Sunday, April 19, 2009

Dumb Idea of the Day

Tom Ricks wants to close our military academies, and thinks we should also consider shutting down service war colleges as well.  What's the rationale behind this radical idea? Not much. Basically he thinks it would save money, and that somehow future officers would get better educations in civilian schools -- a highly dubious assertion. The service academies have a long history of providing a solid core of officers to the U.S. military, as Ricks acknowledges. And they specifically attract people who plan on making the military a career, unlike ROTC programs. Any cost savings would be a classic illustration of penny-wise, pound-foolish.

As for the war colleges, they serve the purpose for which they were created. There are no equivalent civilian programs that I'm aware of. Military history programs are not exactly widespread among civilian universities, let alone programs that study current issues of military strategy and tactics. If there are problems with the curriculum and teaching at the service academies and war colleges, as Ricks suggests, those problems should be addressed. Simply closing them down would be stupid and wasteful.

9 comments:

  1. His position: "I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student."

    Your misrepresentation: "he thinks it would save money, and that somehow future officers would get better educations in civilian schools"

    Your beef: "There are no equivalent civilian programs that I'm aware of. Military history programs are not exactly widespread among civilian universities, let alone programs that study current issues of military strategy and tactics."

    His proposal: "Why not send young people to more rigorous institutions on full scholarships, and then, upon graduation, give them a military education at a short-term military school?"

    If you can explain why this would be inferior to the 4 year war colleges, great. Otherwise you don't have much to offer beyond knee-jerk disapproval.

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  2. "Your misrepresentation: "he thinks it would save money, and that somehow future officers would get better educations in civilian schools""

    Not a misrepresentation at all. That's almost exactly what he wrote.

    "If you can explain why this would be inferior to the 4 year war colleges, great."

    I already did. Simply make some changes to improve the existing schools. Scrapping the the core of our officer training system over some perceived deficiences is idiotic. Where are the "short-term" military schools he mentioned? That would require a whole new system and would probably cost more money, not less.

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  3. It's not worth arguing with someone who thinks "somehow .. get better educations" is "almost exactly what [Rick] wrote".

    "Simply make some changes" is easy to write. Not so easy is explaining what kind of changes you're talking about and how they would be more cost-effective.

    Short-term military schools would obviously cost far less than the $170,000 premium per student, so I'm not sure what economic universe you're living in.

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  4. "It's not worth arguing with someone who thinks "somehow .. get better educations" is "almost exactly what [Rick] wrote"."

    He thinks future officers would be better served with an education in civilian schools. That's what he's saying. I'm not sure why you are pretending he isn't. He even uses Petraeus as an example.

    ""Simply make some changes" is easy to write. Not so easy is explaining what kind of changes you're talking about and how they would be more cost-effective."

    Oh come on. When someone says scrap a system because of problems, and someone else says, why not just fix the problems, it's not necessary to explain every detail. I'm not the one proposing radical changes.

    "Short-term military schools would obviously cost far less than the $170,000 premium per student, so I'm not sure what economic universe you're living in."

    The one where building unnecessary new schools from scratch -- presumably government schools -- costs a huge amount of money.

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  5. Building new ones? There are three four-year colleges Rick is arguing we could dispense with, and there are the part-time ROTC training and OCS and the war colleges for Colonels and hundreds of other training facilities I'm not even aware of. It's not a matter of building new schools, it's a matter of sending everyone to ROTC at civilian schools and giving them some additional military education in existing facilities, which is much simpler than running 4-year programs.

    Since ROTC results in good officers, we know it works, and Ricks is saying it's more cost-effective than the 4 year war colleges. This claim is thinly-sourced but merits investigation.

    > When someone says scrap a system because of problems, and someone else says, why not just fix the problems, it's not necessary to explain every detail. I'm not the one proposing radical changes.The $170K premium over 4 years is the chief problem he cites. So his idea of replacing it with the ROTC path with proven effectiveness is hardly radical, if it will be cheaper.

    It's not clear Ricks' idea will improve matters -- there are plenty of details to take into account, unintended consequences to consider, etc. But it's even less clear that its disadvantages outweigh the advantages, and you've yet to provide reasons to think so. Again, your position amounts to a knee-jerk disapproval of change.

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  6. "Since ROTC results in good officers, we know it works, and Ricks is saying it's more cost-effective than the 4 year war colleges. This claim is thinly-sourced but merits investigation."

    We don't know that at all. We know that ROTC produces good officers, along with a core of officers from the military academies. We don't just throw things out that are working and hope that the other parts of the system will pick up the slack. Instead we might find ourselves with less qualified officers than we need.

    "Again, your position amounts to a knee-jerk disapproval of change."

    When the change appears completely unnecessary and advocates destroying valuable, effective institutions, yes, I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction against it.

    Look at one of Ricks' points.

    "too often they're getting community-college educations. Although West Point's history and social science departments provided much intellectual firepower in rethinking the U.S. approach to Iraq, most of West Point's faculty lacks doctorates."

    There are multiple problems with that comment. First, it just sounds like BS based on academic snobbery. Second, it's contradictory. If they are providing "intellectual firepower" and were critical in solving military problems, it sounds like they are doing their jobs. And finally, let's pretend Ricks is correct that the education is substandard and there aren't enough PhDs. How about improving the curriculum and hiring more PhDs? That's not exactly a hard problem to solve.

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  7. It is if you're already paying a $170,000/student premium and want it to be cost-effective. PhDs aren't cheap. But I'm unconvinced that the number of PhD instructors is a relevant metric for the quality of undergraduate education, since PhDs are for research. So I don't care for this part of Rick's argument; it's the cost-effectiveness taht should be considered.

    > advocates destroying valuable, effective institutions,

    Rick argues that they are not cost-effective, so unless you have better data than him this is a silly thing to claim.

    > We know that ROTC produces good officers, along with a core of officers from the military academies. We don't just throw things out that are working and hope that the other parts of the system will pick up the slack. Instead we might find ourselves with less qualified officers than we need.

    Already addressed in the last paragraph of prev. comment.

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  8. "Rick argues that they are not cost-effective, so unless you have better data than him this is a silly thing to claim."

    I said effective. Cost is only one factor. Militaries are more than just economics.

    Also, I'm not exactly sure what Ricks has against the service academies, but they aren't going anywhere. There is almost as little chance of us shutting down West Point as there is of closing Arlington Cemetary. If he thinks we have serious problems with officer education at the academies, it would make a lot more sense to propose reforms.

    The war colleges are a different story. But even there I think he's way off base. They aren't the isolated bastions of purely military thought he thinks they are. They hold conferences & invite papers from civilian academics and have some civilian instructors. When I was working on a military history PhD at Alabama, one of my instructors taught part-time at the Air War College at Maxwell, and I had officers from there in some of my classes.

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  9. > I said effectiveYou said so without providing any data to rebut Ricks' claim that it was more cost-effective with just-as-good-or-better results.

    QandO actually rebut Ricks' claim:

    > as I observed it, at company grade (the ranks 2LT, 1LT and CPT are considered “company grade” ranks), the West Point grad and the OCS grad were usually the best officers (and with obvious exceptions, I felt most of the OCS grads were a touch better than the WP guys) while the ROTC guys were playing catch-up. Around the 5 year mark, at the rank of CPT, everyone was pretty much even.

    Again, these are my observations, but as we moved into the field grade ranks (the ranks MAJ, LTC and COL are “field grade” ranks), the ROTC and West Pointers began to pull away from the OCS grads. However, at both levels, West Pointers were right there among the best because they’d been taught and taught pretty well to function at both levels.


    That's more helpful, and I'm inclined to give it more credence than Ricks.

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