I just finished reading Fred Kaplan’s The Insurgents (excellent book, by the way). One thing I was not aware of until I read the book was that pursuing a graduate degree appears to be a de rigueur rite for ambitious Army officers. David Petraus, for example, has a Ph.D. from Princeton. Other officers discussed in the book similarly have graduate degrees from various Ivy league schools. I know that C.I.A. and State department have long been attractive to those with an academic leaning (it appears there are lots of Ph.D.s in the State Dept). But when did this trend towards graduate degrees first appear in the military?
My grandfather (USMA class of 1944, retired 1979) got an MS in public administration in 1949. Just one data point, but it’s not necessarily a new thing.
Interesting. Was he a staff officer? The public administration degree would make sense . . .
He was a staff officer in Germany after the end of WWII, but moved into other posts after the degree.
I applied for the NZ army in 1994 or so.
At the time, it was expected that you would achieve a masters degree as part of your officer career.
My dad, while serving in the Army, got his master’s in the very early 1960s. Also, the Navy has a postgraduate school which offers, you guessed it, postgraduate degrees including doctorates. NPS was established in 1909.
In the Canadian Armed Forces, you are expected to get/be working towards a Master’s Degree prior to getting promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
Even for, say, the infantry? What happens if you don’t, is it a merely minus or a bar? Will any graduate degree count?
I presume that STEM, management and strategic studies degrees are preferred. What others are preferred?
The Israeli military is unusual in that you don’t need any outside education, even a high school degree, to become an officer. However, I think you need a B.A. to become a Lieutenant Colonel, and an M.A. to reach Brig. General.
Especially for the infantry. The largest commands are lead by infantry officers. The commander of the battle space for any given area is going to be an infantry officer, or possibly armor as well. Higher rank is very competitive, and like any other professional organization, higher education is necessary for success.
That’s not just for officers. College degrees are looked upon favorably by promotion boards for enlisted as well. Senior NCOs are expected to at least be working on their BS/BS degree. Command Sergeants Major, especially in the smaller Army of the near future, will often have graduate degrees.
I am currently a half-time graduate student working on my Master’s and I’m only an infantry staff sergeant.
I am pretty sure that officers of the modern military have always held or at least pursued advanced degrees.
If you don’t have an advanced degree, there will be a point in your career where you are no longer equal to your peers. They will advance to the next rank and you will not. They will get better, more prestigious command assignments, which in turn will place them even higher above their peers. It’s extremely competitive.
Pretty much.
I’m not really sure how much emphasis is put on having a particular degree. The most common I hear are Military Science, Criminal Justice and Management. It doesn’t necessarily have to be military related, though. Just the act of learning and improving ones ability to think and communicate effectively are the important things.
Personally, I don’t think the in depth study of Clausewitz, Jomini, Napolean etc is as important as learning to think critically, research, and write effectively. A military leader is going to learn enough about tactics and strategy through a combination of doctrine, training, required military education courses, and real world experience.
Is the latter motivated by a desire to angle for a police job if they get up-or-outed? Do you know if military officers can get promoted to a managerial position if they get out of the military and join the police? It’d be weird for a captain or colonel to become a patrolman.
Aside from the police, what do up-or-outed officers tend to do after the military?
At some time in their career all officers are staff officers.
Is an officer with a PhD ever properly addressed as Doctor, or does his/her military rank always trump academic credentials?
The Naval War College was founded in 1884, followed by the Army War College in 1901. Today a graduate earns a Master’s degree, though that wouldn’t have been true in those early days.
The Army War College mission statement is:
The push to get officers additional education came after WWII. The war thoroughly exposed the near-fatal inadequacies of the interwar Army. Small, stagnated, bigoted, hidebound, and blinkered that version of the Army and Navy was at war with each other more than with the outside world. This became all-too-apparent in 1947 when the Department of Defense was supposed to subordinate all the services and the Navy had to be dragged kicking and screaming to cede final authority.
If the U.S. was going to deal with an outside world as part of the U.S. foreign policy, it needed officers who were more than glorified county sheriffs. It also needed subject mater experts so that it could interact with the contractors in a technologized world. The money became available, and going on to get serious expertise became a necessary part of a high-level career.
Whether it worked or not is debatable. Probably best to try to imagine what the armed forces would be like if this weren’t true.
In the British Army it used to be, might have changed now, that a military rank always trumped all titles while on active service, except IIRC Dukes, Marquis and Earls.
In the British Army it used to be, might have changed now, that a military rank always trumped all titles while on active service, except IIRC Dukes, Marquis and Earls.
Not unusual, its been more or less the rule in Commonwealth militaries. Look at Prince William and Harry, both went to Sandhurst, one a university grad the other not.
Within the US, the latter, within military settings. After retirement (for instance), the academic title will usually take precedence. Depends on the setting, I guess, but overwhelmingly military rank is really only applicable within a military context.
I sit next to a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who’s also a PhD meteorologist, and in this setting “Dr.” is more appropriate than “Colonel”.
Hasn’t been mentioned, but the Air Force has its own post-grad institution (AFIT), focused on STEM, management, and logistics. It’s a fairly common rite of career passage for non-line (technical/staff) officers. They do both in-residence education and (more commonly) sponsor post-grad assignments to civilian universities for attaining upper-level degrees.
I don’t think line (rated/command) officers have organic graduate education opportunities other than AFIT, but I guess can pursue higher education at normal civilian institutions if they don’t want an AFIT degree.
At junior level, titles are not used - eg. Lieutenant Harry Wales. Higher up, they are - General Sir Nick Houghton, (current Chief of the Defence Staff). I think it changes at Major General (2 star) and up.
As far as degrees go, I think it is pretty similar. The military recruits strongly at universities, and will pay tuition for qualifying candidates who commit to a military career.
What about military medical doctors? In the US, it’s customary to address those as “Doctor”, regardless of the military rank of the practitioner, as long as it’s a medical relationship. Once the stethoscope comes off, it becomes more practical to address by rank, since the only way to tell a military doctor from any other military officer is to study the service badge.