Issues in Military Ethics: To Support and Defend the Constitution

Chapter 8: Thucydides as a Resource for Teaching Ethics and Leadership in Military Education Environments

8 Thucydides as a Resource for Teaching Ethics and Leadership in Military Education Environments Thucydides’ great work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, is an important reading in many courses in professional military education. It certainly appears in the precommissioning curriculum (the military academies) of the United States and at almost every level of subsequent professional military education. Having said that, if one examines how Thucydides is actually used, one comes away with the impression that the treatment of the work in professional military education is extremely disappointing and shallow. In almost all cases, the reading of Thucydides is reduced to a reading of the famous “Melian Dialogue” (5.84–5.116). That excerpt is usually assigned very early in the course as part of a unit dealing with “theories of war,” and the “Melian Dialogue” is used to illustrate “realism”—the idea that morality has no place in international relations, which are instead governed entirely by realpolitik and power. Typically, this discussion is given only a single day in the curriculum. In other words, the richness and complexity of Thucydides’ entire work are reduced to the single teaching point of setting up the ideal type of realism as a political theory. In this chapter, we describe an alternative way of teaching Thucydides in the context of professional military education. It is an approach that is far richer, more fruitful, and more faithful to Thucydides’ complexity. The method to be described is not merely a theoretical alternative: the author had the privilege of applying it for five consecutive years in an elective course at the United States Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. In that course, the author led groups of approximately twenty students (all of ranks ranging from lieutenant colonel through brigadier general) in intensive study of the whole of Thucydides’ work. Almost without exception, students evaluating this elective commented that “everything in the War College curriculum can be found in this book,” and “This was the most valuable course I took at the War College.” Eventually the author was joined by another 95 96 Issues in Military Ethics faculty member, Craig Nation, in team-teaching the course (and once by Eugenia Kiesling, visiting from the History Department at West Point). The course continued to be offered until 2005 when, due to a revision of the War College’s core curriculum, there was no longer space for the elective. It is now taught annually at the Naval War College in collaboration with Michael Pavkovic. This chapter aims to explain how the course was taught, why (at least in the author’s opinion) it was so effective, and what major themes advanced military students found most important and useful in a more thorough study of the book than the typical illustration-of-realism approach. The goal is to provide a model upon which others charged with the education of senior officers may build. The model may be adapted as appropriate for other environments. Basic Course Concept The method for the course was the “Great Books” approach pioneered in the United States by the University of Chicago and carried on in its most pure form by the two campuses of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The essence of this approach is that the text being studied is the real “teacher,” rather than a teacher/instructor who is conveying information and knowledge to students. This is especially well suited for the senior-level professional military education environment. Typical U.S. students have twenty-three years of military experience behind them and are in their early forties. Some of the non-U.S. students are even more senior. At that level, instructors and students are all of similar age, and all bring a wealth of professional and personal experience to the classroom. In addition, the emphasis on the text encourages and forces each student to read carefully and think independently—an approach that, at least in the U.S. military, requires a very different way of thinking, reading, and learning than the usual predigested “briefing” material, often condensed into Power Point slide summaries. It is the author’s belief that this fundamental shift in the climate and approach of the classroom by itself creates a kind of intellectual engagement more “content-delivery” approaches tend to limit or undermine. The schedule of electives at the Army War College afforded a very natural division of the material. The course consisted of ten three-hour sessions . Since The History...