Christopher M. Marcell, Gaylon L. McAlpine, Reagan E. Schaupp, and Joseph L. Varuolo
When Secretary of Defense General James Mattis published the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), one statement in the summary companion document garnered great attention—and reaction—among the professional military education (PME) community: “PME has stagnated, focused more on the accomplishment of mandatory credit at the expense of lethality and ingenuity.”1 Mattis’s remedy: “We will emphasize intellectual leadership and military professionalism in the art and science of warfighting, deepening our knowledge of history while embracing new technology and techniques to counter competitors.”2 Two crucial phrases in this prescription, art and science of warfighting and to counter competitors, certainly reflected rapidly growing U.S. awareness of the accelerating rise of the People’s Republic of China and the accompanying “return to Great Power competition.”3 Mattis’s “calling out” of PME ignited passionate debate at all levels, as institutions (with accompanying opinion pieces) evaluated curriculum, faculty, and purpose. These topics eventually became the focus of House Armed Services Committee testimony in 2022,4 and of four RAND reports.
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