Learning to Think-Thinking to Learn: Metacognition a Nascent Skill and Competitive Advantage for National Security
Abstract
Experience is a byproduct of individual education applied in learning and thinking environments; however, reliance upon experience alone disregards that formal academic learning diminishes over time. U.S achieved Cold War successes due to the resilience of our national instruments of power. Alternately, engagements since point toward an increasingly complex problem set. Assured victory in any future challenge with revisionist or aggressive actors like the Peoples Republic of China or the Russian Federation will require a change in the way we think. Given the complex national security environment and its associated decision-making milieu, leaders will benefit from three cognitive development areas: cognitive bias awareness, critical inquiry, and conceptual decision frameworks. Most significant is the effort towards bias awareness, understanding how individual beliefs, values, and vision affect the interpretations of information, sense-making, and time. Though no instrument of national power or leader can design, assess, or restructure national security strategy alone, the work done in this ecosystem starts with a relentless pursuit of understanding, a metacognitive investigation that will offer winning options and policy pathways
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 12, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1207793
Entities
People
- Paul W. Nickell
Organizations
- Naval War College