Founded in 1884, the Naval War College has had a rich and varied history. While many of the changes instituted during the past five years were built on solid foundations laid in earlier administrations, there is no question but that the period 1966 to 1971 was one of rapid and important innovation.
Two major factors have governed the shape of these adjustments: the basic mission of the Naval War College and the composition of its student body and faculty.
The mission of the Naval War College is to provide naval officers with advanced education in the science of naval warfare and related subjects in order to improve their professional competence for higher responsibilities.
The Naval War College today consists of three resident colleges (or courses), plus a War Gaming Center, a Center for Continuing Studies, and administration. Its military officer faculty or staff (including officers from other services) numbers 139, although only about half serve the three resident colleges. There are 12 civilian members of the faculty. The largest of the three colleges is the College of Naval Command and Staff (cnc&s) established in 1950, followed by the senior level College of Naval Warfare (cnw), both for U. S. students. The third unit, the Naval Command Course, established in 1956, teaches 30 senior officers of Allied navies each year. Of the 180 graduates from this small course in its first seven years, 103 have achieved flag rank and 17 have become cnos.
The number of students enrolled in the U. S. resident colleges in late years has varied widely. Between 1966 and 1970, the cnw had a range of 95 to 171 officer students. (In 1971, the figure had improved slightly to 179.) The equivalent figures for cnc&s for the same years up to 1970 were 117 to 191. (The 1971 figure is 225.) These fluctuations below an already-too-low average figure have resulted from other demands on naval officer services. While cnw figures at the lower end of the range were obviously not sufficient in view of the policy that all naval officers of flag potential should attend a senior war college, it is the figures for cnc&s which cause real concern. In the 15 years up to 1970, only 18–20% of lieutenant commanders had this schooling, while promotion opportunity for commander went as high as 85%. Consequently, far too few Navy commanders had or have a c&s background. In the 1968–1969 cnw class, 13% of the naval officers had had c&s. The average figure for the last three years combined is 22%. The Army War College figure, for contrast, remains at 100% and all Army students in cnw have had a Command and Staff (c&s) background.
These limitations in numbers have caused the last two Chiefs of Naval Operations to initiate or carry on plans for expansion. The goal for 1980 is 700 students (with most of the growth in c&s). The Naval War College physical plant (on which only $1.6 million had been spent between 1884 and 1970) is now being greatly expanded to accommodate the larger student body, with Spruance Hall well under way and the second (of four) new buildings nearing the construction stage.
In educational background, the student body has varied in this period from 10 to 12% with no college degree, around 58 to 65% with a baccalaureate, and 25 to 35% with graduate degrees. The latter group is increasing steadily but lags behind the other senior service college figures. Student scores on the Graduate Record Examination and equivalent graduate study entrance tests run the gamut, from the low 300s up through the 700s.
The educational problem which this diverse student body presents thus turns on one basic fact: U. S. students at both junior and senior levels have a great variety of academic and service backgrounds and learning abilities. Such a widely varied student body cannot study or be taught as though it were homogeneous. True, all members do have one thing in common: they have achieved outstanding fitness reports in operational capacities. But, because they vary so widely otherwise, the War College program must ensure opportunity for all to grow professionally in the areas of most use to each. There must be an opportunity for each student to achieve according to the best of his capabilities.
Vice Admiral John T. Hayward, President of the Naval War College, in April 1966, recognizing the diversity of the student body, stated that he did not want a completely uniform program geared to the average student’s ability. He also considered that the curriculum should be broadened to include some knowledge of many subjects which earlier generations of naval officers may have safely ignored. Military deployments abroad, for example, closely impinge on balance of payments questions. Thus, without at least a little knowledge of basic economics, military planning exists in a vacuum. So the staff and faculty began to look at what was already in the curriculum, to decide what more was needed, not with the intention in any sense of turning out economics or management specialists, but merely of providing a basic working knowledge in certain fields.
The program response developed had to fill in gaps which varied from student to student, while broadening the grasp of each on these newer concerns. And it had to allow for individual opportunities for study keyed to widely varying abilities and attainments. The first problem’s solution led to a fairly drastic revision of the first major study in each college’s Core Curriculum (i.e., the subject matter taken by all students in a given college). The second problem’s solution led us to develop what has since become a standard war college approach: a Research and Electives program, supplemental to the Core Curriculum, with a wide variety of options and subject matter for students of different educational backgrounds and interests.
Let us look at these two developments in turn.
The new beginning for the Core Curriculum (at first common to both U. S. colleges but with each college ultimately developing its own version with appropriately different length and depth) was called the “Fundamentals for Strategy Study.” First introduced in 1967–1968, fss developed into a nine-week “horizontal” set of interlocking sub-courses: International Relations, International Law, Evolution of Strategic Theory, Military Management, Economics, and Comparative (foreign) Cultures. These sub-courses vary from 6 units to 30 units, including both lectures and seminars, and run concurrently, each reinforcing the other. The objectives of the course include (1) laying a proper academic foundation for the later studies in the Core Curricula, (2) providing an “upgrading” which permits subsequent work to be conducted at the graduate level, and (3) establishing an assured common foundation for the Research and Electives program. Student evaluation of fss has been highly approving.
The second development was the supplemental Research and Electives program itself. Four major options ultimately were provided, each keyed to a different student need. Each major option included many suboptions. These options paralleled and capitalized on the academic level the students had reached when they came on board. Students without a bachelor’s degree went into a cooperative program with the nearby University of Rhode Island (uri). The greater number of those with a bachelor’s degree went into research-oriented Winter Term Research Seminars, while a smaller group entered a cooperative program with uri leading to the Master of Marine Affairs degree. Students already having a master’s degree entered Group Research Projects, with a very small number participating in graduate seminars at Brown University. Finally, students with a Ph.D. followed Independent Study or participated io Group Research.
This evolved over a four-year period and several variants were attempted until optimum arrangements were reached. Also, many difficulties had to be overcome. Perhaps the best short illustration is to cite the uri bachelor completion program. To make it feasible, we had to have a way to complete a major and establish residence. In 1970, 26 students lacking the B.A. degree when they came to Newport, left with their degree, thus significantly enhancing their promotion potential.
Important changes came from the early experience with the Winter Term Research Seminars (wtrs) for students with a bachelor’s degree. Taught mainly by the civilian professors on the nwc faculty, originally these were elective courses having no direct connection with the research program. In the next years we made several changes. We doubled and tripled the number of seminars, enlisting some additional teaching talent from our own resources. We added part-time faculty from neighboring institutions such as Brown and Harvard. But, most important, we modified the seminar format by grouping together in a given seminar those students who wished to do their required thesis work in a given subject, and enlarged the role of the seminar director to include the active direction of the thesis. Where our resident civilian professors had once had little to do with directing research (as compared to assisting in its design and later in its evaluation), they now were intimately involved. The increase in the quality of the output was marked, and the students had a much more satisfying experience intellectually than under the old system. Once the student completed his wtrs, he went on into a spring term elective designed either to broaden him in a new direction or to allow him to acquire further depth in a related field.
The third category of students, those in the Group Research Projects (grp) already had graduate degrees. It made little sense for them to retread the individual thesis path associated with the wtrs. Accordingly, these groups of three to five students were given research projects on subjects of contemporary concern to the Navy and to the Department of Defense. Under the guidance of a faculty member, these groups did collective research. We now run as many as 30 and 40 such groups each year. When, soon after he took office, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird circulated to War Colleges an invitation to make available pertinent research results through regular procedures (including briefings to the most senior officials), the nwc program had already been in operation for about two years. Accordingly, the nwc was able to respond immediately with high-quality inputs. While most of these were grp products, individual theses from the wtrs program were also briefed.
In the independent study option, the object, on an individual basis, was the production of publishable findings.
As a corollary to the upgrading of the research just described, the thrust of the content of the Naval War College Review was altered significantly. While important guest lectures continued to be reprinted in the Review, much space was now devoted to publishing the best unclassified student research. Given a new format at this time, and with its contents more accurately reflecting nwc intellectual and professional work, the Review is now well acknowledged as a first-rate publication. Requests for permission to reprint continue to climb and its content is widely used.
It was noted above that a few students with a master’s degree attend Brown University seminars to fulfill their electives and research requirements, and that a dozen students take the uri Marine Affairs master’s program. These programs, with cooperating neighboring institutions, are an integral part of the nwc program. Unlike these in that it is completely after-hours, but like them in that it also broadens student knowledge of related professional subjects, is the George Washington (gw) University Master’s program at Newport. Begun in 1962, it now has about 1,200 graduates. With six full-time gw professors and other part-time faculty from such institutions as Yale and Boston University, it has functioned well. It is a fair statement to say that the other senior war colleges have generally considered the Naval War College program as the most trouble-free of all such programs—an opinion also expressed by President Eliot of George Washington to Admiral Hayward. The 30-hour degree is based on 12 hours of gw seminars, a 3-hour reading course, 9 hours gw credit for the graduate content of the nwc curricula, and a 6-hour credit thesis which, if acceptable to both institutions, can be submitted for satisfaction of the requirements of each.
The gw program has aroused mixed feelings since it came into existence at the various war colleges. The Army War College did away with it entirely, beginning in 1966, on the grounds that it diverted student efforts away from the Core Curriculum (but in 1969 decided to reinstitute some equivalent program). Admiral Hayward had this issue appraised in 1966. The conclusion was unambiguous. If it made sense for some selected students at the Naval War College to study international relations in sufficient depth to obtain an advanced degree, then it was exclusively the War College’s fault if it allowed them to slight the Core Curriculum in doing so. He decided that the program was an asset. By August 1968, when Vice Admiral Richard G. Colbert assumed his duties, the minor weaknesses in the arrangements were being remedied. To allow both the War College and George Washington University to plan for numbers of students efficiently, it was agreed that no more than 225 students would be in the gw option.
The new President, aware of external criticisms of the gw program (as, for example in the article in the Proceedings by Edward L. Katzenbach, Jr., “The Demotion of Professionalism at the War Colleges,” March 1965), decided a careful new appraisal was desirable. Accordingly, a questionnaire was sent to all recent nwc-gw graduates, asking their frank opinion of the gw program. Of the 231 who had taken the program in 1966–1968, 161 responded. Of these, 129 (80.196) marked it as professionally beneficial. Of the 161, 98.8% endorsed it without qualification as significantly enhancing not only their total professional ability, but also their ability to achieve better results in everything studied throughout the whole school year. In short, it directly and effectively supported the mission of the Naval War College.
In 1969, when the gw faculty was expanded to its present size, gw consciously added faculty in areas in which the nwc faculty has no great strength. Thus gw adds a dimension of expertise we would not otherwise have.
These changes have been needed, and, on the whole they have been improvements. Many of them are now also found in the curricula of the other war colleges. At the nwc, they have had one further effect: to raise the difficult question of the proper balance between professional naval subjects as such, and the related subjects which allow things naval to be viewed in adequate perspective. In the initial stage of the program described above, it became clear that the wtrs in particular were lacking in balance. Although in the second year of the elective program, military and naval subjects were included; they were less extensive offerings than those given on the more “academic” side of the house. Here, one has to be careful with semantics. Management and systems analysis are academic enough, and they also are oriented very directly toward military professional questions. Yet, it was still true that more seminars in purely military and naval subjects were sorely needed, and these offerings were the next to be significantly expanded.
The problem was to find faculty members in uniform who felt competent to direct the research in naval subjects which would be associated with these seminars, particularly since the best qualified faculty officers were heavily involved, as one can imagine, in the administration of the schools.
To teach and direct research effectively, one needs to know a good deal about a subject and to think about it conceptually. Yet, if we consider the normal naval officer career pattern, which is designed to produce highly competent generalists, it is apparent that the needs of the Service and career enhancement do not encourage great specialization. Of course, almost any flag officer is likely to have a reputation in both areas—a reflection, perhaps, of his above-average abilities. The best officers are capable of being both generalists and specialists. But, again, warring against specialization, is the ingrained Navy habit of adding miscellaneous collateral duties to one’s primary assignment. Add to this the short, generally two-year tour pattern, and one has a fair measure of the difficulties of developing specialists. Yet, civilians can hardly be the specialists in naval professional affairs. Either the military will, or little can be done to advance the profession adequately in a world where professional fields are changing rapidly under the impact of technological breakthroughs.
In principle, the members of the Naval War College military faculty need to be professional leaders in special fields, such as asw and submarine warfare, in order to advance the profession and direct rigorous research in these specialties. In practice, much military faculty time (in a faculty of too limited size) is taken up with administration, with providing faculty “monitors” to student committees in various fields, and with collateral duties. The whole thrust of these duties mitigates against specialization and conceptualization. Besides, the overall, and otherwise admirable, “can-do” attitude of the Navy easily leads to attempts to cover too many areas too thinly for best results. There exist so many obvious needs which the Naval War College might and even should serve, that the tendency again is weighted in the direction of over-stretching a numerically limited faculty. The easiest proof is to cite the faculty staff size in 1965 before the changes described, and its size in 1969. In 1965, the size was 126; in 1969, 128. Similarly, since civilian personnel have been under drastic ceilings, each of the new civilian professors added has resulted in one less secretary.
The resolution of some aspects of the problem obviously goes far beyond the jurisdiction of the Naval Wat College and involves decisions in Washington. Given present constraints, we must concentrate here on what nevertheless can be done.
Two avenues are open, each supplementing the other. Those billets presently occupied by military faculty officers have already been rigorously re-evaluated to provide a basis for ensuring that the Naval War College billet structure itself encourages the greatest possible specialization by faculty in professional military areas. With the naval subject-matter focus of each billet more clearly specified than before and provided other duties can be reduced sufficiently, a greater part of an officer’s time will go into work more directly associated with that specialty. Secondly, in a development having great potential and using an idea first developed at the Army War College, we have begun to establish a number of military “chair” billets devoted to subject-matter specialization. Such chairs are to be held for a term by “front-runner” captains approaching selection for flag rank, with nomination for these prestigious positions originating with the OpNav section appropriate to the chair’s area of expertise.
By 1970–1971, five such military chairs were operational, with about eight to be on board in 1971–1972, and a total of 11 were envisaged. With approximately an equal number of civilian and military chairs, we are moving to a team approach, with the civilian chair cooperating with his “opposite number,” e.g., economics with logistics, national security and foreign affairs with intelligence. Thus, each side of each team will complement the other side’s strengths and weaknesses. The military chair will learn more of the academic techniques from his civilian counterpart, while the civilian professor will grow in his knowledge of things naval.
This concept also has the strong corollary benefit of fostering a closer sense of mutual interest and concern between those operating branches of the naval establishment and the Naval War College faculty. Even given the career needs of officers for diversified experience, it is certainly not Utopian to envisage that we might develop to where an officer in OpNav could logically expect to be assigned later to teaching at the Naval War College in the area of his OpNav concern, or vice-versa. Or perhaps the relationship will be to certain systems commands. In any event, there is an area here where further improvements are possible.
Finally, in surveying the developments and problems of these most recent years in the history of the College, it is appropriate to mention the much increased emphasis on seapower in the total college program—especially the implications of the Soviet development of first-class Maritime power—introduced by Admiral Colbert. While the development in Soviet seapower capability, especially in a “Cold War (non-fighting) environment,” had previously been receiving attention at the War College, some dimensions of it had been ignored. More importantly, no systematic approach to the problem was being made on an adequate basis. On the other hand, the tools for a more systematic effort were now at hand. The reorganized research program permits giving adequate attention to these problems. And the steadily upgraded Naval War College Review, whose improvements have been widely noted, offers a vehicle for bringing the fruits of research to an audience extending for beyond Newport.
It is hoped that through the newly-instituted Naval War College Foundation, collections of material and memorabilia closely connected with the history of the War College can be assembled to increase our research Scope. Finally, worthy of note, is the holding of the First International Seapower Symposium in November 1969. It brought to Newport representatives of 37 nations, including 22 foreign chiefs of naval operations and vice chiefs of naval operations for a week’s invigorating discussion, in an academic atmosphere, of contemporary world seapower problems.
Does this total program conform to what good sense Suggests is required by modern Navy career patterns and professional needs?
The Naval War College is in no sense isolated from the mainstream of Navy professional life, but rather lies at its heart. Not only is the Navy proportion of the student body and faculty both high and regularly changed and renewed, but there is also a constant stream senior and flag rank naval officers coming to Newport for lectures, seminars, and other purposes. There is a high volume of correspondence, official and private, connecting us to all major centers of naval activities. From all of these contacts a wide spectrum of Navy opinion about the Naval War College becomes available. Apart from what the College itself thinks it is doing, it must and should remain receptive to what others think it is doing or what others think of what it is doing.
There are some who think the Naval War College does not concentrate enough on naval matters, that there are too many opportunities for students to use their time to obtain advanced degrees or engage in other distractions from the core concerns. In his Proceedings article, Edward L. Katzenbach made a number of criticisms of the War College system. He argued that the colleges were not studying the military art partly because they did not have the best qualified instructors and partly because they were studying international affairs and other matters. Katzenbach said specifically: “The fairly recent emphasis on international relations and competing ideologies is simply out of date; it is no longer of first priority for a senior professional military school.” Yet, if the United States subsequently becomes involved in a Vietnam war and a whole host of international relations commitments with important political and economic facets, if military questions are heavily connected to issues involving public attitudes toward the military, budget, management, and balance of payment problems—to name just a few—then a senior military education course which concerns itself with “purely military” problems, is undesirable. Indeed, the whole “McNamara revolution,” whatever its strong and weak points, demonstrated that the naval officer who cannot argue from more than a purely military rationale cannot serve his country well today.
There must, of course, be a balance; time is limited, and everything important must get done. But the problem goes deeper than just to maintain a balance. As indicated above, our career system does not enhance specialization, yet we must somehow develop and use more military conceptual expertise in our programs. In short, the problem is not so much giving greater coverage, timewise, to “purely” naval subjects, as to ensure the highest degree of excellence attainable in the resident pursuit of these studies. Visiting lecturers in uniform, who by their seniority and experience are indeed expert, can be, as Katzenbach says, only a limited part of the solution.
The degree programs open to selected students at the Naval War College through associated (and after-hours) courses, have proven merits for the Naval War College, quite apart from their popularity with students. Degrees can make a difference in who is promoted, and if the system itself makes this difference, one cannot convince our capable and ambitious officer corps that this consideration is irrelevant. Even so, such programs would be phased out at the Naval War College if the available evidence showed they did not produce a more effective officer.
It is sometimes said of the War Colleges that certain skills ought to be taught which are not taught, or should be more emphasized than they are. Each such suggestion is carefully examined and suggestions sometimes point to deficiencies which need remedying. At the same time, ten months cannot cover everything or make up for experience which probably should be more properly acquired elsewhere. The Command and Staff College is a bit late to teach, for example, the practical art of navigation which, in any case, is better acquired at sea. Moreover, it would be difficult to train officers for military government duties—to which few will be sent—although the spectrum of problems involved is presently made clear in the “counterinsurgency” study.
These latter remarks are heavily oriented toward the negative side of the equation since they are intended as serious responses to criticisms sometimes made.
Considering the limitations presently inherent in an under-officered Navy, which has kept students and faculty numbers limited, a good deal of progress has been made with what we have to work with. Given the planned physical plant expansion, and a larger on-board count, results should be even better, for the total program in its essentials represents a well considered package geared also to accommodate future needs. Unquestionably, too, these newer changes have made for a total which is very demanding of a student’s time, and some pruning of structured requirements is essential to recapture a greater semblance of a leisurely academic environment. We must not, in an effort to cover all that must be covered, foreclose opportunities for students to grow by following where their own professional interests and personal curiosity lead. There must remain ample occasion for informal conversation and unstructured time. This facet of the problem is much in our minds, although we have a way to go to really get there.
Does this total program retain or recapture the elements of excellence on which the Naval War College reputation historically rests? The qualities that made the Naval War College historically great would appear to fall under four connected headings: (1) a traditional emphasis on academic freedom; (2) a dedicated and skilled civilian, as well as military, faculty; (3) an imaginative probing of problems with an eye on the future; and (4) the pioneering of techniques which enable problems to be conceptualized more effectively.
The emphasis on academic freedom, that “there is no school solution,” goes back to Mahan. In this day, when Mahan is more venerated than studied, we tend to forget that the principles associated with his name were rather startling to his audiences. Mahan was not at all happy with the role of the Navy, its composition, or its deployment as he found it when he began his famous lectures. Nor did Mahan believe that U. S. foreign policy goals or their implementation, let alone the governmental apparatus for their implementation, were adequate to the problems. Because his views were accepted, we forget that he was challenging the status quo and that he was asking that the problem be re-examined. In our more recent history as a nation, where we have all witnessed swings of policy on such basic questions as onshore versus offshore deployment in Asia, it behooves us to encourage “flexible response” in the intellectual armory of the naval officer. As Admiral Nimitz once remarked, the war games and plans developed before World War II at the Naval War College accurately envisaged every major problem in that war but one: the Japanese Kamikazes. We must continue to think imaginatively—and we do.
The faculty “mix” has already received ample comment. It is apparent that we are aware of this ingredient in the problem. Comments already made also speak to our concerns about probing the future—especially our contemporary emphasis on the unfolding Soviet maritime strategy.
As to pioneering techniques, the most suitable illustration is the leading role of the Naval War College in war-gaming, a practice initiated in 1887. Looking ahead, we are currently planning (and are already embarked on) a major war-gaming facility expansion plan which will keep us in the forefront of those who use this tool. Curriculum plans now under development envisage a more ambitious use of the facility than had been made of it in the recent past.
The Naval War College is highly aware of the challenge that national and professional needs pose, and it is well embarked on a program that carefully blends the elements of past achievements with the anticipated needs of the future. At Newport, sailors as scholar, of their own professional problems, are hard at work.
Dr. Hartmann received his A.B. (1943) at the University of California (Berkeley) and his M.A. (1947) and Ph.D. (1949) from Princeton University. After instructing at Princeton (1946–1947), he became assistant professor of political science and coordinator of undergraduate and graduate in international relations at the University of Florida in 1948. Promoted to full professor in 1956, he became director of the Institute of International Relations in March 1963. A captain in the U. S. Naval Reserve, Professor Hartmann is currently Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Maritime Strategy, Supervisory Professor, and Special Advisor to the President of the Naval War College.