In the Cognitive Era, education is equally vital to decision advantage as technology. The Navy and Marine Corps must invest more deeply in its warrior-scholar future.
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Every four years, the Pentagon experiences a dramatic leadership turnover, as civilian appointees resign to return to civilian life or move to more senior jobs for an administration’s second term. This places significant pressure on the new team in the Department of Defense (DoD) to form quickly to meet the persistent national security challenges. We must realize that the world broadly is getting more complex, and with it so is the national security environment that U.S. defense leaders must address and de-risk. How this environment will evolve is unpredictable, but I contend we should expect a future in which the most aggressive of our global adversaries, namely, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea will continue to push against U.S. influence and the global promotion of liberty, free commerce, and human rights to advance their interests and to fulfill their own national visions.
In early 2018, the Donald Trump administration promulgated a new (and inherently naval)
National Defense Strategy (NDS) aimed at peer competition with China and Russia. A key assumption of the NDS was that after two decades of fighting terrorism, the U.S. military’s advantage over peer adversaries has eroded. The Department of Defense sees itself operating in a new “Cognitive Age” where artificial intelligence, cyber, and remote-controlled weapon systems make warfare in the air, on land, or at sea more complex and dangerous than ever before. To reverse the effects of this erosion, service members will have to be highly trained to survive and succeed in this environment. Education is also needed, however, to best prepare officers and enlisted for the challenges of the 21st century.
USNI News
Naval Community College Kicks Off Pilot Program This Month With 600 Students
January 7, 2021 6:08 PM
Sailors take the Navy wide advancement exam aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Sept. 3, 2020. US Navy Photo
The United States Naval Community College will begin serving its first class of about 600 students, under a pilot program running from January through June.
The students will come from the Navy, Marine Corps and the Coast Guard, and they will be taught by a combined effort from Northern Virginia Community College, the University of Arizona, the University of Maryland Global Campus, Alexandria Technical and Community College in Minnesota, and the State University System of New York (SUNY Online).