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Officer professional military education: Air Force

Professional Military Education is designed to help airmen acquire the management and leadership skills they will need to be successful at each step of their careers.

The controlling instruction for Air Force Professional Military Education (PME) is Air Force Instruction 36-2301.

Officer PME begins with a course for newly commissioned officers and continues with formal courses for captains, junior and senior field grade officers and general officers.

Most PME is conducted at Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

Several courses also have a non-resident, distance-learning option.

Since 2003, Intermediate and Senior Developmental Education programs have included not only the Air Command and Staff College (IDE) and Air War College (SDE), and sister service equivalents, but also opportunities for graduate degrees at the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Naval Postgraduate School and other degree programs.

Air and Space Basic Course

Air Force officers usually get their first exposure to PME within their first year of commissioned service when they attend the Air and Space Basic Course, 30-training-day program organized to teach new second lieutenants the essential concepts of how the Air Force prosecutes aerial wars utilizing Air Force doctrine and team concepts.

The course begins with a survey of key Air Force weapon systems and includes descriptions of how these weapons are employed in combat. Other lessons include an introduction to war theory, historical airpower principles, strategic concepts, and the basics of air, space and cyberspace doctrine. Additionally, the program includes a five-day combined operations period with the Air Force Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy.

Squadron Officer School

The Air Force Squadron Officer School is for captains with at least four and less than seven years of total active federal commissioned service. Comprising 25 class days, SOS presents Air Force history, doctrine, and employment concepts through multiple readings, seminar discussions, and lectures.

To emphasize team building, leadership and “followership,” the SOS curriculum lessons are sequenced concurrently, rather than sequentially. Students, therefore, are required to study a lesson, work as a team, and then apply the ideas in a complex exercise afterward. Officials say that this approach to learning helps officers improve professionally and promotes the inculcation of the warrior-leader ethos.

Air Command and Staff College

The Air Command and Staff College is a 10-month, 34-semester-hour resident course at Air University for selected majors and major-selects. It is geared toward teaching the skills necessary to conduct air and space operations in support of a joint campaign.

Graduates can earn a master’s degree.

Because of the highly competitive selection process, about 85 percent of majors and major-selects get their intermediate PME through the nonresident curriculum of the Air Command and Staff College.

Air War College

The Air War College is a 10-month graduate-level program for selected colonels and lieutenant colonels. All U.S. students will be dually enrolled in the Air War College senior-level professional military education (PME) program and the Air University Master of Strategic Studies degree program and, therefore, must meet admission requirements for the Master of Strategic Studies degree.

The AWC PME program also includes Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) as defined by the Department of Defense.

The core curriculum consists of four major areas: leadership and ethics, international security studies, national and military strategy, and joint/coalition military operations.