Rx for NPS

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The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is one of the Navy’s most underused assets. It provides a wide array of ad­vanced educational opportunities and facilities to officers of all the uniformed services and many defense agencies. The school’s current curricula include admin­istrative sciences, aeronautical engineering, operations analysis, antisubmarine warfare, air-ocean sciences, and many others.

Some of the facilities available include an IBM 3033 mainframe computer with advanced statisti­cal analysis and graphics capa­bilities, a complete aerodynam­ics and aircraft propulsion laboratory, current Navy fire control systems, a wargaming analysis and research laboratory, and a myriad of other complex systems.

With so many opportunities available, one would expect the Navy to emphasize strongly the research and education accom­plished there, but of all the ser­vices, the Navy uses the facili­ties and their graduates the least and seems to have the vaguest grasp of their potential. This is the result of a variety of factors, some relating to NPS policy and some to elements outside the school.

Factors Outside the School ► Isolation from the Service: Officers at NPS are cut off from their parent services. While this allows them to concentrate on their studies free of some of the encumbrances of active service, it also isolates them from infor-

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mation about current topics, pro­cedures, and other subjects of special concern to them as mili­tary officers. The fallout from the Walker spy case exacerbated this situation. The Navy was compelled to reduce the number of its officer security clearances and decided to cancel or at least downgrade the security clear­ances of almost every student officer at NPS. While this looked good on paper (the Navy was able to announce that it had pulled more than 1,500 officer clearances), it further isolated most of the NPS student body from its parent service by cut­ting off its access to classified material.

► Lack of Thesis Research Top­ics: A major part of the graduate student’s education at NPS is completion of a thesis in his field of study. This could be an excellent opportunity for stu­dents to complete service-related research. Too often, however, the students choose treadmill topics they can complete with a minimum of outside assistance and within the requisite time period. Part of the blame rests on the school’s thesis proce­dures, but it is also partly be­cause many naval organizations do not actively solicit students to perform research for them.

Some organizations have been providing thesis topic sugges­tions for years. But they are sel­dom of pressing concern to the service because usually the re­search must be accomplished by one student on a part-time basis

Lieutenant John M. Lillard, U. S. Na^y.'

in less than nine months, and such topics may or may not be chosen.      .

► Failure to Take Advantage "/ Experience Tours: Some of the NPS curricula, such as opera­tions analysis and ASW, send their students on six-week exp^e rience tours as part of the cout- of study. While some comma¹¹

and even civilian organizations ^ actively recruit students for th^e tours, many naval commands view them as something simt* to a newly commissioned enSL

“stashed” on board. The stu dent-officer is often forced to

find his own sponsor for his

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and once he arrives is left to

his

own devices. The result is ³ waste of valuable time and e ' fort. f

The basic cause of these de ciencies is lack of adequate communication between the ^s

vice and the school. As a res

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the service spends thousands ⁰ dollars recruiting civilian re­search that could be accom- , plished at NPS for a fraction ^ the cost. Also, when the sch¹¹ and the service investigate tn same areas, they frequently work at cross purposes.

Factors Within the Schoo ► Rigid Thesis Procedures■

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strictive thesis requirements ^

only permit students to wor^

work ¹

their topics during the last Q ters of their tenure, discount classified topics, and require adherence to strict time con­straints cause students to 0 tate toward topics that can accomplished easily.

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P°D Committee on Excellence in Education, “The Service Academies: Conclu­

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ij ^{s a}°d Initiatives,” 28 April 1975, p. 2

g^Ce William P. Baxter’s comparison of Soviet and U. S. PME in Soviet Airland Wle Tactics, Novato: Presidio Press, 1985, p. 261.

John'' —

Collins, U. S. Defense Planning: A Critique, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982.

£^kclt°n, p. 6.

^?^Unfation Briefs, Naval War College Foundation, October 1988.

I ^0lTlas Buell, “The Education of a Warrior, ” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 9?^Uary 1981, p. 42.

^l0Ch^lton’^p-⁷.

loon>^ar^^es Viliam Maynes, “America’s Chance,” Foreign Policy No. 68, Fall

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p ^AdlT1- Stephen B. Luce, USN, “The U. S. Naval War College,” Naval Institute ^r°^ceedings, Vol. 134, 1910, p. 561.

A frequent contributor to the Proceedings, Captain Schratz has been a student of military education for many years. Navy Secretary Paul Nitze authorized him to accept a doctoral fellowship on condition that he use his special training to improve the Navy attitude toward professional education. He is both graduate and faculty member of three senior war colleges. He served as long-range academic planner at the Naval War College, as Director of the Defense Strategy Seminar and founder of the Research Institute at the National War College, Director of International Studies at the University of Missouri, a Brookings scholar, and professor of military strategy at the Air War College.

_riSgraduate School become stu-

\_a"’ ^ln civilian clothes, but the the ^ ^{niust not} lose touch with ^1,1 as it is wont to do.

°f Facilities for Classi- _Sj_s Work: The increased empha

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°ⁿ security of classified ma-

lals

caught the school off

for^ ^{3na tae} original facilities hit_v^Study of classified subjects ^eXa^{£ never} b^een expanded. For tyrj^Plc. students who choose to ^c0tn ^c*^assified theses must ac- p_r Phsh most of their word

in the school’s small acting lab, where computer d_er,j^Ss'^s limited and thesis stu- Wjtjj ^niUst compete for space . ^students involved in war- thg^.S sessions. In addition, lied ,^{1S a} dire shortage of classi- “_ho|^Stoyag^e safes and study i_n ®^s ” At a time when mean­er defense study is routinely gt_e i ^e(i> these restrictions can i \ ^'^naer students’ efforts.

°f Contact with the ^Q Navy”; Within the

^mS^s t June 1989

school, this is much more diffi­cult to quantify, but any NPS student can testify to its legiti­macy as a problem area. For example, the programs provided by the school’s Chair of Tactical Analysis (part of the Operations Research Department) do not reach nearly the number of stu­dent-officers they should. With­out access to even routine mes­sage traffic, student officers all too often find out about matters that affect them directly by read­ing the Navy Times.

► Too Few Interdisciplinary Curricula: Most of the curricula at NPS involve the “hard sci­ences” (i.e., electrical engineer­ing, physics, or oceanography) or administrative sciences (finan­cial management, logistics man­agement, or transportation man­agement), with relatively narrow applications outside their own fields. Interdisciplinary curricula that are of more use to the unre­stricted line (e.g., command, control, and communications, and operations analysis) make up a much smaller part of the curriculum choice than their importance warrants. This aspect tends to reinforce the commonly held impression of NPS as a breeding ground for restricted line officers, especially when compared to institutions such as the Naval War College and the Air Force’s Air University.

Factors Affecting Graduates

►                  Duty Assignments: The Navy is the only service that does not make immediate use of the NPS education. This is partly the re­sult of the sea-shore rotation requirements for unrestricted line officers, but all too often gradu­

ates are sent to jobs that have absolutely no connection with the area they studied at NPS. By the time most line officers are assigned to their subspecialty tours, they have been out of their field of study for as many as three years.

► Obligations Incurred: Too many penalties are associated with a tour as a student at NPS. Under current Naval Military Personnel Command directives, students are obligated to serve an extra three years for their first year, with a year-for-year obligation after that. This extra obligation is not the main bone of contention, however. Naval student-officers, especially avia­tors, are forced to serve many tours outside their warfare spe­cialty and face the prospect of falling out of step with their contemporaries in consideration for promotion and command. In the case of an aviator, a two- and-a-half year tour at NPS fol­lowed by a disassociated sea tour and then a subspecialty shore tour can lead to spending close to seven consecutive years out of the cockpit. For tactical aviation (TacAir) aviators, this virtually assures failure to screen for command. Consequently, few aviators (especially from the TacAir communities) even apply to NPS, and a tour there is widely regarded in squadron ready rooms as something to be avoided at all costs.

Recommendations: Some of these deficiencies are “the na­ture of the beast” and have no quick and easy fix. However, the NPS staff and the Navy can

69

rectify some of the most glaring with minor changes in procedure and philosophy.

► Enhance Communication Be­tween the Navy and the School: NPS is equipped for and capable of producing quality analysis on a multitude of military-related subjects of interest. Organiza­tions such as the Operational Test and Evaluation Force,

Naval Air Development Center, Naval Training Center, and Naval Space Command should actively seek research assistance from the school. The luxury of having one or more trained offi­cers devoted to researching a particular subject of interest is one all of these commands could benefit from.

► Relax Thesis Research Re­quirements for Students: NPS should not try to be a standard civilian postgraduate school. Its purpose is to provide military officers with advanced education that will benefit the services. Accordingly, the current thesis requirements should be relaxed to allow students to conduct re­search in conjunction with a sponsoring command. Experi­ence tours should be coordinated with this research; if necessary, ongoing research could continue through several students’ tours- Successful completion of or a significant contribution to the project should satisfy the thesis requirement. Not only would th^e student benefit from the expert' ence of conducting real-world research, the services could save hundreds of thousands of dolia^rS that would ordinarily be spent hiring civilian contractors to p^ef form the same job.

Getting the Second Degree__________ By Major Les Stein, U.S. Marine Corp⁵