complexities of global politics and the attendant need to make on- the-spot decisions based on delicate local circumstances—to military operations. If one believes Samuel P. Huntington’s observation that world politics is entering a new phase, in which the dominant source of international conflict will be cultural, then the principal implication for the United States is that its leaders must gain a greater knowledge of and sensitivity for the basic philosophical and religious postulates underpinning other civilizations.2 They also must grasp better the ways other people perceive their interests. The price affixed to limiting officer education largely to a high-tech enterprise, to ignoring the human element in leadership, or to relegating the arts and humanities to the sidelines will be a stiff one.
Among the most important faculties of the military leader on the future battlefield are: (1) flexibility and adaptability; (2) the ability to operate autonomously; (3) the capacity to learn how to learn; (4) greater awareness of power and politics; and (5) the capacity to create risk-taking climates for junior officers.3 Official Marine Corps doctrine echoes these themes:
The military profession is a thinking profession. Officers particularly are expected to be students of the art and science of war at all levels—tactical, operational, and strategic—with a solid foundation in military theory and a knowledge of military history and the timeless lessons to be gained from it. . . . An officer’s principal weapon is his mind.4
The preeminent objectives of officer training should coincide with the great purposes of the liberal tradition in education: to develop critical autonomy; to encourage rigorous intellectual standards; to lay a solid foundation of knowledge in mathematics and sciences, the arts and humanities, and the varieties of human societies and cultures, languages and literature; to develop creativity and individuality; and to build civic culture and the capacity for freedom.5 How else, but through exacting critical analysis, are tomorrow’s commanders and strategists to become pioneering creative thinkers?
The military is, of course, a high-tech organization, and leadership selection largely based on technical expertise has advantages: the commander with considerable technical proficiency can advise subordinates on technical problems and offer technical judgments. It also has drawbacks. Such close attention is likely to detract from leadership.6 The technical expert also is more disposed to search for solutions that are technically sweet, a problematic tendency with respect to the arts of leadership and warfare.
Educating for Leadership
Innovation in education for leadership requires a return to fundamentals. The "first things” of officer training, as specified by former Navy Secretary George Bancroft, are rooted in the liberal tradition in education. The Secretary was convinced that a standardized, structured curriculum was essential to the development of naval leaders and that training on the deck was by itself inadequate. Accordingly, Bancroft established the U.S. Naval Academy in 1845.
Have we lost our bearings?
To an extent, we have. Consider the “first things” of professional military education as stipulated by Commodore Stephen B. Luce, founder of the Naval War College. Luce contended that the chief purpose of continuing education for naval officers was to “derive fundamental principles of warfare of general application on land or sea.”7 Students at the War College would study the evolution of strategic principles based on naval engagements of the past. His conviction that scholarship and leadership are complementary and his subsequent expectation that leaders have a thorough grounding in the liberal arts are as germane today as they were then.
The Human Factor
The honor accorded to those holding commissions is accompanied by weighty responsibilities and burdens; integrity, courtesy, enthusiasm, and a sense of justice are crucial to successful leadership. That said, the knowledgeable person is the one who ultimately commands the respect of others. The courage of Horatio Hornblower is worthy of emulation and belongs in the heart of every military leader, but it was above all Hornblower’s breadth of knowledge, his ability to focus on specific problems, and his sensitivity for other cultures that made him a great naval officer. Such battle-winning resourcefulness, cogent analysis, and sound judgment legitimize a leader in the eyes of his followers.
For all of his practical experience and technical skill, Homblower’s greatest aptitude was his empathy for others: this allowed him to peer into his opponents’ minds in a way his fellow officers could not. This ability often means the difference between victory and defeat. It is no mere knack, nor is it technically sweet, but it is the acme of strategic skill.
Understanding an enemy’s cognitive processes is instrumental to defeating him. As Admiral William Halsey tells it, common sense in an uncommon degree largely accounted for early U.S. naval successes in the Pacific theater of operations in World War II when outnumbered U.S. forces were still fighting an accomplished foe. “The reason we brought off these early raids is that we violated all the rules and traditions of naval warfare. We did the exact opposite of what the enemy expected.”8
Sensitivity and empathy also are a means to win allies and influence friends. Whether U.S. forces are serving as a component of a larger international force or doing routine duty on foreign soil, overseas deployment is for the most part at the pleasure of allies and hence contingent upon an appreciation of allied interests. Stable alliances and victorious coalitions are based on mutual needs and concerns. Such cooperation places greater burdens, military and political, on the shoulders of commanders in the theater of operations; it requires considerable lucidity with respect to policies, responsibilities, and designs.
Creativity and Drive
Leadership pertains to influencing and inspiring people, and since no two individuals are alike and the circumstances in which leadership is exercised differ so widely, it follows that the study of leadership is innately unscientific. But for all the intangibles associated with leadership qualities, leadership as an art requires considerable creativity. Creative thinking and leadership development often fall afoul of the same impediments: convention and cultural constraints.
Neither should leadership be confused with management. Management pertains to the efficient employment of human and physical resources and focuses primarily on consensus building.9 With its emphasis on process, structure, and compromise, management tends to discourage or even thwart individual initiative, particularly when bold or unpopular decisions are involved. But it is precisely individual initiative, the bold decision, that makes leaders what they are. Leaders must persuade and inspire others; managers need not. Creativity and vision, the sine qua non of leadership, are not requisite features of management.
In addition, mentor-protégé and individual professional relationships are integral to selecting and advancing the real drivers and are far more critical in leadership development than in management practice. Army General Fox Connor was Dwight Eisenhower’s early mentor. Chief of Staff General George Marshall later elevated Eisenhower over several more senior generals to command during World War II. And had it not been for a handful of mentors in the British Admiralty who continuously advanced his career. Nelson would not have received operational command of the British fleet.
Painstaking selection procedures and even one-to-one professional relationships are part of leadership development. The recognition of potential leadership qualities in others requires good judgment and considerable intellectual depth.
The Touch of Command
Creativity and originality—what General James M. Gavin broadly referred to as intellectual nonconformity—are crucial aspects of leadership that must be promoted in today’s services. A leader must not only be creative himself, he should foster cooperative thinking to draw on potential strength in the ideas of subordinates. Creativity begins with the ability to recognize problems and issues. Persons lacking sufficient awareness of world politics, who do not grasp the values and interests of other cultures, who have little understanding of the way others perceive their interests, will find themselves overwhelmed by international conflicts, unable to comprehend cause and potential consequence.
In international politics we have entered an era of terra incognita. Successful operations will depend on our understanding of an opponent’s many contours. Any competent officer can list military assets and discuss weapons capabilities, but only the most astute can understand other cultures or such ethereal matters as civilian morale and the concerns of key allies. To quote Warfighting:
The human dimension is central in war. . . . Any doctrine which attempts to reduce warfare to ratios of forces, weapons, and equipment neglects the impact of the human will on the conduct of war and is therefore inherently false.10
The more leaders understand about the social, ideological, and political forces affecting their organizations, the better situated they will be to carry out their duties with confidence.11 In the tradition of Bancroft and Luce, officers must learn how to learn.
Strategy is a blueprint for identifying and capitalizing on expedients, with the attendant need to prognosticate and to devise coherent plans. Leaders must weigh alternative courses of action with numerous possible consequences. Effective leadership, which is predicated upon a commander’s ability to recognize the many consequences of a particular action, is conditional, situational, and contextual.12 To misunderstand conditions, situation, and context is to mislead. In warfare, survival of the fittest is secondary to survival of the wisest.
The biographer of Admiral Raymond Spruance said of him:
Spruance was intellectually stimulated by naval warfare problems. ... He evaluated hundreds of student solutions as a War College staff officer, and his faculty for analyzing and solving problems became instinctive. When later confronted with the crises and complexities of the Pacific war, he could resolve them systematically and effectively.13
What better case can be made for the educated, thoughtful officer? At the dawn of the 21st century, the philosophy governing the expenditure of funds and time on military education should be: Education entails considerable cost; not to educate entails considerably higher cost.
1 William P. Mack with Thomas D. Paulsen, The Naval Officer’s Guide, 9th ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), p. 24.
2 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 25, 49.
3 James G. Hunt and John D. Blair, “Leadership on the Future Battlefield” in James G. Hunt and John D. Blair, eds., Leadership on the Future Battlefield (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1985), p. 10.
4 Warfighting: The United States Marine Corps quoted in Fast Company 1 (November 1993): 49.
5 Benno C. Schmidt, “Educational Innovation for Profit,” Wall Street Journal, 5 June 1992, p. 22.
6 Laurie A. Broedling, “The Psychology of Leadership,” in James H. Buck and Lawrence J. Korb, eds., Military Leadership (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1981), p. 92.
7 R. W. Love, Jr., History of the U.S. Navy 1775-1941 (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992), p. 353.
8 William F. Halsey and U. Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 96.
9 Abraham Zaleznik, “The Leadership Gap,” in Robert L. Taylor and William E. Rosenbach, eds., Military Leadership (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 131-32.
10 Warfighting, op cit.
11 James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, “The Credibility Factor: What People Expect of their Leaders,” in Robert L. Taylor and William E. Rosenbach, eds., Military Leadership (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), p. 137.
12 Thomas E. Cronin, “Thinking and Learning about Leadership,” in Robert L. Taylor and William E. Rosenbach, eds., Military Leadership, 2d ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), p. 61.
13 T. B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), p. 53.
Lieutenant Keithly teaches at the Joint Military Intelligence College in Washington, D.C., and is affiliated with the Naval Doctrine Command in Norfolk, Virginia. He was the 1994 National Junior Reserve Officer of the Year.