In summary, they’re being taught police tactics rather than the martial arts.

Reactionary, actually I disagree, assuming that what you meant by “martial arts”, which is essentially hand-to-hand combat, is really standard military operations.  I’m a West Pointer trained under the old system described in the article, and our oldest is currently a cadet being trained under the new regime.  Some of the training does have a “constabulary” feel similar to what the Brits would have dealt with in a lot of their former imperial experiences, but most of it is combat-in-cities and counter-insurgency content, in addition to old-fashioned, standard combat arms fare.  I think the point the writer was trying to convey is that whereas I was trained to fight a Soviet-style adversary with roughly similar force structures, weapons and capabilities, cadets today are being trained in asymmetric warfare with lots of civilians around that could get hurt if proper care is not taken.  Quite different from police operations, where only a single digit percentage of US police officers will ever fire a single shot in anger in an entire career.
As an aside that may interest Kendall’s regular readers, the cadet population at USMA has GOT to be the most spiritual undergraduate body not attending an explicitly Christian school.  All the chapels are full every Sunday, and I’d bet that at least a third of the Corps of Cadets is involved in weekly Bible studies through OCF, FCA, Navigators or similar.  This in severely time-constrained circumstances where cadets average 5hrs20mins of sleep per night for four years.  Predictably, the dying Episcopal church in neighboring Highland Falls appears to specialize in hosting aging hippie, compulsively anti-military guest preachers.  Our son went there once just after he arrived, just before he made sure his dog-tags were stamped with “Anglican” as his religious preference.

“We can’t provide them with all the solutions and all the answers,” he said. “This is too complex.”:  They haven’t been able to do that since, oh, 1965?  Unfortunately, the last few C-in-Cs have not been able to define the mission very well.

RoyIII,

If we were an empire, things would be simpler and, per USMAPiper’s post, the training particularly tailored to protecting US interests.  But since we’re not an empire, it appears the military’s role at this point is to combat insurgent operations for the client-governments of other states.

As another old grad, I think the mission of USMA is more about the leadership component than specific tactics.  Every graduate enters a specific branch of the Army (Infantry, Armor - hu ah!, Artillery, etc).  Each branch will teach more specific tactics related to that branch’s mission.  The academy is trying to prepare leaders of the future.  A broad perspective on tactics is helpful, but an MPs focus will be much different than a pilot’s or Infantry Platoon Leader’s.