Research & Wargaming at The Center for Naval Warfare Studies
Founded, in the words of Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, United States Navy, as “a place of original research,” one of the primary functions of the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) is to conduct research, analysis, and gaming to support the requirements of the Secretary of the Navy and others. The Center for Naval Warfare Studies (CNWS) at NWC complements our educational curriculum by serving as a home for original research, innovative thinking, and creative problem solving.
About the Center for Naval Warfare Studies
Dedicated to assisting the Chief of Naval Operations to define the future Navy and the Navy's contribution to national strategy, CNWS comprises several departments – the Strategic and Operational Research Department (SORD), the Wargaming Department, the Stockton Center for International Law, and the Naval War College Press – each with its own mission and specific study/research groups.
News, Media, & Events
U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet Hold Combined Wargame at U.S. Naval War College
Power Projection: Proceedings from the 2022 Strategic Landpower Symposium
Lectures of Opportunity: "The Role of Operational Energy in National Security"
Featured Faculty
Colin Francis Jackson
Dr. Jackson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia (2017-2019), overseeing all strategy, security cooperation, budget oversight, and contingency planning. He also served as the senior DOD representative to the U.S.-Taliban peace talks. From 2006-2017, he was a Professor in the Strategy Department and later Director of the Advanced Strategist Program. He also taught strategy and counterinsurgency at MIT and Columbia. In 2011, he deployed to Afghanistan as Executive Officer for Policy Planning for the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations USFOR-A. Before entering academia, he worked in private sector financial trading and power development.
Jonathan R. Hunt
Jonathan R. Hunt is an assistant professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department and a core faculty member in the Strategic Deterrence Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. He was an assistant professor of strategy at the U.S. Air War College and a lecturer in global history at the University of Southampton. He is the author of “The Nuclear Club: How America and the World Policed the Atom from Hiroshima to Vietnam” (Stanford University Press, 2022) and edited (with Simon Miles) “The Reagan Moment: America and the World in the 1980s (Cornell University Press, 2021). He has written for The Atlantic, the Washington Post, War on the Rocks, and Foreign Policy.
Featured Publications
Russia’s Mercenaries are Bolstering Autocratic Regimes in the Sahel
Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction
More Information on the College
Center for Naval Warfare Studies Faculty
Our experienced and renowned faculty have years of earned expertise across a wide range of naval and research topics.
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U.S. Naval War College is home to specialized research centers, each dedicated to a geographic region or a specific warfare concern—from the Arctic to the internet.
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