If you are looking for downtime after a challenging tour or a break from the rigors and responsibilities of the fleet, I have a suggestion for you: Don’t come to the Naval War College.
Since October, naval forces in the Red Sea have been engaged in combat to protect international shipping, the longest sustained campaign of naval warfare since World War II. They have downed dozens of missiles and drones, sunk surface craft, and protected thousands of mariners. The Naval War College (NWC) has been a critical part of the Navy’s response to this challenge. Faculty traveled to support the fleet commander, and advanced research group students are analyzing the campaign to understand how the Navy can prevail in the Red Sea as well as the lessons this fight offers for other challenges. In fact, during this entire period, faculty and students at NWC have been laser-focused on understanding, preparing for, and working to prevent the next war. They have analyzed and debated the defense, legal, ethical, political, and other implications of current conflicts, asking questions of themselves, their joint and interagency colleagues, and classmates from more than 60 partner nations, challenging their own preconceived notions and experiences. Through this work, they become better leaders and warfighters.
That is why you should come to the Naval War College.
Rigorous and Open-Minded Education
Since 1884, NWC’s curriculum has inspired academic debate, a questioning mindset, and unsparingly honest confrontation of tough topics. That is how a professional military education institution produces leaders who develop doctrine, not just follow it.
In addition to analysis of Red Sea naval combat, NWC has added analysis of the United States’ longest war to its curricula. Students, many of whom made multiple deployments to Afghanistan, examine factors in the planning and conduct of Operations Enduring Freedom and Freedom’s Sentinel, as well as the August 2021 withdrawal.
Wading into this discussion takes intellectual maturity and moral courage for a generation of leaders so directly affected by the conflict. After studying timeless principles from the Peloponnesian Wars, Sun Tzu, and Carl von Clausewitz, they are thrust into the present, applying those lessons to a fight that has loomed over most of their careers. They undertake these difficult discussions about the nation’s successes and failures because they are the generation that will lead us through future challenges.
This is also why the College of Leadership and Ethics teaches the mandatory Leadership in the Profession of Arms course. The course challenges students to reflect on their own leadership successes and failures to develop the strength of character they will need to make difficult decisions going forward.
NWC’s lecture series features faculty and outside experts discussing topics directly affecting today and tomorrow’s security environment, such as artificial intelligence and emerging technologies; information warfare; Arctic exploitation; and the focus of U.S. competitors and adversaries. These lectures explore global issues that could change the character of war. Many already have.
Continuous Improvement
NWC recently asked how its curriculum could better challenge and serve students and the fleet, addressing current events and emerging topics alongside core content.
The result is a new course, Perspectives on Modern War, in which students will analyze the trends joint, combined, and interagency leaders face. They will take lessons from their core curriculum and apply them to emerging challenges in the international security environment. Content from lectures, symposia, seminars, reading assignments, and wargaming results will be synthesized to enable students to answer the most critical war-fighting questions of the day.
Alfred Thayer Mahan, Raymond Spruance, and Stansfield Turner all walked NWC’s halls. Come here to follow in their footsteps. Come to build the intellectual and decision-making capabilities needed to prevent and win future wars. Come to cultivate the mind of a warrior.