Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

My simple plan for reviving PME

Recently, in a note to a reader, I summarized my views of how to reform professional military education. It occurred to me that I might share them here: Make admission competitive. Make the education as academically rigorous as it was during the interwar period. (And don’t train them. Educate them to think critically.) Make everybody ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Wikimedia
Wikimedia
Wikimedia

Recently, in a note to a reader, I summarized my views of how to reform professional military education. It occurred to me that I might share them here:

Recently, in a note to a reader, I summarized my views of how to reform professional military education. It occurred to me that I might share them here:

  • Make admission competitive.
  • Make the education as academically rigorous as it was during the interwar period. (And don’t train them. Educate them to think critically.)
  • Make everybody write a lot and get graded on their work. As Orwell said, if you aren’t writing clearly, you probably aren’t thinking clearly.
  • Post class rankings weekly.
  • Fail at least 5 percent of the class, and dismiss from the service anyone caught plagiarizing or otherwise cheating.
  • Upon graduation, publicly list graduates in order, and give the top 10 or 25 percent preference in subsequent posts.

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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