CANCELLED: "Lectures of Opportunity: The Future of Naval Expeditionary Operations"

About this lecture series

Lectures of Opportunity (LOOs) offer Naval War College (NWC) students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to learn more about national and international socio-political subjects that may be of relevance to the NWC community.

Synopsis

This presentation is about the future of Naval Expeditionary Operations. For a number of reasons, these operations will not look anything like we have been accustomed to for the past 20-25 years. As our country enters a new era of great power competition, we must also prepare for the next era of naval expeditionary operations. We will see “chaos in the littorals,” and it will challenge us in ways more formidable than many of us can imagine. To look forward to imagine what we’ll see, we must look back to a time when we were challenged across every domain – sea, land, and air – to the Solomon islands campaign from August 1942 to January 1943, involving a small island called Guadalcanal. To shape the discussion, we will utilize Captain (Ret) Hughes’ six cornerstones of naval tactics from his book, Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations: 1) People Matter Most; 2) Doctrine is the Glue of Tactics; 3) To Know Tactics, Know Technology; 4) The Seat of Purpose is on Land; 5) A Ship’s a Fool to Fight a Fort; and 6) Attack Effectively First.