Introduction to “Educating the Military Practitioner” Series
Col. Ken Gleiman, PhD, US Army, Retired
Col. Celestino Perez, PhD, US Army, Retired
Lt. Col. David P. Oakley, PhD, US Army, Retired
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According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the purpose of professional military education (PME) “is the development of strategically minded joint warfighters who think critically and can creatively apply military power to inform national strategy, conduct globally integrated operations, and fight under conditions of disruptive change.”1
While the desired attributes of military leaders are generally clear, their practical meaning and the best way to cultivate them remain contested. Further complicating the discussion is the military’s knack for applying doctrinal language to topics and issues where it is ill-fitting. For example, the 2017 discussion about an increased focus on “lethality” in PME classrooms left many professors, in and out of uniform, confused. More recently, the reported push to oust civilian academics from PME classrooms and military academies has reignited the debate over the purpose of PME.2 Is PME focused on intellectually developing military professionals so they can appreciate and therefore effectively operate in a complex sociopolitical environment, or is it to focus on training them for promotion and their next position?
Beyond the purpose of PME are questions regarding how to educate military practitioners. Some of the questions are long-standing debates that have framed a discourse for decades.3 Other questions are more recent. Educators and leaders have struggled for years to answer questions that include the following:
- What is the frequency of PME and how do the various levels build upon each other?
- Is the current “episodic” approach sufficient to nurture practitioners, or should there be a more continuous approach?4
- What is the service, command, and individual responsibility in ensuring a practitioner’s education is adequate?
- What is the correct faculty mixture of practitioners and academics at PME institutions?
- How can civilian universities and PME institutions or academic institutions and military units collaborate to ensure education is not merely episodic?
- What are the best ways to combine theory, history, and practice so the individual is not only intellectually developed but can also apply what they learn in the classroom on the job?
- What are the best approaches or pedagogy to deliver the education needed for military practitioners, including the role of experiential- and problem-based learning in PME classrooms? More recently, these debates have morphed into questions concerning the appropriate use of artificial intelligence in education and finding the right mix and types of war games compared to more traditional education modalities.5
In addition to individual and collective development are questions regarding PME’s role in security cooperation, partnership development, and interoperability. These questions include, What is the benefit of international practitioners at US PME institutions? What is the benefit of sending US practitioners to international PME? What is the right mixture of US military, US interagency, and international practitioners in the US PME classroom? What can be learned by observing how other partner countries approach PME?
Finally, What can we learn from observing how adversaries educate their practitioners? What does their PME scholarship tell us about their strategic and operational goals or perspectives? How are these countries using PME to develop partnerships and increase influence globally? Appreciating the value of education for the individual, institution, and Nation is important but is infrequently and ill considered. This special series seeks to create an ongoing conversation about practitioner education so we can better appreciate its purpose and practice.
The “Educating the Military Practitioner” series will consist of multiple articles posted on a special section of the Army University Press website and published in Military Review. The articles will be written by educators drawn from various educational institutions and/or practitioners who have a focus/interest in educating military practitioners. The articles will be divided into three themes: civilian institutions, partners and allies, and PME institutions. Each theme addresses a critical dimension of how we prepare military professionals for the challenges of modern warfare and strategic competition. Collectively, these themes underscore that education is not a closed system but an ecosystem that spans the academy, the profession, and the international community.
The first theme, civilian institutions, examines the vital relationship between the military and civilian centers of learning. Civilian universities serve as engines of critical thought, innovation, and disciplinary expertise. Though recently much maligned and caught up in the culture wars, American universities remain the best in the world. Many policymakers have argued over the last fifty years that when military practitioners engage with these institutions, whether through joint programs, sabbaticals, fellowships, or cotaught courses, they gain access to diverse perspectives that strengthen strategic judgment and moral reasoning. This collaboration, they argue, also benefits civilian academics, who gain a deeper understanding of military culture and national security challenges. This long-held conventional wisdom is now being challenged. This theme’s articles will explore different models of partnership, highlight best practices for integrating military students into civilian classrooms, and consider how academic inquiry can inform the development of adaptable, ethically grounded professionals.
The second theme, partners and allies, focuses on international and interagency education as both a tool of professional development and an instrument of strategy. The United States and its allies and partners share not only classrooms but also, in many cases, values, doctrines, and challenges that increasingly require interoperability of minds as well as forces. Examining joint PME programs, international-officer exchanges, and comparative approaches to professional development reveals how education can strengthen coalition effectiveness and mutual understanding, and even facilitate cognitive and strategic empathy. Equally important, studying how partners design their PME systems can illuminate our own assumptions and inspire reform. This theme’s articles will include perspectives from allied educators and graduates as well as case studies of international PME institutions shaping tomorrow’s strategic leaders.
The final theme, PME institutions, turns inward to examine the structure, content, and culture of US PME institutions themselves. As the character of warfare evolves, the expectations placed on military education have expanded. PME must not only transmit doctrine but also cultivate intellectual agility, ethical grounding, and a spirit of lifelong learning. This theme will highlight innovations within US service schools and joint institutions, including curriculum reform, faculty development, integration of civilian academics, and new pedagogical approaches such as war-gaming, design thinking, and experiential learning. The goal is to understand how PME can remain responsive to operational demands while preserving the broader purpose of professional growth.
Together, these three themes frame a holistic discourse about what it means to educate versus simply to train the military practitioner. They encourage reflection on the balance between experience and theory, the national and the international, and the institutional and the individual. We will encourage authors, both military and civilian, to go beyond the military’s language of doctrine and jargon and instead discuss topics with broader, more universal terminology that invites other elements of our society to weigh in on this critical topic that is fundamentally about their military. Although individual articles might focus on specific educational programs, the series is intended to be a broad look at how military practitioners are educated from junior officers and noncommissioned officers to senior leaders. The intent is not to concentrate on one level of education but to understand how the military intellectually develops its leaders, appreciate the educational needs of military practitioners, and consider ways to improve the current “episodic” approach. The series will culminate in a conference at the University of South Florida in April 2027, bringing together scholars, educators, and practitioners to synthesize insights and chart future directions for PME.
Notes 
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 1800.01G, Officer Professional Military Education Policy (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 15 April 2024), 1, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Library/Instructions/CJCSI%201800.01G.pdf.
- Eliot A. Cohen, “Hegseth’s Headlong Pursuit of Academic Mediocrity,” The Atlantic, 6 August 2025, https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/archive/2025/08/military-education-reforms/683760/.
- Kirklin Bateman et al., “100 Years of Professional Military Education: A Quantico Centennial,” Marine Corps Gazette, June 2021, 32–35, https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/100-Years-of-Pro-Military-Education.pdf; Patrick Naughton, “Professional Military Education,” Military Review 97, no. 4 (July-August 2017): 84–91, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/July-August-2017/Naughton-Professional-Military-Education/.
- Joint Chiefs of Staff, Developing Today’s Joint Officers for Tomorrow’s Wars of War: The Joint Chiefs of Staff Vision and Guidance for Professional Military Education & Talent Management (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1 May 2020), 2, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/education/jcs_pme_tm_vision.pdf?ver=2020-05-15-102429-817.
- Matthew Woessner, “A Guide to Collaborating With AI in the Military Classroom,” War on the Rocks, 23 October 2025, https://warontherocks.com/2025/10/a-guide-to-collaborating-with-and-not-surrendering-to-ai-in-the-military-classroom/; Tom Spahr et al., “Back to the Basics in Wargaming—With a Little Help from AI,” War Room, 11 September 2025, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/back-to-the-basics/.
Ken Gleiman is the editor in chief of Small Wars Journal and a professor of practice at Arizona State University where he develops education programs for the Future Security Initiative and teaches in the School of Politics and Global Studies. He is a twenty-seven-year veteran of the US Army, a Green Beret, and an Army strategist. His education includes a master’s degree in policy management from Georgetown University, a master’s degree from the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and a master’s degree in military history from the US Army Command and General Staff College Art of War Scholars program. Gleiman earned his doctorate from Kansas State University in security studies and was the first US Army Goodpaster Fellow. He is a certified Strategy Management Professional through the International Association of Strategy Professionals. He coauthored the book Winning Without Fighting: Irregular Warfare and Strategic Competition in the 21st Century, which was published in 2024.
Celestino Perez Jr. is an associate professor and the chair of executive and strategic leadership at the US Army War College. He also serves as an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Trained as a PhD in political theory at Indiana University, he writes on strategy, war, leadership, and military ethics. He retired from the US Army in the fall of 2021 as a colonel with thirty years of military service.
David P. Oakley is the academic director at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute. He served in the US Army as a field artillery officer/strategist and in the Central Intelligence Agency as a staff operations officer. Oakley has a PhD in security studies from Kansas State University, an MPA from the University of Oklahoma, an MMAS from both the School of Advanced Military Studies and the US Army Command and General Staff College, and a BA from Pittsburg State University.
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