Archives: Gazette Magazines

By Capt Darryl E Grissom

2000 Chase Prize Essay Contest: Honorable Mention

The dilemma is clear. “What do captains need to know?” This question, recently posed by the director of Command and Control Systems Course (CCSC) is at the heart of a debate throughout Marine Corps University. Currently, the focus of our career-level schools seems to be on tools, techniques, and procedures to train officers for staff work instead of educating leaders for combat situations. The program of instruction (POI), focused around core competencies such as the Marine Corps Planning Process and organization of the Marine Corps airground task force (MAGTF), compels students to study details without analyzing context. Since they breed technicians, not professional decisionmakers with the analytical background to continue their own education, current career-level schools are fundamentally flawed.

An irrefutable core competency of any military professional is the ability to make decisions. In the face of enemy fire, the ability to act and the courage to accept risk is fundamental to combat leadership. Officers of every specialty must be able to make effective decisions in a time-competitive environment.

However, career-level schools do not focus on developing an officer’s decisionmaking skills. For instance, CCSC allots 2 hours for Dr. Gary Klein to present his theory on decisionmaking styles and development. However, that seminar is the only attempt made to develop decisionmaking skills. In fact, more scheduled time is devoted to subjects such as financial management and web page design than to decisionmaking. Additional discussions or exercises designed to develop an officer’s ability are not scheduled.

The only effort to correct this deficiency is being made by one faculty advisor who runs a voluntary tactical decision game (TDG) workshop twice weekly before the first lecture of the day. This workshop allows students to analyze a situation and develop their solutions. It then requires the student to present his solution to the group. Thus, everyone benefits from analyzing the student’s tactical insight. It is a travesty that this workshop is not part of the POI. Except in a resident professional military education (PME) program, where can officers from every specialty learn from other’s decisions? There is not enough time between training cycles in the Operating Forces for officers to participate in TDG seminars.

The same training is missing from Amphibious Warfare School (AWS). AWS students often speak of the requirement for “process” over “product” in their exercises. Instead of focusing on the tactical decisions made, the faculty grades on the level of detail found in the student’s staff work. The POI is simply too full to allow the students to exercise their decisionmaking skills in TDGs.

How can this deficiency be filled? The answer is simple. Every day in any resident school should include a problem requiring students to make a decision and discuss their decision with their classmates and faculty.

Obviously, challenging students in this manner creates new problems for the faculty. However, the student benefits far outweigh the faculty burdens. We must learn to use resources such as interactive computer games to augment traditional TDGs. Time spent preparing these challenges would diminish valuable “PowerPoint slide preparation time.” But, developing the situations should be viewed as a learning opportunity for faculty as well as students.

Another facet of education is helping students develop their own PME programs and goals. This facet is missing from our schools. Students are not challenged to read interactively and think analytically about what they are reading. Instead, they are presented with a stack of publications and instruction manuals. Graded requirements focus on a level of detail beyond the analytical realm.

For instance, during a portion of CCSC, students focused on MAGTF logistics and combat service support. However, in the test, students were asked only to identify details: What is the correct operational graphic for Class IX supplies? A student could score 100 percent on an exam of this sort without actually understanding the significance of logistics to the success and failure of military campaigns. Does this student understand MAGTF logistics? No. He has simply memorized the instructor’s slides.

The ability to think critically about history can only be developed by careful study and reading. While at a resident school, studying history should be the focus. GEN George S. Patton preached:

[T]he memorizing of concrete examples is futile for in battle the mind does not work well enough to make memory trustworthy. One must be so soaked in military lore that he does the military thing automatically. The study of history will produce this result. The study of algebra will not.

For today’s Marines the message is still valid. The study of military history will produce professionals. The study of operational symbols will not.

Releasing officers to attend a resident school is expensive to the undermanned Operating Forces. We must not squander the opportunity. We must design a POI that allows students to develop a personal PME foundation on which to build. When they return to the Operating Forces, the foundation established in school will help them view current issues in a clearer historical context.

Certainly company grade officers must learn details such as composition of the force service support group and the Marine air control squadron. Fortunately, these topics are easily learned through careful employment of nonresident courses such as the AWS nonresident program. The nonresident course requires a student to familiarize himself with the Marine Corps Reference Publications since they are readily available in the Operating Forces. Multiple choice examinations certify that students have learned the material and understand the available resources. Since nonresident courses can teach details, resident courses shouldn’t be burdened with details.

If the goal of resident schools is to educate leaders, the curriculum must change. We must find a better balance between content heavy topics that have grown to be thought of as essential-financial management, grammar, and computer proficiency to name a few-and the timeless hallmarks of leaders-decisionmaking and professional reading. The Marine Corps will never fully realize the potential benefit of resident courses until it finds this balance.

What do captains need to know? They need to know how to make sound decisions in the chaos of battle. Let’s get away from detail-oriented subject matter and get on with the business of educating warriors.

By Capt Paul C Merida

Kosovo Writing Contest: 5th Place

On one particular afternoon in Kosovo, a Marine corporal, a mortarman by trade, stands post at a checkpoint his platoon has established in order to confiscate weapons and establish a presence in the area. He leads a fire team of four Marines including himself. His post contains a number of obstacles to slow traffic down as well as a sandbag bunker containing a PRC-119 and an M249 squad automatic weapon. It’s hot this day, and they’ve been at this for 3 weeks now with very few problems. In the corporal’s opinion, his biggest challenge has been keeping his Marines focused on the mission. His fire team searches a vehicle and lets it continue when a single shot rings out. The round impacts in the sandbags not 2 feet from one of his Marines. Immediately the corporal acts. He and another Marine return fire at the suspected enemy sniper. He orders another Marine to get on the radio, call the platoon commander, and summon the react force. The two Marines fire a total of eight rounds at the sniper who is at least 400 meters away on a hilltop behind a clump of bushes. The sniper jumps up and dashes over the top of the hill. Within 5 minutes the platoon react force is on the scene, within 30 minutes a nearby light armored vehicle platoon is there as well as a section of AH-1W Cobras. The corporal’s quick thinking enabled the Marines to suppress the sniper fire and bring an overwhelming amount of combat power to the scene within half an hour. No Marines were injured, and under fire for the first time, they demonstrated both poise and tire discipline.

This was just one example of how Marine noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in Kosovo operated and succeeded during Operation JOINT GUARDIAN, June-July 1999. Writing in the January 1969 issue of the Gazette, Gen Charles C. Krulak said: Success or failure will rest, increasingly, with the rifleman and with his ability to make the right decision at the right time at the point of contact.

In Kosovo the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), or 26th MEU(SOC), was tasked with implementing the terms of the Military Technical Agreement signed by the leaders of the Serbian Armed Forces and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The MEU operated in a very large sector that contained an abundance of Serbian, Albanian, and ethnically mixed villages and towns. Battalion Landing Team 3/8, the ground combat element of the 26th MEU(SOC), in an effort to cover as much territory as possible, operated very decentralized. Individual company sectors were much larger than one would expect, and it was common for platoons to be separated by several miles. The method of employment meant that the bulk of the decisionmaking, of necessity, would fall on the shoulders of the fire team leaders, squad leaders, and the staff sergeants and lieutenants that led them. The mission was difficult and often confusing. Violence between Albanians and Serbs was widespread, and Marines found themselves in the middle of dangerous and potentially explosive situations. For NCOs this meant that, as the former Commandant said, success or failure would rest on their shoulders.

My 81 mm mortar platoon was garrisoned in an Albanian town astride the main supply route. Our platoon sector was about 25 kilometers long and included several Serbian and Albanian villages. We operated two permanent traffic control points (vehicle checkpoints) on either end of town and ran constant motorized as well as foot mobile patrols all over our sector 24 hours a day for a month. Obviously my staff noncommissioned officers (SNCOs) and I could not be everywhere all of the time, thus our corporals and sergeants ended up making most of the decisions and were the ones on the scene when most problems arose. During our training workup, we had hardly scratched the surface of these areas. The majority of our time was spent on being mortarmen as well as the primary TRAP (tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel) force for the MEU. The NCOs were forced to develop standing operating procedures for peace enforcement/security operations on the fly, basically making them up as they went along. I provided my input when I thought it necessary and changed things if I thought they were wrong, but their judgment was nearly always sound. Their overall performance was superb.

A month later when we were replaced by the Army and headed back to the boats, it was easy to recognize the impact and difference we had made. The Marine sector was a more peaceful area, hundreds of weapons were confiscated, arrests were made, crimes were solved, property was returned to its rightful owners, and we had established a firm presence in the area-a presence that meant business and didn’t tolerate violation of the rules. Marines were fired on and returned fire when necessary. Marine NCOs were the post commanders and patrol leaders, they were the vehicle commanders and the sniper team leaders. They made decisions, exercised judgment, and got the job done.

How do we as officers and SNCOs develop this caliber of leadership and ensure that our NCOs are truly “Strategic Corporals”? Numerous articles have been written on this question alone, for everyone recognizes the importance of having topnotch small unit leaders. In my opinion, developing decisionmaking within Marines takes practice. Marines don’t pin on corporal and automatically become expert decisionmakers. Their ability needs to be developed, tested, and critiqued. For infantrymen there is no better tool for doing all this than the tactical decision game (TDG). TDGs not only test the decisionmaking ability of those who participate, but in addition, they teach valuable tactical and technical concepts. For example, while on boat in the Adriatic, my NCOs did a TDG every night. They weren’t just learning about maneuver warfare; they were learning to make decisions. They were forced to make decisions. Ethical decision games and wargaming rules of engagement do the same thing. They cultivate the decisionmaking ability of Marines and improve the judgment they use to reach their decisions. This is vital because as Gen Krulak said:

… these missions will require them to confidently make well-reasoned decisions under extreme stress-decisions that will likely be subject to the harsh scrutiny of both the media and the court of public opinion.

We also need to set our young NCOs up for success. We can do this by ensuring they receive the professional and tactical education they deserve and need. Professional military education courses like the Corporal’s Course and Sergeant’s Course, as well as advanced courses like the Squad Leader’s Course and those for machinegunners and mortarmen, are essential for developing proficient, well-educated, and well-rounded NCOs. Nothing breeds confidence and respect like military occupational specialty proficiency.

Lastly, our training both in the field and in garrison needs to support our desire to develop strong NCOs. We must give them the responsibility they desire and rate, and trust them to get the job done. We also, as leaders, need to have the moral courage to accept the fact that things won’t always get done exactly the way we want them to and that people will make mistakes. It goes without saving that a Marine who is afraid to make a mistake will be less likely to make a decision. Its our responsibility to create an atmosphere that promotes decentralized decisionmaking, encourages initiative, and is based on trust. If we do this constantly, both in and out of the field, we will have the NCOs needed to ensure mission accomplishment in a real-world operation. We will have the type of NCOs who are truly “the backbone of the Marine Corps.”

By LtCol Philip Anderson

MCU’s focus on combat decisionmaking is unique to its academic environment. Unlike other universities in which students possess a wide variety of goals and pursue numerous educational disciplines, the audience and subject matter at MCU are fixed and representative of the Marine Corps’ unique military society where students are . . . focused on improving their ability to succeed in battle.

During the 1930s, as the assistant commandant of the United States Army Infantry School, GEN George C. Marshall (then a colonel) put together a faculty of proven officers. Together they set about teaching students to think clearly about the battlefield. This faculty, through the use of some simple and practical teaching methods, realized great success. The purpose of this article is to offer some suggestions for teaching this generation of Marines. Much of what will be presented here is not new and may seem obvious to some readers familiar with history and/or educational theory and practice. However, the objective is not to restate what has already been written, but rather to assemble the aspects of the conventional wisdom most appropriate for promoting effective teaching among faculty in the Marine Corps University (MCU) environment.

Teaching has been defined throughout history as both an art and a science. Many modern educators define teaching simply as the means by which we educate or through which knowledge is imparted to students. The fact of the matter is that teaching at MCU must be more significant. The end result of effective teaching and the object of professional military education (PME) should be to unify the efforts of the faculty toward providing a foundation or framework from which students can develop their ability to make effective decisions in all situations up to and including combat. This differs from other applications in its audience and subject matter. MCU’s focus on combat decisionmaking is unique to its academic environment. Unlike other universities in which students possess a wide variety of goals and pursue numerous educational disciplines, the audience and subject matter at MCU are fixed and representative of the Marine Corps’ unique military society where students are focused on improving their ability to succeed in battle.

In the Marine Corps our warfighting philosophy is based on our understanding of the problems of uncertainty and friction on the battlefield. At the heart of our warfighting philosophy is the fact that decisionmaking in this environment, under trying conditions, is most often affected by intangible or imprecise factors. In this regard, PME should create a climate conducive to addressing the intangible subjective aspects of combat decisionmaking. Under Marshall, students were often issued foreign or outdated maps, provided incomplete intelligence information, compelled to operate without communications, given little time to plan and routinely made to contend with the unexpected. His faculty emphasized ingenuity and imagination. One of Marshall’s first orders was that any student’s solution that ran counter to the approved school solution and yet showed independent creative thinking would be published to the class.’

Education Versus Training

The debate continues regarding how to differentiate between technical ability generally acquired through “training” and the intangible human qualities generally developed through “education.” Nonetheless, it is important to possess a clear understanding of how each interrelates.

Training and education have often been looked upon synonymously, but they are very different concepts. Each complements the other, but each leads to distinctly different outcomes. Training is the acquisition of concrete skills that permits one to perform to standard. Therefore, training may be defined as an experience, discipline, or a regimen that causes people to acquire new predetermined behaviors.2 Training is the building-in of preset information and procedures-the technical aspect-oriented toward providing the mechanical wherewithal necessary to perform a particular task, the product of which is skill development and proficiency. An example of an outcome associated with training is the mechanical ability required to assemble and disassemble an M-16 rifle.

Education on the other hand, is that which is oriented toward developing leaders and decisionmakers. Education is the drawing out of students’ creative ability-the intangible human aspect-oriented toward providing the abstract ability to make decisions, the product of which is a creative mind. Where training deals with one correct way of performing a particular task, education addresses the internal nature of a problem to be solved, dealing with numerous possibilities rather than one correct answer. An example of an outcome associated with education is the creative judgment necessary for a leader to make a decision on the battlefield regarding the appropriate time or place to engage the enemy.

In practice it is not always easy to make a distinction between or to separate training from education since the ability to employ creative judgment requires technical expertise. MCU faculty should understand that training and education do not operate independently of one another. In fact training can best be viewed as a subset of education.3 Everything that is training is also education, but education also goes further. It attempts to get at the student’s creative aspect. Most often, the early stages of a Marine’s career should be weighted more heavily toward training since he or she more frequently will be engaged in operating a specific weapons system. Accordingly, the later stages of a Marine’s career should be dominated by education when that Marine is more likely to be in a leadership role.

Although the University should focus more heavily on education, it is clear that it is responsible for training as well. An appropriate balance must be maintained based on the nature of the desired outcome or impact on the student. Obviously a greater emphasis should be placed on training at The Basic School than at Command and Staff College. However, at both schools the requirement to address the intangible human ability related to combat decisionmaking, albeit at different levels, should be a priority.

Producing Combat Decisionmakers

During the 1930s, the leaders of the German Kriegsakademie (War College) absolutely believed that the capacity to make a decision in combat was the highest quality an officer could possess. The Germans called it “character,” and recruited their officers for its presence in their personalities and, thereafter, educated them to cultivate that capability.4 The requirement for character and decisiveness in combat is obvious. Developing the student’s character should be the preeminent purpose and the focus of effort for each member of the faculty at MCU.

The previous discussion of the differences between training and education demonstrates that a military decision is not just a mathematical computation. Decisionmaking requires both intuitive skill to recognize and analyze the essence of a given problem and the creative ability to devise a practical solution.5 There are several important yet somewhat intangible factors, identified in MCDP 1, that are both intuitive and creative in nature. When taken together the following factors form the essence of combat decisionmaking: (1) An understanding of the impact of uncertainty on the battlefield; (2) the ability to accept risk and act quickly; and (3) an understanding of the human dimension in war. Developing these abilities in students is no easy task. Combat decisionmaking should be viewed as a dynamic intellectual process which can in fact be created and shaped.

An understanding of the impact of uncertainty on the battlefield can be developed by ensuring that students do not always receive complete information. Situations should be created that by their nature are tentative and vague. Although this may result in student discomfort due to the lack of information, students should be forced to make decisions with incomplete information just as they would in combat. With incomplete information comes risk. The ability to accept risk can be developed by forcing students to make decisions and recognize the probable outcomes of their actions.

A commander should not only know how to arrive at a decision, but also when. It is better to render a partly faulty decision at the right time, than to ponder for hours over various changes in the situation and finally evolve a perfect decision-too late for execution.6 Since speed is a critical element of effective combat decisionmaking, the ability to apply quick recognition is a significant skill that should be practiced. To develop students’ ability to act quickly, situations have to be created that force students to convey their decisions quickly and in such a way that they can be understood and responded to effectively.

As stated in MCDP 1:

Because war is a clash between opposing human wills, the human dimension will always be central in war. The human dimension infuses war with its intangible moral factors and since war is an act of violence based on irreconcilable disagreement, it will invariably inflame and be shaped by human emotions. Unfortunately it is not feasible in an academic environment to realistically duplicate effects of danger, fear, exhaustion, and privation on students. Therefore, to develop in students an understanding of the human dimension in war, situations have to be created that emphasize historical examples of the intangible moral factors and emotions, as well as the human frailty and fallibility that shape combat.

Teaching Considerations

Schools like MCU develop new ideas and pioneer new methods. They encourage vision, imagination, and originality, as well as instilling a knowledge of the difference between a calculated risk and a gamble. In this environment, teachers and students alike are obliged to think about war and its conduct and to transmit their thoughts in articulate and comprehensive ways.7

Effective teaching for developing combat decisionmakers is different from that which most students have previously experienced. The majority of students have been educated through the use of “passive” teaching strategies. This technique is most often described as the traditional approach to teaching. It can be characterized by teachers delivering lectures and students passively listening. Basically, this is how most Marines have been taught in high school and college as well as during entry level training.8

Passive evaluations are short answer or multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank types of objective examinations. This is the standard military approach applied in training. The focus is content-based with a corresponding right answer or approved school solution. Implicit in this approach is the student’s dependence on the teacher to provide the information or content, preparation,9 and classic school solution. For example, in many Marine Corps academic environments, students have little choice about what they must do. Students must perform the prescribed task at a level acceptable to someone else, or fail.

The development of combat decisionmakers, however, should emphasize “active” teaching strategies. Active teaching strategies are problem centered rather than content centered. They encourage students to introduce past experiences into the process to reexamine that experience in light of new data or new problems. They suggest a climate of learning that is collaborative (teacher to student and student to student) as opposed to authoritative (one-way) oriented.lo These teaching strategies are characterized by active participation of students. This approach is more commonly applied to education. In the active approach the burden is on students to prepare, analyze, and present their views.11

Active learning evaluations are characterized by analyzing student performance in decisionmaking exercises under realistic conditions where there is incomplete information and realtime constraints. There may be more than one correct answer. In the active environment, the “school solution” is not as important as the process whereby students arrive at a given solution. The focus should be on the process of how to think, not only what to think.12

Establishing a Positive Learning Environment

The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise. Studies have shown that the will to learn becomes a problem only under specialized circumstances where students are confined and a path is fixed.13 Establishing a learning environment at MCU conducive to developing students’ ability to think on their own is critically important.

The size of an instructional group is one significant determinant of the environment in which learning occurs. In some cases, positive teacher-to-student interaction is more readily attained with small groups, and in some cases with large. Possibly even more important than teacher-to-student interaction is a learning environment in which significant student-to-student interaction can be established to enhance learning.

MCU uses various sized instructional groups and a wide variety of educational methodologies to facilitate learning. These include lectures that might contain as many as 200 students, and small discussion or practical exercise groups that might contain as few as 5 and as many as 30 students. The obvious difference in the size of instructional groups can be seen in the difference between the large lecture format and the small group format. The opportunity for student-to-student and teacher-to-student interaction in large instructional groups of 100 or more students is significantly less than in smaller instructional groups of 10 to 15 students. For some students the large group may frequently be more comfortable since the requirement and opportunity to participate is far less than in a small group setting. In simple terms, there just is no place to hide in a smaller group. Additionally, in a small group environment students are more compelled to become actively involved in their own education, rather than in simply absorbing information.

Teaching Strategies for Developing Combat Decisionmakers

Confucius is attributed with having said, “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.”14 This is a well-respected assertion often repeated in American culture-students learn by doing. There is appropriate basis in fact if this assertion is properly explained: ( 1) Students learn to do better if they make an attempt; (2) evaluate that effort; and (3) modify their consequent efforts in ways that increase their effectiveness. ” This approach can most aptly be described as getting students involved in the learning process.

Teaching students to make decisions can be far more effective when students are required to evaluate their own performance. Using this approach, students are presented with realistic problems requiring a decision. Having been given opportunities to make decisions, they then should analyze the process by which they reached a particular decision. This may include teacher development of feedback for a specific decision, followed by a student response, and subsequent discussion of teacher and student perceptions on how the decision was formulated. This process culminates in understanding how the initial decision was made.lb Teachers can most effectively develop student ability to make decisions by fostering an academic environment that provides guidance to students on how to monitor and improve their own decisionmaking behavior. This guidance should come in the form of practice with immediate feedback and discussion to facilitate improvement.

What specifically can faculty do to help students monitor and improve their ability to make decisions? While much remains to be learned about how to influence combat decisionmaking ability, one effective teaching strategy involves allowing students to discover effective decisions through trial and error. “Discovery” can occur through direct experience, in which students reach appropriate decisions by simply trying to do it. It can also occur through vicarious experience, in which students develop their understanding of combat decisionmaking by thinking about a fictional case study presented by the teacher. Last, discovery can occur by analyzing historical examples in which students examine real events. In any of these cases, guidance by asking effective leading questions has been proven to greatly decrease the time required to discover and fully absorb decisionmaking skills. Of course after skills have been discovered, students should receive feedback as to the probable outcome of their decision in comparison to others they could have discovered.17

For discovery to be an effective teaching strategy, faculty should use real life feedback as much as possible. What would the real consequences have been, good or bad, of a particular decision? How do students react to these consequences? For example, teachers should allow students to observe, albeit through artificial means (map exercises, terrain models, or computer simulations), the results of their actions. In other words, students should be able to visualize the results of a particular decision: what it would have looked like; what the likely outcomes would have been-both positive and negative.

Additionally, for discovery to be an effective teaching strategy, faculty should allow students to make mistakes. Students should always be given another opportunity to act if their initial response is inappropriate. Continuous opportunities for active practice will enhance success. Teachers should provide feedback that suggests, rather than dictates to students. Although this feedback should inform students of the correctness or incorrectness of their thinking, it should never point to the school solution. This is not to say that providing a recommended solution is inappropriate; simply that, if provided, a school solution should be presented as a “possible solution,” one among many possible solutions not necessarily as the best solution. Feedback from teachers in this regard should provide suggestions that help students to discover a better way by emphasizing that which they already understand.

Another effective teaching strategy involves the use of simulations. A “simulation” replicates as much as possible the requirements and conditions that will be imposed on students in real combat situations. One familiar example of a simulation is the “tactical decision game.” Tactical decision games can be used to simulate problems not just at the tactical level but at the operational and strategic levels as well. Depending on the level which is addressed in the simulation, students are provided with an appropriate tentative intelligence situation, provided a fragmentary order or appropriate guidance, and asked, “What would you do?” Students provide an initial response and the teacher provides an intelligence update that requires them to further analyze a developing situation. Students are once again asked, “What would you do?” and again students should provide a response. This can continue until the teacher is comfortable with the individual student’s thought processes. If students make ineffective decisions they will get immediate feedback from the teacher including the probable results of the decision. Using this approach, the individual thought processes whereby students reached a decision can be examined in depth. This approach can be used in any type of simulation from simple tactical level decisionmaking games to very elaborate strategic level war games. In any case, the format is not as important as the teaching strategy. The strategy employed in simulations allows students to get immediate feedback on the likely results of their actions that allows them to closely examine their thinking.

“Cooperative learning” is yet another effective teaching strategy that can be used to influence the development of effective combat decisionmakers. This approach is based on the fact that each student brings to a particular group a unique set of experiences and knowledge. The success of this strategy depends on creating a learning environment in which significant interaction occurs between students. The opportunity to work together in different groups exposes students to a wide variety of individual knowledge and experience. This interaction provides: ( 1 ) Additional feedback for students; (2) opportunities for students to observe how their contemporaries draw conclusions and reach solutions; and (3) opportunities for students to explore and seek out alternative approaches to combat decisionmaking through the close examination of other student perspectives on the same problem. Each student con tributes to, and draws from, the experience of others through student-to-student interchanges. The group can provide a highly stimulating environment where each participant realizes the potential of a higher level of performance.18

The Nature of the Teacher-Student Relationship

There are many factors that contribute to successful teaching. Many of these have already been addressed. Yet another important factor affecting teaching success is the relationship established between the teacher and the student. The quality of this relationship works hand in hand with the learning environment to shape the attitude students develop toward the University’s educational philosophy and, in large part, determines students’ motivation to learn.

The relationship between student and teacher should promote trust and shared responsibility and foster an equal partnership between the student and the school. This relationship is very different from the traditional concept of the dominant teacher and dependent learner. It features reciprocity between the teacher and student. In other words, the teacher and student must be equally active.19 For example, students should not be allowed to withdraw, to be passive, untalkative, or to expect the teacher to do all the work. Conversely, teachers must recognize that students, under the proper conditions, can be highly motivated and capable of directing their own learning if given the opportunity.

The teacher’s prime responsibility may well be to reduce his importance to help learners arrive at their own freedom to learn.20 For example, by simply avoiding the desire to provide students with immediate solutions or feedback, teachers can encourage students to further pursue their own experiences and knowledge-thereby allowing them to further develop their own ability to learn and make decisions. This involves empowering or permitting students to make responsible choices about the direction of their learning and to assume responsibility for those choices: the mistaken as well as the correct choices. To empower students is to enable those who would have otherwise been silent to speak.21

The Development of the Faculty in the Field of Teaching

It is incumbent upon MCU to develop in its faculty the abilities its members need to become effective teachers. Effective faculty are those who are well versed in their roles, as facilitators, as mentors, and as coaches to develop students who will be effective combat decisionmakers. If faculty are to become more successful in the field of teaching, a workable approach to faculty development should be instituted.

Faculty members need some release from being teachers and some stimulation which derives from being learners. Deep down, most people know that they do not know very much in the totality of life; most still seek significant learnings.22 It is important that faculty at MCU understand that they are all students and that they continue to learn each day. Some of this energy should be expended in helping faculty to fulfill their most important responsibility: teaching the future leadership of the Marine Corps.

By Capt Arthur L Glasgow

The Marine Corps has made great strides in implementing the doctrine of maneuver warfare. It has become accepted that the core of maneuver warfare rests in a mindset characterized by rapid decisionmaking, acceptance of risk, and bold initiative at the lowest level.

While maneuver warfare has been touted at the highest levels of our Corps, it clearly has not received the attention it deserves at the level that matters most-the Marine noncommissioned officer (NCO). Ask any infantry corporal or sergeant what the combat “bible” is and the answer you will most likely receive is FMFM 6-5 The Marine Rifle Squad. While this is a useful document based on sound tactical experience, it should be taken for what it is-a reference tool of techniques.

It does not address combat decisionmaking. If this is the source document by which we are training our small-unit leaders, then we are missing the boat. Rather than limit ourselves to a cribsheet of techniques, we must develop small unit leaders who are capable of thinking “outside the box,” leaders who understand that the decision is what is most important, not the technique. The goal is to train leaders capable of employing these time-tested techniques in innovative ways and at unexpected times.

The need for our Corps to be led by such men is critical considering the modern battlefield. Technological advances as well as the current world situation have dissolved the nature of war as we know it. The modern battlefield proves to be a nonlinear, high-tempo arena with combat and support areas intermixed. Actions will be dominated by small units operating in relative isolation, led by junior leaders taking advantage of fleeting moments of opportunity. It is paramount that we prepare our NCOs to win on this modern battlefield.

In order to produce this type of decisionmaker the Marine Corps must adopt a new attitude towards the way it trains NCOs. Capt Michael F. McNamara addressed the first step in his article, “The Price of Remaining Amateurs in the Field of Education.” (MCG, Feb94) Combat decisionmaking must be instituted at every formal school in our Corps.

This is necessary to ingrain the mechanisms of decisionmaking and standardize the language by which we define it at every stage of a Marine’s education. While these initiatives will take time and effort to implement, this article will address what can be done now, at the company and platoon levels, in order to better train our small-unit leaders as combat decisionmakers. The topics discussed are not meant to be an all inclusive formula, but rather an attempt to create an atmosphere and effect a change of attitude.

Creating the Image

It is vital that the newly promoted corporal be viewed in a different light by both himself and those around him. Every leader must maintain an image or position that lends credibility to his actions and decisions. This is especially important to the individual who finds himself suddenly transformed from being a Marine into a Marine leader. This, the hardest of all adjustments, must he aided bv the command, allowing the CO time to attune to his new anthority and responsibility. From moving him into an all-NCO room to a personal talk with the commander welcoming him into the ranks of Marine leaders, every effort must be made to instill within the new corporal an understanding of the gravity of his new position. The authority and responsibility he now holds must be as tangible to him as the rewards for attaining his new position of leadership.

All Marine leaders should be active in the study of our Corps’ history and all things military. The Marine NCO is no exception. The Marine Corps has defined professional military education (PME) requirements by grade to include the corporal. Outside of formal schooling, it is our duty as SNCOs and officers to ensure that the new NCO catches the “bug” of self`education; that he becomes fascinated with his profession. He must understand that every printed word he assimilates will better prepare him for the day he must lead men into combat. This means that a strong, relevant, and workable NCO PME program must be instituted at the company and battery level throughout the Marine Corps.

Throughout the first few months after pinning on his second chevron, the new NCO will be struggling to find his own niche in the unit’s leadership and develop his own personal style and priorities. This effort must be aided bv command attention through open displays of support and accountability. The NCO must be comfortable with the fact that when he speaks, he does so with a certain level of command authority and will be backed up. He must tinderstand completely that his realm of responsibility has expanded to more than just himself and that he will be held accountable for his Marines.

Establishing an “image” for the new NCO is crucial in lending credibility to his decisions. Before we can expect him to make sound decisions, we must first create the atmosphere that will allow him to do so. Once this is accomplished, we can begin to train the NCO, and help him train himself, to become a combat decisionmaker.

Making the Decision

The crux of maneuver warfare rests in the rapid decision made at the lowest level and the willingness and initiative to act on that decision. Contrary to what we may like to believe, the current atmosphere in our Corps today at the junior NCO level is not conducive to bold decisionmaking. Time dependent training schedules, the willingness of junior officers and SNCOs to do an NCO’s job, and the still present zero defects mentality are just a few of the factors that undercut the NCO initiative so necessary for maneuver warfare.

The first step in creating NCOs who are comfortable with decisionmaking is to force them to make decisions often and on demand. This can be accomplished within a semiformal structure regardless of the merit of the decision. The goal is not so much to induce sound decisions initially as it is to simply produce rapid decisions. When the process of making a decision begins to become a reflexive traiL, the ability to produce sound decisions can be taught. As an example, implementing a “tactical decision game a day” program within the platoon only takes a minimal amount of time to accomplish and sets the tone that some sort of tactical decision is expected of Marine leaders every day. Additionally, exposing our small-unit leaders to a steady diet of tactical scenarios will aid in building their ability to produce sound, recognition-primed decisions. Recognition-primed decisionmaking, vice analytical, is the fastest process by which the human mind assimilates and evaluates data. The ability to operate in this manner at the lowest level is central to successful implementation of maneuver warfare. The vast majority of decisions at the point of impact must be recognition-primed because of the time factors involved. There will seldom be time for analytical, stafftype decisions. And herein lies the dilemma, for the ability to derive a sound, recognition-primed decision rests in extensive personal experience or an educational regimen oriented towards producing such decisions. Newly promoted N(COs have neither the experience nor the luxury of this type of formal education. In the absence of either, the responsibility for building proper habits of decisionmaking rests almost entirely with the unit.

The next step is to allow the NCO more leeway in the training of his Marines, forcing him to plan and supervise properly. Look at your unit’s training schedule; chances are that every minute of every day is accounted for. This prevents initiative at the instructor (NCO) level. Adopting a mission order training schedule, whereby we set goals, objectives, and standards, allows the NCO to train to standard instead of time. He must make the decision whether remediation is needed. Hc must determine when his Marines are ready to be evaluated. As an example, instead of dictating 1.5 hours of weapons maintenance time, allow the squad leader to determine when his weapons have met standard. Rather than dictate 0530 reveille, let the NCO determine when he needs to wake his people in order to have them ready for the day’s training. This approach places the responsibility for planning and time management on the shoulders of the NCO and he must decide the appropriate method to accomplish the mission as well as validate his own instruction. It also makes it clear to the lance corporal and below that it is the Marine corporal who will have the most direct impact on their lives in garrison or combat. The cynic will say this approach will result in short work days, incompletely trained units, and general chaos. The trusting leader will see that if officers plan and set proper standards, and employ the SN(COs correctly, the result will be a more productive workday, better trained units, and a small-unit leader comfortable with responsibility and capable of making sound, timely decisions.

Conclusion

Finally, in order to make this work, we as officers must understand our role in the training process. There is a great moral commitment in maneuver warfare. Pushing authority and responsibility down increases the chance of failure. Senior leaders must see that although we can be, we are not the trainers. We set the standards, evaluate, and facilitate the training. Individual training standard (ITS) level training is the responsibility of the NCO with the SNCO providing guidance, direction, and reinforcement. It should be considered unacceptable for a junior officer to stand on the platform in front of his Marines and teach an individual or small-unit skills class. The challenge for us is not to teach these skills, but rather to teach the NCO how to instruct them. The reasoning behind this is clear. When the call comes to protect our country, we will go whether or not our NCOs have been prepared to succeed. If our small-unit leaders have not been educated in peace to employ our doctrine, how can we expect them to do so amidst the horror and carnage of` war? When the rounds begin to fly and the young Marine at the point is filled with fear and doubt, he will naturally turn for direction and reassurance to the individual who has guided him through training. When he turns to find that man, it will not be the lieutenant or the staff sergeant behind him. That spot is reserved for the Marine corporal.

by LtCol W. Frank Ball, USMC(Ret) and Morgan D. Jones

We agree with Maj John F. Schmitt’s observation (“How We Decide,” MCG, Oct95) that: (a) intuitive decisionmaking is usually all that battlefield conditions allow and (b) intuitive decisionmaking usually achieves less than the best results. We further agree with his conclusion that commanders’ intuitive decisionmaking skills can be improved through training. The issue is what that training should comprise.

Can We Trust Intuition? Should We?

Most of the time intuition gives us decisions that are, as Maj Schmitt says, “good enough,” because the problems we normally face are not momentous. But on those occasions when our decisions have critical consequences, we run heavy risks if we rely on intuition. The reason is that the unconscious mind can easily mislead us . . . as it does, for example, to the quarterback who misreads a blitz and gets sacked, or to a leader in combat whose misreading of a battlefield situation results in excessive casualties and failure of the mission.

Maj Schmitt says cognitive research shows that “proficient decisionmakers rely on their intuition to tell them: (a) what factors are important in any given situation, (b) what goals are feasible, and what the outcomes of their actions are likely to be-allowing them (c) to generate a workable first solution and (to forego analysis of) multiple options.” Let us examine each of these three functions separately.

Intuition Tells Us What Factors Are Important in a Given Situation

This implies that “importance” can be determined by some universally objective standard. In fact, importance is a totally subjective evaluation driven by the biases of the decisionmaker. For the most part our biases are highly accurate and become more so as we gain experience. They are what make us humans smart. Useful though they are, they do have an insidious downside.

First, we are rarely conscious of our biases. They lie unseen and unbidden within the fabric of our thinking, springing into action spontaneously whenever we confront a problem or make a decision. Second, we tend to give high value to information that is consistent with our biases and to give low value to, and even reject, information that is inconsistent. In these two respects, biases are, like deadly viruses, unseen killers of objective truth. They impose artificial boundaries on our thinking-on our intuition-and we aren’t even aware of these constraints because they are unconscious.

It is important for combat leaders to be aware that they not only have individual biases based on personal experience, but they also share the organizational biases of our Corps-for example, our preference for offensive action-and cultural biases that shape expectations regarding an enemy’s behavior.

Intuition Tells Us What Goals Are Feasible and What Outcomes Are Likely

“Feasibility” and “likelihood,” like importance, are subjective factors whose interpretation is driven by the decisionmaker’s assessment of the situation. That assessment is based on the mind’s instinctive trait of viewing the world through patterns.

The human mind is a finely tuned pattern-recognition mechanism that identifies the characteristics of anything-a word, a person, an activity, a situation-by matching the perceived pattern with one stored in memory. But sometimes, to find that match, the mind secretly adds missing characteristics to the perceived pattern or deletes (ignores) some to make it fit. This happens most often when we expect to see, want to see, or are accustomed to seeing a particular pattern.

Then, having “recognized” a pattern, another human mental trait kicks in: the mind looks for, and usually finds, evidence to confirm this pattern, while eschewing, devaluing, and disregarding evidence that disconfirms it. Moreover, the mind clings to the “recognized” pattern, even in the face of strong contradictory evidence.

These mental traits, which are common to us all, can and frequently do mislead us. It is this natural human tendency to cling to beliefs and patterns that makes deception operations possible and so strongly effective when they work. These traits also explain why stereotypes play such a major role in our thinking and why we frequently perceive a causeand-effect relationship where none exists . . . and why we are so easily tricked by magicians’ illusions.

Intuition Allows Us To Generate a Workable First Solution and To Forego Analysis of Multiple Options

The authors of this article do not believe that the mind’s demonstrable tendency to focus on the first workable solution is necessarily a boon to effective decisionmaking. Probably no other human mental trait has led to more needless combat casualties and military defeats. The reason is that it closes the mind too quickly to better-equally workablealternatives.

Questioning Our Impulses

Because of these troublesome mental traits, blindly following intuition when the stakes are high can be risky and deadly. But since intuitive decisionmaking is the battlefield norm, our only recourse is to make intuition more reliable. And how do we do that? By not blindly obeying our intuitive impulses; by instead asking ourselves why we should follow these impulses. This forces the intuitive process into the open-into our conscious mind-where we can, in effect, crossexamine our intuition.

This cross-examination can be effectively accomplished in minutes, or less, by asking ourselves (or discussing with a comrade) a series of generic, but pointed, questions. For example: Why do I intuitively prefer this option? What are the other options? Which option accomplishes my task the quickest? Which most effectively? Which is safest for my Marines?

Here’s a hypothetical example:

The infantry company’s advance has been halted by a well-defended enemy machinegun atop a hill 100 meters ahead. Time is critical. The company commander’s orders are to reach a more distant objective in 30 minutes. Failure to do so could endanger the larger mission and expose the company to even greater danger.

The commander’s immediate reaction to this situation, based on his previous combat experience, is to call in artillery to neutralize the enemy position. This solution probably pops into his head because he has used it before, and it worked then. But before doing so, he quickly asks his XO, “What are the options?” They instantly [in 10 seconds] generate three: the company’s own organic weapons, direct support artillery which is on call, and an air strike.

He then asks, “Which option is speediest?” His own weapons arc immediately available. Artillery fire can be arranged in less than 2 minutes. The closest air support is 15 minutes away. He eliminates air strike; too slow. [5 seconds]

“Which is the most lethal?” [Which has the most explosive power and accuracy?] Artillery can be used to suppress, neutralize, or destroy the target. Company weapons can do the same, though less quickly and with less lethality. Artillery is favored. [5 seconds]

“Which exposes the company to the least casualties?” Company weapons expose the troops to direct enemy fire. Artillery requires no such exposure. Artillery is favored. [5 seconds]

He goes until artillery. Total time expended: 25 seconds.

In asking these questions, the commander enabled (compelled) his intuitive, analytic power to focus on each alternative-which we humans are unconsciously disinclined to do. He thus gained conscious control over the analytic process and placed himself in a better position to decide on the most advantageous course of action. In this case he decided to go with his initial impulse, but the questioning gave him confidence in that decision. By laying bare the reasoning behind his intuitive impulse, he replaced unconscious “satisficing”-the mind’s preferred way of deciding-with an explicit comparison of the pros and cons of several other courses of action using the same decision criteria.

By consciously searching for and considering alternatives to the option favored by our intuition, we may discover equally or more effective courses of action that intuition, in its search for the first solution that satisfies the requirement, would have missed. Thus the company commander, by challenging his intuition, could have decided instead to bypass the enemy position using smoke to screen the movement without directly attacking the enemy. And when the action was over and the commander was asked, “Why did you make that decision?”, he could say, “After weighing the options, I concluded it was the quickest, most effective, and safest option under the circumstances.” This is by far a more comforting, certainly more professional response than, “Because I had a gut feeling it would be good enough.”

It is insufficient simply to run the questions through one’s mind as a mental checklist. The human mind is so quick to take mental shortcuts below our threshold of consciousness that the hidden pitfalls of intuitive decisionmaking can still compromise the quality of our decisions. To be effective, the process of questioning must either be (a) spoken aloud to another person who can question assumptions (biases) or (b) written down on a piece of paper or with a stick in the dirt so it can be seen.

All of us are under pressure to make quick, effective decisions, and no one is under more pressure than a leader in combat. But the authors assert that making decisions in combat is not an “either/or” choice between a deliberate decisionmaking process and a spontaneous intuitive one. Rather, intuitive decisionmaking can be significantly improved by augmenting the intuitive process with a few simple techniques normally associated with deliberate decisionmaking. These techniques, such as posing a series of pointed questions to challenge one’s intuitive choices as the company commander did in the example, serve to identify hidden biases, expand the array of possible options, confirm the wisdom of intuitive insights, and increase confidence in the efficacy of the final decision.

Repetition of decisionmaking by itself will, of course, improve that skill to some extent but not to the degree possible by mastering these techniques and regularly applying them. As Maj Richard N. Jeppesen said in his 1986 Chase Contest winning essay, Programming Inconsistency, “practice doesn’t make perfect; it makes permanent that which is practiced.” Therefore these techniques should be imbedded in every decision opportunity Marines encounter in training situations and daily operations of Marine Corps units. Indeed, repetition of the techniques is needed to overcome a lifetime of our relying on unchallenged intuition.

The Marine Corps can easily formulate a standard systematic sequence of questions for battlefield situations. Marine leaders can then practice these questions over and over again in tactical decision games, tactical exercises without troops, and field exercises until the questions and their proper sequence become second nature. Making the attributes and consequences of alternatives explicit and visible will strengthen the intuitive process and result in better decisions on the battlefield.