A deeper shade of blue: the school of advanced air and space studies

Joint Force Quarterly, April, 2008 by Stephen D. Chiabotti

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Although Alfred Hurley and others have extolled the virtues of "serving two professions," (1) military education is, by and large, an oxymoronic expression. The reasons are manifold, but the essence has to do with loyalty and logic. The military profession revolves around loyalty. It is "the first axiom of command" and is generally expressed in following orders. Education is centered in logic. It is the touchstone of dialectic and is generally expressed through thoughtful and provoking questions.

In other words, loyalty demands answers in the adherence to orders, while education evokes questions--concerning just about everything. Hence, students attending military schools often suffer a form of psychological whiplash. The very nature of education suggests that students question established practices and, by inference, the people who institute them. The military profession, on the other hand, generally demands adherence to the established order and loyalty to the people in charge. The so-called terrazzo gap that defines the plaza between the academic building and the commandant of cadets office at the Air Force Academy is thus very real and almost unavoidable. What the gap suggests is that military students need to separate their studies from their military instincts. No institution does this better than the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS).

History

The School of Advanced Air and Space Studies was established 19 years ago by Air Force Chief of Staff Larry Welch in response to a question from a Representative from Missouri, who is currently the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The Honorable Ike Skelton was concerned about strategy and wondered where and how the Air Force would produce the next generation of strategists. SAASS was the answer, and its mission was narrowly defined to do exactly that: produce strategists--not leaders, not warriors, not even planners. Strategy became the portal to the rigorous liberal education that has defined the first generation of SAASS graduates. Although the school has never developed a formal definition of strategy, the curriculum suggests that it is best derived from a thoroughgoing study of history and theory. That was indeed the conclusion of the original 10 faculty members who deliberated nearly a year on the curriculum before entertaining their first class of 25 students in 1991.

A commitment to history is evident in the school motto: "From the Past, the Future." A foundation of theory pervades nearly every course offered. In some ways, the curriculum is fashioned after the scientific method, which Robert Boyle expressed so succinctly in 1664 as "investigation by hypothesis subjected to rigorous experimental cross examination." (2) At SAASS, military, political, and organizational theories form the hypotheses, and history and experience the cross examination. Students are then invited to further synthesis in exercises as diverse as course papers, war-games, staff rides, and thesis research and composition.

The result, as the one-time dean of American military historians Theodore Ropp once stated, "has no practical value whatsoever, but reasoning through the interplay of theory and history will make your students better at just about everything else they do." Why? Because modern war is a thinking person's game, and SAASS teaches people to think. Just how is revealed in an examination of the students, faculty, and curriculum.

SAASS is, by definition, an advanced study group. It has complements in the Army's School of Advanced Military Studies, the Marine School of Advanced Warfighting, and the Naval Operational Planners Course. All these programs require prior or simultaneous (in the case of the Naval Operational Planners Course) attendance of resident intermediate education. The Joint Advanced Warfighting School breaks ranks with the other programs and functions as either intermediate or senior education for its students, without prerequisites. All of the advanced programs exhibit more differences than similarities as they serve the needs of their constituencies. SAASS is the most clearly focused on strategy, and because of that it is perhaps the most "academic" in character.

Air Force and sister-Service students must volunteer and have attended resident intermediate education at one of the following: the four traditional Service intermediate schools, Naval Postgraduate School, Air Force Institute of Technology, National Defense Intelligence College, Advanced School of Air Mobility, or the Air Force Intern Program with its residency requirements at The George Washington University. International students must have attended an English-speaking intermediate-level residence program and score in the top 5 percent of the Test of English as a Foreign Language. These entrance requirements serve several purposes. First, they ensure a relatively high-quality recruitment base, as most of the Services send only their best officers to intermediate-level education. Second, the previous year in school affords a cognitive platform regarding makeup and general function of Department of Defense (DOD) agencies as well as a preliminary investigation of warfare at the operational and strategic levels. Finally, SAASS students benefit from socialization in seminar manners, reading, writing, and research. Their intellectual turbines are already turning when they come aboard.