President’s Spotlight: The Rochefort Group Workshop

Starting now and continuing at least through the end of my time here at the U.S. Naval War College, I’d like to regularly highlight someone or something that’s caught my attention over the previous couple of weeks. It might be a person – student, faculty or staff – who deserves recognition, or it might be an occasion I want to draw more attention to. These short ‘President’s Spotlight’ pieces will be posted about once every two weeks.

For my second entry in this series, I’d like to highlight the Rochefort Group in the College of Maritime Operational Warfare (CMOW).

While the outstanding symposium held by our Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups (CIWAG) and U.S. Naval War College Foundation recently gathered a lot of outside attention – and very deservedly so – the Rochefort Group’s concurrent annual workshop was a quieter and lesser-known event. It had to be.

Named for World War II cryptographic and intelligence hero Capt. Joseph Rochefort of the U.S. Navy, CMOW’s Rochefort Group was established in 2018 to serve as the college’s primary resource for Information Warfare (IW) education and fleet engagement support.

Led by Director Matt Griffin and Associate Prof. Sean Kelley – with guidance from senior mentor and retired Adm. Scott Swift – the Rochefort Group Workshop brought together nearly three dozen senior IW officers from across the world to collaborate, share effective practices and frame common problems.

In alignment with the Chief of Naval Operations Warfighting Instructions and Navy Warfighting Concept, these Naval War College experts and uniformed practitioners worked through the newest and best ways to fully and successfully integrate IW into current and future operations to ensure that we stay ahead of any adversary.

Matt and Sean would remind me that almost all of what they talked about at the Rochefort Group Workshop isn’t something I can really highlight in this space, for obvious reasons. But I can say that this year’s iteration of the annual workshop included discussion of incredibly relevant subject matter such as over-the-horizon targeting and C-C5ISRT – or Counter-Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Targeting. To put it simplistically, in a conflict, these capabilities allow us to strike our enemies from a distance and avoid counterstrike.

Importantly, the Rochefort Group also called in senior representatives from our Center for Naval Warfare Studies’ Wargaming Department, who discussed recent advances in wargaming models and simulations to account for some exquisite IW capabilities.

We will better understand and accurately predict how emerging and evolving technologies will affect a battle, and make our adjustments before any shots – conventional or electronic – are ever fired.

Our highest-level Navy leaders regularly cite this as a highest-level priority, and the Rochefort Group is another – sometimes under-the-radar, no pun intended – example of how the U.S. Naval War College is informing today’s decision-makers and educating tomorrow’s leaders.

– Rear Adm. Darryl Walker,
President, U.S. Naval War College