Michael F Pappal

Preparation of Leaders to Make Decisions in a Peacekeeping Environment Michael F Pappal

Publisher Marketing: The transformation of the United States Army to the concepts of the Objective Force brings to question many of the Army's current operational policies and methods. One such area is the way in which the Army prepares for operations. Current unit preparation for an operation uses alert, train, and deploy as a model with a focus on combat operations and preparation for other aspects of the spectrum occurring after alerted for that specific mission. Objective force concepts use a 'Train, Alert, and Deploy' model under the precept that units remain prepared to operate on a moments notice in any environment on the full spectrum of operations. Decision-making is central to the United States Army leader. The essence of effective leadership is to make and communicate sound decisions. It is essential for the Army to produce leaders that can make effective decisions in a timely manner by using naturalistic decision-making processes such as Recognition Primed Decision-making (RPD) instead of the timely analytical method of the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). However, this type of decision-making requires a substantial investment in time for the decision-maker to accumulate an adequate base of knowledge to utilize. This monograph examines how well the Army currently prepares its officers for decision-making for one aspect of the full spectrum, peacekeeping by utilizing original survey data of United States Army majors. Areas investigated include personal confidence in decision-making of various types, amount of training and education received in peace operations, and assessments of Army preparations of leaders from lieutenant through major, etc. Conclusions from this data indicate that current Army policies and practices do not prepare army officers adequately for decision-making in peace operations. The surveyed majors assessed that the Army adequately prepares leaders for decision-making in combat operations but not in peace operations. Officers receive insignificant