‘This Is All Very Academic’: Critical Thinking in Professional Military Education

Against a backdrop where critical thinking is lauded as a tool to navigate the unpredictability of contemporary warfare, Sophy Antrobus and Hannah West argue in this article that the military, as an institution, and the soldier, as scholar, struggle to listen to a truly critical voice. If critical thinking comprises ‘reason assessment’ (understanding, analysing, arguing) and ‘critical spirit’ (disposition, attitude of mind, culture), how does an institution that values, indeed relies on for its effectiveness, uniformity and group identity encourage diversity of opinion and develop the critical spirit of its people? Our journey, as two women veterans, from insiders to outsiders, has led us to argue that professional military education is something of a ‘black box’ where we could observe outcomes but found it almost impossible to see back inside these institutions.◼