Military Education: Past, Present, and Future (review)

The ten essays reproduced in this volume are the result of a symposium sponsored by the Royal Military College of Canada (Kingston). The collection of case studies "examines how various nations in the West, at particular times, dealt with the issue of how and what their armed forces received as military education." Most of the authors are well known as military historians or as significant practitioners in current institutions of military education.

There is a single introductory essay on "military education in historical perspective" (John Hattendorf); four broad historical sweeps covering the Prussian/German Army, 1745-1945 (Dennis Showalter); the Royal Navy, 1652-1914 (Andrew Lambert), the British Regular Army, 1919-39 (David French); and the Air War College and education of senior air leaders, 1945- 93 (Mark Grandstaff). There are three essays covering the contemporary state of military education in the Canadian Forces (Ronald G. Haycock); joint education and war colleges in the United States (Thomas A. Keaney); and "European military education today" (Peter Foot). Finally, there are two essays on people and ideas, one on Clausewitz and military education (T. G. Otte) and one on Sylvanus Thayer and ethical instruction at West Point in the antebellum United States (Lori Begel).

Nearly all of these essays include useful insights and analysis, whether the reader is a seasoned scholar or a student looking for an introduction to the subject of military education. Throughout, nearly all the authors make clear the distinctions between training, "a predictable response to a predictable situation," and education, "a reasoned response to an unpredictable situation." The pieces by Showalter, Grandstaff, and Haycock are particularly noteworthy. Showalter's essay is perhaps the best researched, broadest in coverage, yet it firmly places German Army military education in the larger context of officer selection and utilization. The Grandstaff and Haycock essays demonstrate what can happen to a military force when professional military education is unfocussed or under appreciated, because: "In short, education is not a panacea but the sine qua non of military effectiveness."