The U.S. Naval War College (NWC) is the only professional military education (PME) institution focused on the prerequisites and strategic possibilities for maritime power. It must be a top-tier graduate institution because its students are unique among U.S. graduate students: They specifically study sea power—one of the greatest determinants of U.S. geopolitical power and global prosperity.
Houthi attacks against Red Sea shipping, China’s extraordinary claims to its near seas right up to its neighbors’ shores, and Russia’s attacks in the Black Sea all threaten the freedom of navigation on which global commerce and prosperity depend. Overcoming these threats without triggering a third world war will require naval leaders versed not only in maritime theory and wargaming, but more important, in strategy that takes into account the goals, priorities, and available instruments of national power for all interested parties, including the neutral nations who may not remain neutral indefinitely.
To ensure the NWC can provide its students a world-class education in the coming decades, the following five reforms are required.
Three-star Presidents
Since the early 2000s, when Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski retired, all NWC presidents have been one- or two-star admirals. Without three-star leverage, they could not influence the Navy’s strategic planning or force structure. Often, they lacked the power to win the internal academic and administrative squabbles typical of any university. When Rear Admiral Jeffrey A. Harley tried to institute tougher hiring standards for retired officers seeking lifetime employment, misleading documents were leaked to the press, ruining his career.
By making the College of Maritime Operational Warfare (CMOW)—which focuses on training not education—its own command, the NWC president could once again be dual-hatted as Cebrowski was, with future three-star presidents overseeing both NWC and the new Maritime Operational Warfare Command.
More Strategy
The NWC has one internationally recognized department—Strategy & Policy (S&P)—whose curriculum has guided strategy programs across the United States. The S&P course forces students to anticipate enemy actions. It teaches them to align strategy with strategic—not just operational—objectives. Prioritizing operational objectives, as wargames often do, can lead to strategic disaster as Japan discovered with its nearly flawless attack on Pearl Harbor that vaporized U.S. isolationism and soon brought down the Japanese Empire at horrendous cost to its own citizens. Nuclear weapons make the stakes much higher.
The S&P senior course at the NWC once covered 14 case studies in 14 weeks and required three analytical papers. Professors provided students with preparatory tutorials and detailed written feedback. Shrinkflation has cut the S&P course to 12 weeks, 12 case studies, and just two papers, and more cuts are being considered. The senior course lost a Bismarck case, and the junior course lost a Chinese Civil War case—essential to understanding how to fight limited wars for specific objectives and assessing the primary adversary. The insights lost are applicable to the recent endless U.S. wars of unattainable objectives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Restoring two weeks of S&P would allow a third paper, and significantly increase student learning and time with their professors.
More Student Wargaming
Constant wargaming at the NWC in the 1920s and 1930s made U.S. victory in the Pacific war possible. War Plan Orange and the development of war-winning leaders and strategists at every level depended on the extensive interwar wargaming. Throughout the Cold War, wargaming remained central to the NWC educational experience. Until 2000, the Global War Game had more than 600 participants. But after 9/11, when advanced wargaming was most needed, the Global series was canceled. While later revived, momentum had been lost—in 2014, for example, the Global War Game had just 80 participants. Only recently has it approached previous norms.
Today’s international security environment is as dangerous as it was at the height of the Cold War. China’s massive western Pacific military buildup, Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine, North Korea’s nuclear threats, and Iran’s expanding influence across the Middle East put enormous strain on U.S. naval power. Wargaming at the tactical, operational, and especially strategic levels of war is one of the only ways to teach naval officers how to deal with threats of this magnitude. Student wargaming must consider all instruments of national power, including the military, diplomatic, and economic levers. Such wargaming will require a large faculty with deep regional, strategic, operational, and tactical expertise.
More Senior Scholars
In 2000, the NWC regularly hired accomplished senior scholars at the height of their careers, including Michael Handel, William Fuller, David Kaiser, George Baer, and Arthur Waldron. The college enticed them to Newport with competitive salaries and the opportunity to teach, research, and impact the direction of the Navy. China is now the most pressing national security threat, but the NWC is losing promising China scholars. Recently, an assistant professor and China expert was denied promotion just as Yale University Press published his book. The Carnegie Institution immediately made him a senior fellow—an impressive career jump for an assistant professor.
The NWC should again hire senior professors by offering them competitive salaries. As the 2020 Education for Seapower Strategy recommended, the Department of the Navy should set aside “Naval University Distinguished Professorships at each campus to recognize merit at the senior professor level and provide appropriate compensation.”1
Faculty with PhDS
War’s character and national security threats change rapidly, as the use of unmanned systems in the Ukraine War is making clear. All retired military officers teaching as professors at the NWC and all their civilian counterparts should have PhDs and active research agendas that result in peer-reviewed publications.
Many of the retired military faculty at the NWC were hired directly as retiring students or active-duty faculty, or transitioned via contractor jobs to remain in Newport. Most have never published a single-author book. No top university hires in this way. Finding the best faculty requires national searches. Currently, only about a third of NWC faculty members have doctorates—one of the lowest percentages of any college or university in New England. The same problem applies to the approximately 65 outside contractors now in faculty slots once held by civilian Excepted Service employees. Most have never been vetted through the rigorous search process required for civilian PhDs.
For 140 years, the Naval War College has educated mid- and senior-grade officers in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and other services. The quality of the faculty and education has ebbed and flowed over time. Today’s threats to national security demand the NWC to be its best self. One- and two-star admirals lack sufficient clout to protect the college in Washington budget battles or to control its administrative staff. The NWC needs a post-numbered-fleet commander, three-star admiral at the helm; a syllabus steeped in naval theory, doctrine, strategy, regional expertise, and wargaming; and a world-class faculty of professors with PhDs recruited from across the nation who are up to the challenge of preparing the next generation of naval leaders and strategists.
1. 2020 Education for Seapower Strategy, (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 2020), 14.