The case against the military academies

Washington Monthly, Oct, 1994 by Scott Shuger

Similarly, shutting the academies down would mean getting more officers with non-military college educations. This would be a plus because civilian curricula do a better job of developing divergent thinking and imparting knowledge of non-military subjects (such as history, economics, and computers), which are essential components of military leadership, on and off the battlefield. The technical details of particular military jobs are taught to officers after they receive their commissions anyway, so why not opt for the solid, but broader base offered by a civilian education?

And getting rid of the academies would give us the opportunity to have more slots for officers who come up from the enlisted ranks. This would be a boon because formerly enlisted officers tend to have more insight into the mind-set and actual work requirements of the troops they command. And enlisted troops find it easier to see such officers as role models--after all, they didn't come from West Point or some other fancy place; they were troopers once, too. (The highly-regarded Israeli military requires all officer candidates to have two years' prior enlisted service.) And having more officers come up from the ranks would make promotion in the military less like the frat house and more like the police department, where supervisors have to work their way up from starting positions as beat cops.

In short, abolishing the service academies and picking up the slack via other commissioning sources would make the U.S. military less isolated, more well-grounded, more cohesive, and more meritocratic. These are vital features for a military--especially one representing a democracy. After all, these folks aren't fighting for imperial Prussia.

Service academy proponents in and out of uniform will howl at my suggestion. But none of their likely objections seems decisive.

The best argument for retaining the academies seems to be that compared to other commissioning programs they subject their participants to a more thorough and intense indoctrination in the military ethos. And this is no small matter. The military, especially a downsizing military, requires officers who are there not because they don't know what else to do or because the job market is lousy but because they are seriously committed to the profession of arms.

But just because the academies provide the best military orientation doesn't mean that despite all their inefficiencies and drawbacks we have to keep them in business. What we should do instead is incorporate much more of their indoctrination program into the other remaining commissioning sources. In other words, after the abolition of the academies, in addition to whatever technical and academic training is subsequently received by up-from-the-ranks officer candidates, ROTC graduates, and OCS students, officers should all have to start off in an uninterrupted hard-core three-month indoctrination program on the same level of intensity as Plebe Summer at Annapolis or Beast Barracks at West Point. We could even keep one of the academy campuses as the year-round site for this initial phase. (But let's be sure to put the other two to good civilian use; they'd be ideal for national community service training and/or for retraining those making the transition from welfare to work.)