Internet

How can the professional military officer keep pace with the rapid information technology explosion and maintain an informational advantage over potential adversaries? The solution to this problem lies, in part, in educating officers on the capabilities of the Internet, regardless of their mission or unit affiliation. This paper examines the key role the Internet must play in educating future military campaign planners. It describes how an Internet education program was developed and presented to the students of the Air Force's Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) during the 1994-1995 academic year, and presents a notional case study that relied on information extracted off the Internet to plan a military campaign. The method of research included traditional approaches such as interviews, literature searches in libraries, student surveys, analysis and interpretation of survey results, as well as a non-traditional (for most military researchers) approach--using the tools of the Internet itself to conduct research. The primary findings of the paper are the military should expand its Internet education, and military officers must, as part of their professional development, seek out this information. The lesson and teaching plans used to teach the Internet course to the ACSC students and the scenario developed for the case study are included in the appendices.