Of the Changing Nature of War and the Need to Foster a Military Paradigm that Promotes ‘a Contest of Ideas and Candour’

‘Professional Military Education: Making of The 21st Century Warrior’, a book by Lt Gen AB Shivane, throws new insights into Professional Military Education and its critical importance to transform to meet the challenges of the current and emerging security threats to national security.

Professional military education is a means to bridge the gap between combat as an instrument of warfare which must relate to war as an instrument of politics. Professional Military Education (PME) is defined in the book as the accelerated learning continuum that provides military personnel with the intellectual overmatch and academic vigour, the technical and tactical skills and the judgement for decision superiority, under complex and uncertain combat situations for military success.

In his new book, titled ‘Professional Military Education: Making of The 21^st Century Warrior’, Lt Gen AB Shivane (Retd) refers to the contextual relationship of education, training and experience as: “Contextually, Professional Military Education is the application of education to enrich the training and optimise the experience, to imbibe a scientific temper in the art and science of war, as well as contribute to negative and passive peace.”

The Changing Character of War

The current and emerging security challenges, viewed especially from the prism of the changing character of war itself, clearly call for a greater focus on PME and scrutinise some of the most pertinent questions of the current times: Does the PME hold ground when it comes to its effectiveness in relation to its purpose? Is the PME responsive to the dynamic military needs of the present and future? Does the PME empower its foundational and development domains in their pursuit of professional excellence in the military? Does it (the PME) help accomplish the military mission? And then of course, does it help fix the roots and bridge the gaps if any?

Pertinent Issues

Lt Gen AB Shivane’s book attempts to answer some of the broadest and most relevant/pertinent issues related to PME while offering fresh and well-researched insight into such a key foundation to the security of the country.

The book’s relevance can be gauged from the changing dynamics and multiplying domains of war in modern times, the porous boundaries – the transition beyond the battlespace, warfare outpacing warfighters, and the PME-oriented legacy of the previous war/s.

Diligent Research

The book’s relevance can be gauged from the changing character of war, its multiplying domains, the porous boundaries and the transition beyond the battlespace. Indeed the reality is warfare is fast outpacing the warfighters, and the legacy professional military education (PME) is not only oriented to the last war but also the wrong one. The challenge for PME is to reshape its structures, reorient its focus and rebalance its contents to make it relevant and responsive to future conflict scenarios in a multi domain joint operational environment

A book of immense value to the military and security establishment, Lt Gen AB Shivane’s work encompassing diligent research shines a light on the Indian legacy system of PME and the need for adopting disruptive technologies and other key elements to keep pace with the dynamic evolution of the strategic environment and warfighting tenets.

Military education, emphasizes the author, is such a key element to the country’s security in a rapidly changing environment simply because it provides an “intellectual architecture for battlefield success”.

Civil-Military Ties

The author further notes that PME contributes to stable civil-military ties, a culture of reflection, and a capacity for critical analysis and creativity which is the conceptual link between PME and military effectiveness.

The Indian PME is one of the world’s most respected models, having repeatedly proven its worth on the battlefield and in internal security. However, “the approach to future PME has become wider in context, more complex in content, and more abstract in character at each successive level, demanding introspection and reorientation to adapt to future challenges”.

The Main Ethos

Contemporary wars, as the world has seen, have brought about a tectonic shift in the objectives, rules, players and instruments of war. The world has also noticed how present-time conflicts have been reshaping their character and untamed precincts. Military leaders at all levels will have to deal with an entirely new set of intellectual, cultural, operational and strategic challenges that were not present even a decade ago

The book delves deep into the concept of PME to bring forth a fresh outlook on the subject, which entails providing ethos, culture, and core values of services, the technical and tactical skills appropriate in waging a war and provides wisdom and judgment that need to be applied in a multiplicity of situations, especially in a world that is seeing changes at a pace never seen before in the history of human civilisation.

Empowering future military leaders with strategic thinking and communication skills, notes the author, prepares them better for the multi-domain warfare that’s becoming the order of the day and in the times of come, is likely to get more and more complex.

The military, says the author, more than ever now, needs leaders with cognitive ability, conceptual skills, learning agility, and a professional culture that promotes “a contest of ideas and candour”.

Tectonic Shift in Paradigm

Contemporary wars, as the world has seen, have brought about a tectonic shift in the objectives, rules, players and instruments of war. The world has also noticed how present-time conflicts have been reshaping their character and untamed precincts.

The modern battlespace, very clearly, has changed the security domain in a fundamental way – as a result of which, multiple aspects of human life including culture, history, geography, technology, society, geopolitics, doctrine, economics, trade, and nationalism etc. all combine to shape up the new war doctrine.

The challenge, therefore, is to list out and shape up a PME framework “wherein the only certainty is uncertainty and the only clarity is ambiguity”.

Future-ready

And it is this very challenge that Lt Gen AB Shivane’s seminal work not lives up to but brings forth a comprehensive and one-of-its-kind approach that will be of immense value in shaping the current and future military doctrines.

So, who is a successful leader? According to Lt Gen AB Shivane, a successful leader is one who is a joint warfighter adept in the art and science of warfare, who displays a scientific temper, thinks strategically, is empowered intellectually and can creatively apply military power to achieve combat overmatch under disruptive conditions of uncertainty and an accelerated rate of change, in a multi domain operational environment

Creativity, stresses the author, evolves through an “encouraging-cum-tolerant culture and knowledge-based academic infusion”.

Therefore, creativity must be practised and evaluated “beyond just sermons in classrooms”.

The author notes that the main obstacles to military creativity are those that are posed by the “military’s inherent hierarchical command structure — an authoritarian, bureaucratized system — and its thinking, which is exemplified by conformity, groupthink, parochialism, and anti-intellectualism culture”.

So, who is a successful leader? According to Lt Gen AB Shivane, a successful leader is one who has the undoubted ability to “think creatively, exploit technology and adapt innovatively to think, fight and win”.

Book Acknowledgements

The book “Professional Military Education: Making of the 21^st Century Warrior”, has been very positively commented on by three former Chiefs of three services and the present Chief of Army Staff in his Foreword.

And the book, when seen in the context of its stated objective, is a clear winner. A MUST READ for all professionals the world over, both the military and corporates for its learning curve.

The book is shortly to be released by the Chief of Army Staff. Preorders are available at http://kwpub.in/Home/product/9789394915381/professional-military-education-making-of-the-21st-century-warrior and will be shortly available on Amazon and Flipkart too.

RA Editorial Desk

Raksha Anirveda's editorial desk team brings in the collective experience of creative professionals - a fine mix of senior copy editors, writers, proofreaders and designers. Working as a team, they continuously create, manage, and curate content to sustain the magazine's profile and reputation in line with market trends and achieve magazine's goal.