Decolonising Professional Military Education » Wavell Room - this is an excellently written essay and one that should be debated as ⁦ @c21st_sailor⁩ rightly suggested for ⁦ @UKACSC⁩. Allow me to articulate a few thoughts on this. A thread - https://wavellroom.com/2021/01/09/decolonising-professional-military-education/

First - a couple of preliminary observations about where I come from on this subject:
A. My original professional training is in area studies first; military history and international politics second;
B. I was educated over 4 countries, 2 continents, 4 languages;

C. I have taught at, worked with, and conducted research projects together with, students and personnel at staff colleges over 3 continents, 5 languages, and somewhere in the region of a dozen countries;

The above encompasses some 25 years of experience.

I am comfortable to say that some of the key issues debated in the article about assumptions, openness of the curriculum, and expectations from a learning experience have been an inherent part of my educational and professional paths long before they became subject of debate.

Let me further qualify my response in relation to one subject matter of expertise - naval/maritime strategic thinking/theory/practice - as a way to offer both meaningful examples, and as a way to offer consistency in my response.

I find the framing of this debate problematic.

Let’s talk about self-reflection. This is an obvious point, an important one, but we are misleading ourselves if we think that the problem relates to west is best theories (a very decolonisation way of presenting the issue) and lack of promotion of balance of different voices.

Specifically:
1. West? Really? Apart from the occasional death German or Russian author, in the naval context ‘the West’ is really 2/3 Anglo-American authors, with the occasional French element. You don’t need to stroll too far, Luigi Rocco, Oscar Di Giambernardino - already MIA;

Key point: the so-called west is in itself a far reacher intellectual set of experiences than PME curricula give credit to.
2. In a naval PME context, what is the non-West? Sato Tetsutaro? Akiyama Saneyuki? Admiral Groshkov? Sure - but not really;

Having studied some of them in their national contexts and languages, and listened to how these are taught in their nations - I find very troubling the notion of ‘west’ vs something else as a relevant framework to engage different views. Both ontologically and pedagogically.

Related to this is the question of the ‘curriculum being white’. Again - promoting non-Western perspectives - the key question is what is the objective of the exercise, and relatedly how do I go about it?
1. Naval strategy doesn’t come in colour. It comes in problems;

It’s about functional issues, transports, protection of it, projection of material capabilities, and related issues - at operational and campaign levels (how we fight), and wider national security issues at the higher policy and strategic levels.

2. The above means that the frameworks can vary - colonial, national affirmation, counter-colonial - and that’s the key thing. Sato Tetsutaro’s ‘National defence’ and Groshgov ‘The Seapower of the State’ are incredibly rich works that need to be examined in context.

3. The assumption is that PME has a tendency to be affected by ‘military orientalism’. Yes, but not necessarily and the opposite is true as well. I have had lengthy discussions on how ‘western’ (Anglo-Saxon really) authors are translated and Studies in Staff Colleges.

The implicit notion that ‘the west’ gets it wrong is not only fallacious, but also highly patronising. We ALL get it wrong - at times - and why we do has to do with all sorts of questions and not colonialism or ‘white man’ dominance.

4. The framing of the debate on this matter is inappropriate because it prevents to tackle some core questions:
A. It’s very hard in a naval PME context to introduce great diversity because of simple lack of sources;
B. To do so we need to have a serious conversation on basics:

Terminology, intellectual constructs, you name it. Maitrise de la mer in French conceptually conveys an idea that is different from command of the sea.

The above point is central to the question of open-mindedness - which of framed as ‘white fragility’ risks missing the point.

In a broader sense, it is fantastic that this debate is starting to take place, it’s long overdue. But in engaging with it, I do believe that we need to be careful not to cede to the temptation of the tyranny of the fashionable frameworks of the day.

Otherwise the real risk is we’re just replacing one type of mindset, with another, and missing yet again the chance to widen the horizons.
Apologies for the long thread.