Joint Professional Military Education: Opportunities Exist for Greater Oversight and Coordination of Associated Research Institutions

The primary purpose of PME is to develop military personnel, throughout their careers, for the intellectual demands of complex contingencies and major conflicts. The military services provide PME at their respective staff and war colleges. Each service educates service members in their core competencies according to service needs. Air Force colleges, for example, primarily teach air and space warfare. Similarly, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps colleges focus on land, maritime, and expeditionary warfare, respectively. DOD depends on the services PME institutions to develop personnel with these service-specific skills. However, the JPME program places emphasis on preparing leaders to conduct operations as a coherently joint force in complex operating environments. Following the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act16 (the Act) in 1986, DOD developed JPME as a subset of learning within the PME program, to comply with the joint requirements outlined in the Act and subsequent legislation.17 16Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99- 433. Currently, JPME is provided at multiple sites across the country, including the services staff and war colleges and NDU. Together, PME and JPME, prepare service members in successive stages throughout their careers to engage intellectual challenges appropriate to increases in their ranks and responsibilities. See figure 1 for a map of service and joint colleges and universities where JPME is provided.