Religion: A Missing Component of Professional Military Education PKSOI Paper | Seite 12

pects of religion. It is not my goal to contribute to the
narrative that calls for non-engagement with religion.
I suggest just the opposite. Though the points I make
in this paper can be applied at all PME levels, I will
restrict the focus of my paper to the need for correcting the failure to teach about the role of religion in
society, including in conflict, in-depth, at the strategic
and operational levels.
Presently, there is an apparent disconnect between
how the U.S. Army perceives religion and the ways in
which military officers are schooled. Simplistic narratives dominate. The absence of an in-depth discussion
of religion and religious actors in Army Field Manual
(FM) 3-07 is itself problematic, and points to a shallow understanding of religion and its potential role
as driver of both peace and violence. Sociocultural
considerations provide a framework used, presumably, to account for religion in a conflict. Field Manual
3-07 captures the overly simplistic manner with which
many military leaders are exposed to religion and the
ways in which it is discussed, as one factor of many
and co-equal. We need to do better.
In doing better, one of the questions we should ask
ourselves is what type and amount of religious passion are we willing to accept? Are Bishop Desmond
Tutu and Pope Francis I religious fanatics? The Dali
Lama? Are their forms of extremism acceptable? Simplistic accounts of religion, and religious actors, are
rarely useful when developed, critical, and nuanced
understandings of conflicts with religious dimensions
are required; nor, is the absence of religion from the
PSO discourse beneficial.
As resources decline within a post-Afghanistan and
Iraq context, and the public’s appetite for responding
to conflicts outside of the U.S. dissipates, the strategic

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