You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs.

My name is Ryan Evans, I'm the CEO of War in the Rocks.

You may have noticed we're doing a lot of episodes on learning and national security.

Here's another, this one focused on

professional military education. The acronym you're going to hear a lot is PME in this episode.

We have two guests, one from Air University, the other from the Naval War College, Mark

Karmversino and Joan Johnson Freese. Please keep in mind that their

opinions are theirs alone. They do not speak for their institutions, the Air Force, the Navy, the Defense Department, the U.S.

Government, the planet Mars, anybody else but themselves.

Enjoy the show.

Thanks so much for joining us. Maybe you could start by telling us a bit about yourselves.

Joan, why don't you start?

I'm Joan Johnson Frees. I'm a university professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

I've been there since 2002, but been working in PME since 1993, spent five years at the Air War College and four years at the Asia Pacific Center in

Honolulu and came to Newport in 2002, spent eight years as the department chair for National Security Affairs and since

have been teaching security strategies. I'm committed to PME. I think it's very important

for a lot of reasons I hope we'll discuss,

wrote a book on it, have written several articles, and I'm very glad to say I think

there's been a lot more discussion in the past eight or ten years on PME than prior to that

discussion that's been very useful. Good morning. So I'm Mark Hombresino. I'm

currently the chief academic officer here at Air University and I've been here

since 2002 after retiring from active duty with the Air Force. I spent 13 years at the Air War College, half of that is the dean, and then managed

...