High-level U.S. Armed Forces commanders must often juggle multiple roles while performing in high-stakes, rapidly evolving operational environments. Newly assigned Joint Forces Air Component Commanders (JFACCs) make decisions that affect not only military operations, but also have impact on international political, economic, and social structures. They often have very limited experience making such decisions. As in other domains, complex decision making usually develops with experience. Because these decisions have immediate impact on critical military operations, it is impractical to wait for commanders to learn these decision skills while on the job.

Most existing computer-based instruction for future military leaders focuses on tactical level training. We have created a cognitively authentic, computer-based simulation environment that focuses on the unique demands of commanders in operational environments. This paper will present the simulation and mentoring system we developed for use with the JFACC course at Air University. We used cognitive task analysis to understand the issues encountered, critical tasks performed, and difficult decisions made by high-level military commanders. We then embedded these challenges into complex scenarios involving rapidly evolving international crisis situations. This system allows users to exercise their strategic-operational skills while in the midst of a simulated critical event. Using a structured knowledge base that includes lessons learned, doctrine, and AARs, combined with valuable feedback from mentors, the system challenges users to make complex decisions that impact joint and coalition forces, politics, and social/economic structures. This system creates a unique interactive and asynchronous mentoring program. This program will benefit JFACCs by broadening their experience base prior to dealing with real-life incidents. This system fills the void between formal classroom training and real-world experience by providing high-level decision makers with the opportunity to reshape their experience base in an operational command environment.