Distance learning: understanding Intermediate Level Education: how it differs from the former command and general staff officer course

Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Oct-Dec, 2003 by Neal Bralley, Jim Danley, Dan French, Chuck Soby, Paul Tiberi

By now, all of us should know and understand that Intermediate Level Education (ILE) is the third tier of the Officer Education System, and it is linked directly to Army Transformation.

ILE will produce "field grade officers with a warrior ethos and warfighting focus, for leadership positions in Army, joint, Multi-National, and Interagency organizations executing full spectrum operations." (1)

Quite a mouthful--but what does this mission statement mean to the Army, commanders, and field grade officers? What is this course really about? And how does it differ from the old Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC)?

Noted military historian and author Sir Basil Liddell Hart once said, "Nothing is harder than putting a new idea into a military mind, except removing the old."

This may account for some of the concern that has been expressed about ILE and where we are going with the education of our officer corps. Let's first clear up exactly what ILE is and then offer our opinions as members of the faculty teaching ILE.

Three areas are inexorably linked and distinguish ILE from the former CGSOC: population, curriculum, and instructional method.

Population

The most fundamental difference between ILE and the former CGSOC is in the Army's commitment to providing the best possible ILE to all Army majors.

For CGSOC, the Army used a central selection process to pick the top 50 percent of the majors in each year group to attend the 10-month resident course at Fort Leavenworth. The rest could volunteer for a correspondence program to receive the education and to be competitive for promotion to lieutenant colonel.

Under this system, half of the majors did not get an opportunity to undergo a resident program to develop their technical, tactical, and leadership competencies and skills. Also, Information Operations Career Field, Institutional Support Career Field, Operational Support Career Field, and special branch majors--who only needed the common-core portion of the course--were held "hostage" for the remainder of the ten months.

With ILE, all majors in the Operations Career Field attend the 10-month resident course at Fort Leavenworth. They complete a 3-month common-core course followed by a 7-month Advanced Operations and Warfighting Course (AOWC) to further develop their abilities to conduct full spectrum operations in joint, multinational, and interagency environments; and to develop the requisite competencies to serve successfully as staff officers at division level and above.

Information Operations Career Field, Institutional Support Career Field, Operational Support Career Field, and special branch majors will also receive a resident ILE common-core course experience, but not at Fort Leavenworth. Teaching teams from Fort Leavenworth have already been sent to Fort Gordon and Fort Lee to instruct the ILE common-core course to some of these students.

Most Reserve Components (RC) majors will receive the ILE common-core course via The Army School System or an upgraded Advanced Distributed Learning program. As the student population attending the resident ILE common-core course and AOWC at Fort Leavenworth increases, the number of RC majors attending the Fort Leavenworth course will also increase.

This approach allows the maximum flexibility to the Army, commanders, and students while providing the best possible ILE to all majors.

Curriculum

A totally revamped curriculum is the second area that distinguishes ILE from the former CGSOC. The school's competency map, linked directly to the Officer Evaluation Report (OER), codifies the skill set students must demonstrate to graduate ILE.

While this is a new concept for the school, the Army has had this OER for nearly six years, and field grade officers attending the ILE course should have been exposed to these competencies numerous times before their arrival at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC).

The focus of this skill set is on students learning how (versus what) to think, problem solving and decision-making. Students soon realize there are no "school solutions" to the problems they are presented. For many, this will prove frustrating as instructors make them work through the problems and principally critique the link between identification of the problem and the student's solution.

As long as evolving doctrine is not violated and the basic principles of planning are demonstrated, guess what? You're a go!

This is a tremendous step forward as we now develop field grade officers capable of thinking vice regurgitating answers. The 2001 Army Training and Leader Development Panel officer study identified, among other things, that the Army needs officers who are adaptable and capable of thinking in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment. This is the foundation for learning and, hence, for the curriculum in ILE.

The ILE curriculum consists of a 3-month "common core" course, the aim of which is to prepare field grade officers for service at division, corps, echelons above corps (EAC), land component command (LCC), and joint staffs. Graduates will--