Training for War, Educating for Judgment

How the proposed overhaul of America’s military academies mistakes ideological conformity for military readiness.

The Ideal Naval Officer

As plebes at the US Naval Academy in 1986, we were required to memorize 1000+ facts, quotes, and random crap (aka “Rates”) during our Plebe summer. I still remember one of those quotes, at the time ascribed to John Paul Jones (the father of the US Navy) :

“It is by no means enough that an officer of the Navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more.”

The passage went on to describe a naval officer as a person of “liberal education,” capable of distinguishing “error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetency, and well-meant shortcomings from heedless or stupid blunder.”

I thought that was darn-right enlightened. This is exactly what I hoped to become—a person who learned how to discern right from wrong (i.e., apply judgment) when the answer was not clear.

When Scholarship Confronts and Corrects Tradition

The only problem was that John Paul Jones had not actually written those words. The quote first appeared in a 1900 biography written by Augustus C. Buell. In 1986 (the year my class started at Navy), the Naval historian James C. Bradford exposed Buell as a fabricator who invented multiple letters and statements. However, the Academy did not formally correct Reef Points until 2003! And, classic Navy, rather than discard the passage, the Academy retained it under a corrected heading: “Written by Augustus C. Buell in 1900 to reflect his views of John Paul Jones.” I did not know about this until this week when I was researching this article.

That story captures something essential about military education. Tradition gave the passage authority; however, it is important to give room for scholars to explore what we assume is true. To be clear, the discovery that Jones did not write the words did not make it less inspirational to me and, I imagine, many of my classmates. It did require an institution (i.e., the Naval Academy) to correct a story it had been telling about itself for GENERATIONS! This is exactly what education should do. It should teach us to respect inherited traditions while, at the same time, allowing for self-reflection when a new fact pattern is discovered.

Why This Matters Now?

Why am I making a big deal over a quote from 1900?? Because the DoD is considering a complete restructuring of the way the service academies approach their mission to educate the officers of the future. According to an unreleased draft memorandum obtained by CBS News, the proposal would eliminate civilian tenure at the service academies (and senior war colleges) and subject every course to a “line-by-line” review. The new standard applied to the course would be that they need to advance “tactical, operational or strategic warfighting.” Courses deemed nonessential or “ideologically driven” could be eliminated. (note: as of July 30, the memorandum had not received final approval.)

To be clear, I do think there is some legitimacy to the review. The service academies, by definition, are not ordinary universities. Their stated purpose is to prepare officers to defend the country. Thus, their curricula should be rigorous, relevant, and connected to that mission. And, I think it is totally fair to expect Civilian faculty to be held accountable for the quality of their teaching, scholarship, and contribution to the institution. Moreover, I know from experience that tenure does not guarantee excellence.

Behind The Wizard’s Curtain

I was an English major at the Naval Academy, graduating with a BS in English (yes, I get the irony). Most of my professors in my department were civilians. I then had the good fortune to go back as a “military instructor” in the English department. Thus, I got to see what really happened behind the Wizard’s curtain and also spent time getting to know many of these professors as colleagues and some as friends. In reflection, they were not all great teachers, and most were not all active scholars (to be fair, the Naval Academy was not a “research university,” so the research requirement was pretty light). Thus, tenure did not automatically produce continuing contribution.

Some professors were deeply committed to the mission of developing future officers. Others appeared to be just putting in their time. There were exceptions, of course. I remember one professor, in particular, who challenged the Academy almost weekly. He ruffled lots of feathers. And while I think his arguments were provocative, sometimes they seemed unnecessarily so. At the same time, some of his criticisms were true, and they forced the institution to confront questions it might otherwise have preferred to avoid (ironically, Pres Trump and Sec. Hegseth would have loved this guy’s take on DEI at the Academy)

This experience left me with a mixed POV re: tenure. It can (and does) protect mediocrity. At the same time, it protects the person willing to tell an institution something it does not want to hear.

The World Beyond The Academy

I have been reading Rick Atkinson’s The Long Gray Line, his account of West Point’s Class of 1966. This class of 560ish entered West Point at a time when the Academy inculcated a fixed moral architecture: duty, honor, country. This also included what Sec Hegseth would call the warrior ethos: loyalty to the unit; obedience to lawful authority; & courage in the face of danger.

The book follows this class through Vietnam and then back to the US in the early 70s, which had changed radically from the time they entered West Point in 1962. They became part of what Atkinson describes as the first generation of West Pointers to join a losing Army. To be clear, their struggle was not caused by the absence of principles. It arose because the reality they faced was often confusing, and it was hard to reconcile which principle in their moral architecture should apply. Atkinson shares many stories of these young officers wrestling with hard-to-answer questions such as:

• What did an officer owe his soldiers when the mission appeared strategically incoherent?

• What did loyalty to the chain of command require when senior leaders seemed disconnected from conditions on the ground?

• How should an officer reconcile the urgency of protecting his men with obligations toward civilians?

• When did honor require obedience, and when did it require candor?

• How could an officer distinguish between a lawful order, a wise order, and a moral one?

Each of the men featured in his book comes up with different answers to these questions based on their specific situation and moral compass. Some survived, and many died. Even more were scared (physically, mentally, emotionally) for life based on their experience in Vietnam.

We have seen how this same dynamic play out in more recent conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately, the morality of war is gray. The hardest choices are rarely between obvious good and obvious evil. They are between competing duties, incomplete information, and consequences that cannot be fully anticipated.

This is where the distinction between Military “training” and “education” becomes meaningful. Training teaches a person to perform a known task under defined conditions. Education prepares a person to determine what the conditions mean, which principles apply, what consequences may follow, and what to do when the rules seem to be in conflict. Today’s officers need both. They must know how to execute a mission. They must also understand the mission’s relationship to the broader strategic purpose. They need to understand military law, their constitutional obligation, and their moral responsibility. An order can be lawful and still be foolish. A commander can satisfy the immediate demands of the chain of command while failing the soldiers or citizens whose trust gives that command its legitimacy. Thus, I would argue that developing judgment is an essential warfighting capability. But how does one develop judgment?

Good thing we have 1000s of years of thinking on the topic to refer to!

Educating the Guardians

One of the earliest examples we have of how to educate the guardians of a Republic is Plato’s dialogue The Republic, written more than 2000 years ago. In The Republic, Socrates asks what qualities should characterize those entrusted to guard the city (i.e., the military). He shows that courage and martial spirit (i.e., the warrior ethos) are necessary but not sufficient. The Guardian must possess seemingly opposite qualities: he and she (yes, there were female guardians in The Republic) must be both fierce toward the city’s enemies but also gentle toward its citizens.

So how does a Guardian discern who is friend and who is foe? This distinction depends upon recognition and knowledge. The Guardian must be more than strong. He must be capable of determining whom he is obligated to serve. That is why Plato devotes so much of The Republic to the education of those entrusted with power. Plato, Republic, Book II, 375e-376d.

Because he understands how profoundly education shapes the Guardian’s character, Plato also permits the rulers of his imagined city to regulate its stories, poetry, music, and myths. I.e., Plato is suggesting that the rulers use education as a means of limiting what the Guardian is allowed to think. And this insight is at the heart of the tension within military education. The state must educate its Guardians well enough to exercise independent judgment. Yet the state may also be tempted to control that education so tightly that independent judgment becomes impossible. WOWZA!! This seems pretty relevant today.

Constitutional Loyalty Versus Political Compliance

A constitutional republic should expect constitutionally loyal officers. At the same time, it should also not want politically compliant officers. These ideas are not synonymous. Political compliance attaches loyalty to the people temporarily holding power. Constitutional loyalty attaches loyalty to the constitution these officials have sworn to preserve. That distinction requires officers who can reason historically, legally, morally, and strategically. It also requires officers capable of offering civilian leaders candid advice. These civilian leaders should embrace these thought partners, not purge them from the military.

This is why the proposed standard for curriculum review is inadequate. History courses may not appear to contribute “directly” to tactical warfighting until a commander must recognize that battlefield victories are not producing political progress. Reading books may seem peripheral until an officer must be able to empathize with the humanity of the enemy. Studying Philosophy may seem abstract until duty, honor, law, and loyalty each suggest different paths forward when confronted with a moral quagmire. These disciplines do not distract from the formation of warfighters. In fact, properly taught, they help prevent warfighters from becoming mere instruments of force.

The Naval Academy’s own mission recognizes this broader responsibility. I.e., its mission is to develop midshipmen “morally, mentally and physically” and to prepare them for “the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.” It is a mouthful, but certainly broadens the remit of a military education and echoes what Buell said about John Paul Jones 200 years ago.

Another Lens to Use

The proposed review should therefore ask more thoughtful questions than just whether a course has an obvious connection to warfighting. For example, does a course:

• Develop strategic reasoning?

• Deepen historical and cultural understanding?

• Sharpen ethical and constitutional judgment?

• Does it teach officers to connect tactical action to political purpose?

• Expose students to arguments they must be able to understand and answer?

Or to be more precise, for the Naval Academy, you could just ask: “Does it contribute demonstrably to the Academy’s mission?” Ultimately, the standard should be contribution, not conformity.

Accountability without ideological purification

The language of the draft memorandum creates a deeper concern. It reportedly proposes eliminating courses deemed “ideologically driven” without explaining who will make that determination or by what standard. Obviously, every curriculum reflects judgments about which ideas, histories, and capabilities matter. Removing a course can be as ideological as creating one. The question is not whether ideology can be eliminated from education. It is whether students will encounter serious competing arguments and learn to assess them through evidence, reason, and debate.

Similarly, a “line-by-line” review can be a tool of institutional accountability. However, it can also become an ideological purification campaign, particularly if the reviewers begin with a political conclusion about which questions may be asked. This is where civilian faculty perform a distinct institutional function. Military instructors bring recent operational experience, professional credibility, and the “lived experience” of being in the Fleet. Civilian professors bring disciplinary depth and provide institutional continuity. Because military officers rotate every 2-3 years, civilian professors also preserve knowledge and programs across generations of leadership. This continuity provides perspective over time.

What To Do About The Deadbeats?

I do think there is an opportunity to uplevel the impact and effectiveness of civilian professors (and military instructors). But this is not by eliminating intellectual independence (as protected by tenure). Instead, one way to do this would be to build a stronger system of accountability around it. I.e., tenure should protect rigorous inquiry, not weak performance. Faculty should be evaluated on the quality of their teaching, the seriousness of their scholarship, and their contribution to the Academy’s mission. Existing procedures for addressing nonperformance should be examined and strengthened where necessary. But a professor should not have to worry that a historically grounded point of view or a criticism of institutional policy will be the justification for being fired.

If we don’t protect intellectual independence at the Academies, the midshipmen and cadets will never learn how to reconcile competing ideas. Professors will avoid difficult subjects. Administrators will remove controversial readings. They will be living in Orwell’s 1984. This may produce conformity, but it will not produce judgment.

A capable warfighter, but also a great deal more

As Buell wrote, a naval officer must indeed be a capable mariner, “but also a great deal more.” Yes, technical competence is indispensable. Yes, physical courage is indispensable. At the same time, historical understanding, moral imagination, constitutional loyalty, intellectual humility, and the ability to distinguish error from malice are indispensable. To that point, the West Point Class of 1966 did not enter Vietnam without principles or courage. Their ordeal began when principles came into conflict and courage demanded more than physical bravery.

To be clear, I don’t think any curriculum could provide officers with ready-made answers to every moral or strategic dilemma. These are not “Rates” to be memorized. Instead, a military education should be focused on developing the habits of mind and character necessary to face those dilemmas responsibly. And this is not the same type of education a college kid gets at a civilian school. Nor should it be.

These officers (aka guardians) are trusted with the power of life and death. And, as a republic, we should expect that they know how to fight and win. At the same time, as Plato wrote 2000 years ago, a republic must also educate its guardians to understand why they fight, what limits their power, whom they serve, and how to respond when duty, honor, law, and strategy no longer point in the same direction.