Joint Force Quarterly
Abstract
Joint professional military education (JPME) plays a deliberate and pivotal role in an officer’s operational and strategic growth. JPME provides a structured environment for officers to develop the intellectual agility, critical thinking, and collaborative skills necessary to lead complex decisionmaking at headquarters away from the battlefield. Translating broad strategic guidance into employable strategies and executable plans requires (1) assessing the international security environment and (2) analyzing domestic policymaking system constraints. This approach stresses that a comprehensive education in national security affairs must acknowledge that a well-crafted security strategy is meaningless if not informed by the domestic policymaking system that develops and resources it. Students learn through JPME national security affairs courses that strategy development and policy enactment do not occur in series. In practice, the domestic policymaking environment influences strategy development throughout the ends-ways-means process.
Included in
American Politics Commons, Defense and Security Studies Commons, International Relations Commons, Military History Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Political Theory Commons, Public Policy Commons