Ιn “Balancing Nonresident Joint Professional Military Education with Military Life,” Commander Doug Morea makes the salient point that the current joint professional military education (JPME) process fails the individual joint warfighter in preparing for the challenges of serving in combatant commands and other joint forces. As joint educators, we agree with Commander Morea’s premise and offer that the current JPME model not only fails the individual joint warfighter but is also wholly inadequate for what the joint force requires both today and in an uncertain future.

Τhe United States is facing unprecedented challenges in the cognitive domain. While democracies struggle to develop frameworks that promote collective understanding, adversaries are employing gray zone tactics—those that never rise to the level of war—as a form of cognitive warfare against the United States and other democratic societies. François du Cluzel, head of innovative projects at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s Allied Command Transformation Innovation Hub, describes the key distinctions of the emerging cognitive domain.

Ιn an era of geopolitical competition among major powers, a large-scale war could last longer and result in more casualties than anything the United States has experienced since World War II. It is unclear whether the all-volunteer force (AVF) that the United States has relied on for the past 50 years, with extraordinary and unexpected success, can meet the manpower requirements in quality and quantity and in time to win the large-scale combat operations that the Department of Defense (DOD) is preparing for.

Graduation ceremonies for the NDU Class of 2024 were held at the Washington, D.C. campus on 13 June for CIC, CISA, ES and NWC; at the Norfolk, Va. campus on 7 June for JFSC; and the Fort Liberty, N.C. campus for CISA JSOMA on 31 May. Congratulations graduates!