Andrew S. Erickson

On 1 July 1981, almost a century after Rear Admiral Luce founded the Naval War College as “a place of original research on all questions relating to war and to statesmanship connected with war, or the prevention of war,” CNWS was established within the College through the initiative of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas Hayward, with the support of  Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. The first director was the former Under Secretary of the Navy, Robert J. Murray.

Under Murray’s authority, CNWS consolidated several organizations previously dispersed: the Center for Advanced Research, the Center for War Gaming, and the Naval War College Press.

CNWS was from the start a nexus for broadly based, advanced research on the naval contribution to a national strategy. The Center’s work has ever since informed and stimulated the faculty and students in the classroom as well as helping to link the College to the fleet and policy makers in Washington. As Sailors and Scholars: The Centennial History of the Naval War College, documents officially (pp. 314–15), 

“In Murray’s vision, at its core, the center was an intellectually dynamic group of officers and civilians with access to everyone, no matter what level, in the Navy and Marine Corps, anywhere in the world. Arguing real-life questions of strategy and tactics, testing real war plans, and developing new concepts of operation, the center in fact soon won widespread respect within the Navy. By concentrating on the uses of naval forces rather than entering the debate about specific budget programs, the center helped the college in the old task of building the foundations for better decisions. At the same time, the experience of broadly based advanced research, war gaming and highly experienced officers doing broad Navy thinking provided stimulus to both students and teaching faculty. The center was not the Navy’s war planning agency; it was the place where new ideas were examined and tested for possible incorporation into war plans. The war gaming center at the college was the heart of all Navy war gaming at the battlegroup level and above. As Murray explained, ‘it is the place where the Navy is asking itself, how do the forces fit together—first at the tactical level, then at the theater level, and then worldwide.’ As the result of these efforts, the Center for Naval Warfare Studies strengthened the link between the college and the fleet.”

As one of the initial Assistant Directors of CNWS, the naval thinker, writer, and Naval War College Press Editor Franklin Reinhardt Uhlig Jr., explained in Naval War College Review—which he then oversaw, and was charged with transforming it into a flagship publication—“Its business is ideas, in particular ideas about how to improve the contribution of naval forces to the defense of the United States and her allies.”

Working in close conjunction with the teaching departments, this revitalized research arm of NWC has over the ensuing four decades fulfilled inaugural President Luce’s vision, and subsequently that of Professor Uhlig and others, as a center of both scholarship and original research—an academic establishment which would serve as the home of theory and in-depth thinking for the naval profession in the United States.

The Center directly complements the curriculum at NWC by providing a place for researching important professional issues which, in turn, inform, and stimulate the faculty and students in the classroom. Moreover, from its very beginning, CNWS has linked the College to the fleet and policymakers in Washington by serving as a focal point, stimulus, and major source of strategic and campaign thought, by integrating strategic, campaign, and tactical concepts, by linking strategic concerns with technological developments, and finally, by testing and evaluating concepts through war gaming.

DEPARTMENTS

Here’s a closer look at the major departments within CNWS…

Strategic and Operational Research Department (SORD)

SORD produces innovative research and analysis for the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the broader security community. SORD produces forward-thinking and timely research, analysis, and gaming that anticipates future operational and strategic challenges. We develop and assess strategic and operational concepts to overcome challenges by providing analytical products that inform the U.S. Navy’s leadership and help shape key decisions. Our regional areas of focus include Eurasia, the Indo-Asia-Pacific, and the greater Middle East. Faculty members not only possess in-country experience and historical knowledge, but also facility in critical languages such as Russian, German, French, Chinese, and Japanese.

Research Centers:

SORD is home to several research centers and institutions that dive deeper into issues of interest to the U.S. Navy:

China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI)

Established in 2006, CMSI studies China’s rapid commercial and maritime development. Research topics include shipbuilding, global commerce, law of the sea, and naval diplomacy.

Russia Maritime Studies Institute (RMSI)

Over the last decade, it’s become vital for the U.S. Navy and its partners to better understand the strategic and operational factors that shape Russia’s approach to maritime issues.

Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute (CIPI)

Protecting our nation is not just about traditional threats and battlefield weapons. Challenges lurk in cyberspace, including surveillance programs and wide-scale disruptions to government and corporations. CIPI advances and promotes research, education, and analysis in the evolving field of digital defense.

Institute for Future Warfare Studies (IFWS) 

Launched in early 2017, IFWS focuses on the long-term needs of the U.S. Navy and national security. The center’s innovative, timely research and analysis will help leadership anticipate operational and strategic challenges. In response to this demand, NWC launched this institute in 2016.

Advanced Research Programs:

Faculty-led special advanced research programs also call SORD home. These groups offer domestic students a chance to participate in gaming, research, and other real-world scenarios pertaining to strategy, planning, and operations.

CIPI Gravely Group

The Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute Vice Admiral Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., Program is a Directed Research Project. This graduate-level program guides advanced student research on cyber operations and the information environment.

Halsey Alfa Group

The Halsey Alfa Group is an Advanced Research Program (ARP) that examines the character of near-future operational-tactical warfighting at the high end of the conflict spectrum. Scenarios involve a technologically sophisticated military competition in East Asia. This group uses iterative, free play wargaming and operations research/systems analysis as their primary methodologies.

Halsey Bravo Group

The Halsey Bravo Group is an Advanced Research Program (ARP) that examines potential military challenges within the Middle East. This faculty-student collaborative group uses iterative, ongoing wargaming and operational analysis as its primary methodology.

Holloway Group

The Holloway Group is an Advanced Research Program (ARP) that conducts detailed studies of high-intensity conventional conflict, focusing on Russian maritime and multi-domain warfighting. It is a collaborative student-faculty research effort that utilizes military operations research, free-play wargaming, and open-source Russian-language research. It is housed within the Russia Maritime Studies Institute.

Strategic & Operational Research Department Faculty

SORD’s experienced and renowned faculty have years of earned expertise across a wide range of naval and educational topics. To learn more, please click here to access the online directory.

 Wargaming Department

The War Gaming Department conducts high quality research, analysis, gaming, and education to support the Naval War College’s academic mission, prepare future maritime leaders, and help shape key decisions on the future of the Navy. The Department’s gaming professionals provide stakeholders with intellectually honest products utilizing rigorous research and analysis while employing gaming techniques which range from complex, multi-sided computer-assisted games to elementary, single-sided seminar games. Simulating complex war situations—from sea to space to cyber—builds analytical, strategic, and decision-making skills. Wargaming programming not only enriches the curriculum, but it also helps shape defense plans and policies for various commands and agencies.

Click here to view department brochure.

Simulations at sea—and beyond

Wargaming has been an integral part of Naval War College (NWC) since 1887. While the tools and technology used in simulations have evolved over the past century, the value of wargaming in maritime leadership development remains strong. Today the War Gaming Department remains the world’s premier gaming organization, conducting approximately 50 gaming events per year. They range in variety from complex, multi-sided computer-assisted games to simple, single-sided seminar games.

Wargaming supports our academic mission in many ways. Games foster an understanding of the decisions that military leaders and civilians make in maritime and joint warfare. Wargaming also opens discussion and debate of strategic and operational concepts. Finally, gaming provides insights and builds important risk assessment and analytical skills.

Gaming supports not only the academic curriculum with operational level student games, but also various internal College needs, and externally generated requests. These requests come from various branches of the Defense and Navy Departments, operational commands, and civilian agencies including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of State, and the Secretary of the Navy. Recently, War Gaming has resumed the Navy’s Title X Global Series and has shaped a variety of strategic and defense plans, policies, and strategies.

History of Wargaming at NWC & Captain William McCarty Little

“Now the great secret of its power lies in the existence of the enemy—a live, vicious enemy—in the next room waiting feverishly to take advantage of any of our mistakes, ever ready to puncture any visionary scheme, to haul us down to Earth.” — William McCarty Little, 1887

Our building, McCarty Little Hall, is named for Lt. William McCarty Little (1846-1915), who was instrumental in developing Naval War College’s wargaming techniques. In 1884, Little left active service after losing sight in one eye and began volunteering in the library of a new war college. In 1886, he introduced wargaming and soon became the U.S. Navy’s first expert in the field. One of his earliest activities including working alongside NWC’s second president, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, to develop a system of graphical representations behind historic naval battles.

In 1903, to honor Little’s contributions to NWC, Congress passed a special act that promoted him to captain and permanently assigned him to the college faculty. He served on the faculty and continued to develop wargaming for 30 years, retiring in 1915.

Wargaming Facilities

Inside our 111,000-square-foot wargaming facility, you’ll find a 180-seat auditorium, a television studio, 20+ reconfigurable gaming cells, and classroom and conference space.

Our gaming cells can host up to 400 computer stations—and access to classified and secure networks—and all are equipped with state-of-the-art video technology and the ability to broadcast throughout the facility and around the world. The largest of our gaming cells is the Joint Command Center, which can hold up to 100 computers.

The state-of-the-art information technology suite can be configured to support the full range of models and simulations, video-teleconferencing, group collaboration systems, and distributed wide area gaming over both unclassified and secure networks.

The auditorium is equipped with high-definition cameras and video-conferencing capabilities—and its large floor can double as an additional gaming cell or hold a 25-by-40-foot map to conduct a rehearsal of concept drill.

In addition to our on-campus facilities, our wargaming professionals also travel off-site and abroad to conduct tabletop exercises or give seminars.

Wargaming Topics, Collaborations, and Partnerships

Wargaming allows students to gain practical experience and a better understanding of the dynamics of warfighting, but simulations are also designed to prepare military leaders for national disasters and humanitarian relief.

Wargaming Topics

Wargaming covers a wide range of issues, including:

• Space
• Cyber
• Political-military relationships
• Sea control
• Nuclear deterrence
• Humanitarian assistance
• Disaster relief
• Homeland security/defense

Collaboration and Partnerships:

Gaming not only helps our students grow as leaders, but it supports internal research needs and external requests from other commands and civilian agencies. We work individually with requesting sponsors to develop gaming programs.

Partners and games have included:

• Chief of Naval Operation (Global Title X War Game Series)
• Office of the Secretary of Defense (Proliferation Security Initiative Game)
• OPNAV (Maritime Domain Awareness Operational Game)
• U.S. STRATCOM (Strategic Deterrence and Escalation Game)

Wargaming Faculty

The Department of Wargaming’s core faculty comprises approximately 40 military and civilian gaming professionals, who are supported by a staff of highly skilled technicians and enlisted Navy personnel. With their expertise comes a commitment to academic rigor and innovative research.

Stockton Center for International Law

The Stockton Center for International Law (SCIL) is an internationally recognized research institute for the study of international law and military operations that produces original research and analysis for national decision-makers, senior military leaders, scholars, and legal practitioners throughout the world in order to better grasp the role of international law in naval, Joint and Combined operations. The results of this analysis shapes legal interpretations affecting U.S. and partner nation forces throughout the world.

International Law Studies Journal

International Law Studies (ILS) is the journal for international law published by the U.S. Naval War College. It was first published in 1895 and is the oldest international law periodical in the United States. Each year, the journal publishes faculty peer-reviewed articles and analysis from the world’s leading experts and practitioners in the law of the sea, the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law, the law of naval operations, and the international law of conflict in the airspace, outer space, and cyberspace.

Support, Domestically and Abroad

SCIL provides international law research, analysis, and teaching to support the development of the Navy’s future strategy, the education and training of Navy leadership, and the conduct of fleet, joint, and combined operations. The program also provides legal support to war games and advice to the Fleet and other Department of Defense entities on a variety of international and operational law issues. SCIL serves as the Primary Review Authority for the Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, and have participated in the Tallinn Manual, the San Remo Manual, the Woomera Manual, the Harvard Air and Missile Warfare Manual, and other influential publications. Annually, the Stockton Center hosts legal research workshops on emergent issues drawing many of the world’s leading international law experts, including the annual Alexander C. Cushing International Law Conference.

Conference on Oceans Law & Policy

Through the annual Conference on Oceans Law & Policy (established and formerly administered by the Center for Oceans Law & Policy, University of Virginia School of Law) the Stockton Center for International Law promotes interdisciplinary interaction with ocean-related legal and public policy issues at all levels, addressing international, national, regional, and state concerns.

Stockton Center for International Law Faculty

The Stockton Center has civilian and military professors of international law that teach courses on the law of armed conflict, the law of naval warfare and maritime security law, and the law of airspace, outer space and cyberspace operations.

Charles H. Stockton Professor

Professor James Kraska is the Chair of the Stockton Center for International Law and the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Maritime Law. The Secretary of the Navy established the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law on October 6, 1967 in honor of Rear Admiral Charles H. Stockton, president of the Naval War College from 1898–1900, a recognized authority on international law. Stockton was also president of George Washington University and he wrote the first code of the Law of Naval Warfare. From its inception, the Chair has attracted an exceptional array of international law scholars to the College, including such giants in the field as Manley O. Hudson (1951–53), Hans Kelsen (1953–54), Leo Gross (1954–55), Howard S. Levie (1971–72), Leslie C. Green (1996–97), Hays Parks (1984–85), Ruth Wedgwood (1998–99), Yoram Dinstein (1999–2000), Ivan Shearer (2000–01), Charles Garraway (2004–05), Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg (2003–04 and 2012–13), Michael N. Schmitt (2014–18).

Howard S. Levie Professor

Stockton Center Visiting Research Scholar Program

The Stockton Center invites eminent international law scholars, as well as exceptional younger scholars, to share their knowledge and varied perspectives with the U.S. Naval War College through its Visiting Research Scholar Program.

Visiting Fellows:

• Visheh Bhatia, National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University
• Laurie Blank, Emory University School of Law
• Peter Bowers, Royal Australian Navy Reserve
• Douglas Burnett, John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
• Camilla Cooper, Norwegian Defence Command and Staff College
• John Dehn, Loyola University School of Law
• Gloria Gaggioli, University of Geneva
• Koichi Ishii, Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Academy
• Suk Kyoon Kim, Korea Coast Guard
• Keiko Kono, National Institute of Defense Studies (Japan)
• Masahiro Kurosaki, National Defense Academy of Japan Ministry of Defence
• Tim McCormack, University of Melbourne (Stockton Distinguished Visiting Scholar)
• Young-Kil Park, Korea Maritime Institute
• Sasha Radin, University of Melbourne
• Vishaka Ramesh, National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University
• Yusuke Saito, Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Academy
• Nicholas Tsagourias, University of Sheffield
• Bart van den Bosch, Royal Netherlands Army
• René Värk, University of Tartu (Estonia)

Naval War College Press

The Naval War College Press at U.S. Naval War College (NWC) edits and publishes the Naval War College Review, Newport Papers, the Historical Monographs series, the van Beuren Studies in Leadership and Ethics, and China Maritime Studies. The Press also provides publication and procurement support for works written and edited in various department at the college.

Naval War College Review

The Naval War College Review is a scholarly journal, published quarterly under the auspices of the Naval War College and the Department of the Navy, but exercising editorial independence; the thoughts and opinions expressed in the publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the department or the Naval War College. The Review has been published continuously since 1948. It serves as a forum for discussion of public policy matters of interest to the maritime services. The candid views of the authors are presented for the professional education of the readers. Articles are drawn from a wide variety of sources to inform, stimulate, and challenge readers, and to serve as a catalyst for new ideas.

Historical Monographs

The historical monographs in this series are book-length studies of the history of naval warfare, edited historical documents, conference proceedings, and biographies based wholly or in part on source materials in the Historical Collection of the Naval War College. They are managed by the Maritime History Department in collaboration with the Naval War College Press.

The Newport Papers

Newport Papers are extended research projects that the Director, the Dean of Naval Warfare Studies, and the President of the Naval War College consider to be of particular interest to policy makers, scholars, and analysts. These book-length monographs cover a variety of subjects, but ideally relate to contemporary operational or strategic concerns in the realm of maritime security. Printed copies of Newport Papers are distributed to a list of approximately 300 senior commanders and staff members.

CMSI China Maritime Studies (“Red Books”)

The China Maritime Studies are extended research projects that the Editor, the Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), the Dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, and the President of the Naval Warfare College consider to be of particular interest to policy makers, scholars, and analysts. The Naval War College Press prepares and publishes the studies for CMSI.

The van Beuren Leadership and Ethics Series

The van Beuren Studies in Leadership and Ethics series was established to advance scholarship and publish thought-provoking works of analysis in the fields of leadership and ethics, with special attention to their application to the military; to further Chief of Naval Operations initiatives in leadership and ethics; to help educate Naval War College students; and to help inform the joint force. The Naval War College and the Naval War College Press thank the Naval War College Foundation and the Alletta Morris McBean Charitable Trust for their generous support.