In March 1993, the United States Navy and Marine Corps established the Naval Doctrine Command as the primary authority for the development of naval concepts and integrated naval doctrine. It has several specific roles-serving as the coordinating authority for the development and evaluation of Navy service-unique doctrine, providing a coordinated Navy-Marine Corps voice in joint and combined doctrine development, and ensuring that naval and joint doctrine are addressed in training and education curricula and in operations, exercises, and war games. Although this was the first time the sea...

The principal findings of this study are that Great Britain's search for an independent nuclear deterrent was waged with a purposeful dedication that wedded highly effective statecraft and brilliant, innovative nuclear engineering to produce a strategic nuclear deterrent that remained under her sovereign control. Because Britain's efforts in this area were so often achieved in the face of United States' opposition, Britain's subsequent utilization of her deterrent capability as an instrument to secure American support, notwithstanding that opposition, ought to be considered an example of...

At midnight on 2 October 1990 the German Democratic Republic (GDR) ceased to exist. The following day the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Bundeswehr, took control of the personnel, equipment, and installations of what had been the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee or NVA). By any reckoning this was a massive undertaking and one of great historical significance. Securing, inventorying, and disposing of this materiel was to be a major mission for the Bundeswehr throughout its first years in the new states. Complicating this mission was the almost immediate need...

This paper is written as part of a book-length study, currently in progress, of the origins and development of naval offensive thinking during the five decades or so leading up to the First World War. Its particular focus is the idea of the "decisive battle," i.e., the belief that dominated naval thinking in the Victorian and Edwardian periods that the goals of war at sea could, would, and ought to be settled by a single, all-destructive clash between massed battle fleets. The Great War would demonstrate, of course, that "real" war was a far cry from the "ideal" that had been promoted by the...

Dr. Nordquist's study and Newport Papers 13, What Color Helmet?, reviews past peacekeeping operations and the aspects of the Charter of the United Nations that govern the use of force. He proposes that, given the end of the Cold War, distinctions in the UN Charter framework between traditional peacekeeping and enforcement actions can and ought to be reflected in future Security Council peacekeeping mandates. He also offers realistic peace-enforcement scenarios illustrating how updated mandates might operate. This overview of the Charter and the challenges of modern peace operations provides a...

This Naval War College Newport paper, Sailing New Seas, presents the ideas of one of the Navy's most senior leaders. Admiral Reason's topic is the course the United States Navy should steer in the "typhoon of change" characterizing today's and tomorrow's world. He begins by describing what the technological, managerial, and social hurricane of the Information Age means for warriors who go to sea. He then addresses, in general terms and in specifics, the response such an upheaval requires. While acknowledging the traditions that made the Navy great, Admiral Reason proposes a new way to think...