Leverage the Joint Intellectual Capacity of Senior PME

In May 2020, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) called for updated leader development strategies, including professional military education, to better counter the rapidly changing security environment and help the services develop intellectual overmatch against adversaries. The vision statement defines overmatch as rooted in producing officers that are strategically minded, critical thinkers, and creative joint warfighters. The JCS paper also includes talent management and an outcomes-based model. The services continue to address these and other proposals for improving the military’s strategic capacity through human intellectual capital, but there is room for additional improvement in how the war colleges tackle senior professional military education. All requirements can be tailored into an interwar approach to leverage the intellectual capital already resident in the senior service colleges, with little or no additional financial cost.