Tactical Acumen to Strategic Brilliance: How Indian Air Force Has Upped Its Professional Military Education

financialexpress.com:

By Group Captain Praveer Purohit (retd)

One of the many motivations for teenagers to join the National Defence Academy (NDA) was a dream of ‘escape from studies’.One reason was the fallacious assumption that ‘brawns’ were more valued than ‘brains’ in the military. Even those who joined the forces directly after graduation felt that their phase of studies was over. Of course, all these dreams (and day-dreams) came crashing when one joined the NDA or the follow-on academies such as Indian Military Academy (IMA), Air Force Academy (AFA) and Indian Naval Academy (INA). These academies laid a high proportion of weightage to academics and one couldn’t just ignore it.Sharpening of the brain was as important as strengthening the body. So as every officer would attest, their relationship with books, manuals and training notes continued for a long time into their careers.However, the focus predominantly remained on training and very little thought or importance was given to Professional Military Education (PME). One constantly heard the senior leadership talking and writing about ‘Training’ but hardly ever about PME. The late Air Commodore Jasjit Singh passionately espoused the cause of PME, unfortunately without much success, at least till the Kargil conflict. It was the Kargil Review Committee that reiterated the importance of PME and recommended establishing an Indian National Defence University (INDU).  

One may well ask if there is any difference in training and PME. Although both are necessary, compatible and complementary, there are differences. Training is more focussed on the immediate skills necessary for a warrior. It seeks to develop those psycho-motor and technical skills required for the job at hand and develop