College of Naval Warfare Core Curriculum

About the Core Curriculum

This understanding is achieved through the combined efforts of five core courses: Joint Maritime Operations, Theater Security Decision Making, Strategy and Warfare, Leadership in the Profession of Arms, and Perspectives on Modern War.

Joint Military Operations Curriculum

The Joint Military Operations (JMO) curriculum focuses on joint war fighting at the theater-strategic and operational levels of war. This prepares future military and civilian leaders for high-level policy, command, and staff positions requiring joint planning expertise and joint warfighting skills. The curriculum emphasizes the theory and practice of operational art in terms of maritime and joint forces. Students will learn to apply these skills in a seminar environment to employ joint forces and achieve a broad array of objectives.

National Security Decision Making Curriculum

The National Security Decision Making (NSDM) curriculum provides a broad, interdisciplinary foundation in contemporary security studies including the areas of international relations, regional studies, foreign policy analysis, and decision-making. Our course concludes with students conducting a structured assessment designed to develop national strategies for the “military after next.”

Strategy and Policy Curriculum

The Strategy and Policy (S&P) curriculum focuses on teaching students how to think strategically and preparing them for positions of strategic leadership. The course is designed to sharpen each student's ability to assess how alternative strategic courses of action achieve broad, national-level objectives.

Leadership in the Profession of Arms

The Profession of Arms (LPA) course is built on leaders who build trust and confidence up and down the chain of command and with the American people they serve. The degree of trust and confidence that exists is based on the combination of the leader's competence and character.

Perspectives on Modern War

The Perspectives on Modern War (PMW) curriculum is designed to challenge students to synthesize lessons from their other core courses, senior level guest speakers, symposia, course reading material and seminar discussions and to apply them to current events and the most important security challenges of today. The themes of this year-long course vary each trimester to allow students to examine modern war from different perspectives. The course also provides a formal venue for integrating their overall Naval War College experience.