Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  December 8, 2022

Welcome to December! In this issue, we highlight how warrior-scholars at the Naval Postgraduate School are developing and applying a learning mentality – learning about learning, learning by doing, and even learning by failing – through varied engagements with the Fleet and Fleet Marine Forces, within and beyond the NPS campus. 

• Captain Emily Hastings applied her research while facilitating a recent workshop that developed ways to improve the Marine Corps’ Manpower, Personnel and Administration community.
• Professor Mie Augier’s class on maneuver warfare for the mind hosted a retired Marine general renowned for his constant learning to give warrior-scholars a deep immersion in how to remain open to learning in the field.
• And the latest classified Seapower Conversation provided warrior-scholars and faculty the opportunity to learn about a recent deployment of the Carrier Strike Group THREE, as well as what – and how – that unit learned during the deployment.

Keep reading for the details.

NPS Warrior-Scholar Plans and Executes Community-Changing Conference, Reattunes Decision-Making Processes

Captain Emily Hastings, USMC, a Manpower Officer enrolled in the Manpower Systems Analysis program at NPS, traveled to Quantico to help facilitate the 2022 Manpower, Personnel and Administration (MPA) Operational Advisory Group (OAG) from October 18-20. The OAG meets periodically to collectively define the current state of the MPA community, what is preventing it from being more efficient, and how to better those processes.

• The MPA community recommends changes to the practices and procedures for administration in the Marine Corps to the Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. They are also critical to implementing modernization visions for the Total Force as laid out in Force Design 2030 and Talent Management 2030.

Fresh Ideas on Facilitation: “The Manpower and Reserve Affairs (M&RA) Secretariat’s office had an idea about trying to do this OAG based off a charter written in 2018, but an OAG hadn’t been done in years and they desired to do this OAG differently than before,” explained Hastings.

• Hastings was asked to collaborate on a framework to facilitate productive conversations four months before the event. She was uniquely prepared for this challenge.

OAG facilitators Capt Emily Hastings, GySgt Brandon Smart, and Lt Col Tom Kulisz on site at the Operational Advisory Group.

The OAG facilitation team consisted of Hastings, NPS graduate Gunnery Sergeant Brandon Smart, Captain Jon Margolick and Lieutenant Colonel Tom Kulisz. The team was focused on a few key goals:

• Building community investment and data in advance: Both Hastings and the M&RA Secretariat’s office polled the wider community to pre-define topics of interest and engage them in the discussion with a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis.
• Promoting open dialogue regardless of rank: With support from Colonel Schmidt at M&RA, the 51 participants broke down normal rank and status barriers to conversation by dressing in civilian attire and supporting hierarchy-neutral discussion.
• Utilizing participatory activities that drive inclusion and investment of the participants: The Center for Adaptive Warfighting, where Hastings has volunteered, helped implement a framework that would drive participants to the root of problems so they can be addressed and solved.

Why it matters: Hastings notes the historic struggle for enterprise-wide decisions to be informed by a range of voices that includes all ranks.

• “A lot of the feedback that we got was super positive because the participants had never been in a space that would allow them to talk openly. We can get into this military structure where a person's rank can determine how much they can say. And it doesn't allow for a lot of freedom of thought and creativity.”
• Support from leadership like Colonel Randy Pugh at the Naval Warfare Studies Institute (NWSI) and Master Gunnery Sergeant Crawford and Colonel Schmidt at M&RA allow her to highlight these issues and bring about change.

Feedback from event participants was overwhelmingly positive:

• “It was great to get diverse input that enabled the group to identify which ideas were going to get the attention. This kept dominant opinions and those senior personnel from consuming the majority of resources during the OAG. The process really allowed for feedback and iterations to refine each issue. The process really works!” – Field-grade Officer
• “The most important part of this workshop was the changing of ideas from different perspectives (work, rank, component). This exchange helped question my own logic for a number of positions I hold on Military Occupational Specialty advocacy, training, and employment.” – Field-grade Officer

The NWSI Impact: NWSI funded Hastings’ trip to Quantico and supported her initiative to go beyond her studies and implement new methods with the OAG. Hastings notes that NWSI has shown her the power in creating supportive relationships with mentors that allow her to move initiatives forward.

Seeing Results: Participants organized into eight teams, each of which identified a challenge and a plan of action to address it. All eight pitches stemmed from two primary goals for the future of the MPA:

• Sunsetting obsolete skills and trainings in favor of emerging roles
• Making the most responsive use of available time, skills, and talent.

Hastings gave an example of one pitch around a single integrated personnel administration system:

• "In my community, we touch or have access to over 60 different systems. If you want me to look at your entire record, I have to look in five or six different places to put everything together. And if this changes, it allows me more time to do a better job and allows me to take care of my Marines better.”

Other pitches addressed implementing a talent management program, social media training, automating filing systems, and creating a community feedback tool.

What’s Next: Each of the eight pitches has three-month deliverables that will be evaluated by the M&RA after six months.

• “I feel like we, as a team, got the group to a good place. Now a group of these people who are invested and excited can go and run with those initiatives.”

Read more: Hastings documented her targeted strategies aimed to strengthen engagement and produce solutions in a detailed After-Action Report.

NPS’ Warrior-Scholars Get Real, Get Better, and Learn from Marine Corps Strategist in Course on The Art and Science of Interdisciplinary Learning

Distinguished guest General Anthony Zinni recently visited the current season of Maneuver Warfare for the Mind (GB4012),  NPS’ course on the art and science of interdisciplinary learning for warfighters. He talked with our warrior-scholars about how to become better leaders, how to build and lead innovative and learning organizations, and, in particular, the role of learning from mistakes.

• General Zinni, a renowned lifelong learner himself, is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Four Star who served as Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command from August 1997 to September 2000.
• He used his extensive experience in business and warfighting to drive home some central lessons about how military leaders and organizations can learn—or miss the opportunity to learn– using the specific example of wargaming.
• Learning is an essential theme for this quarter’s course, where warrior-scholars use only active learning approaches (no PowerPoints) to explore central dimensions of learning and the many ways learning can be used to help improve Naval organizations and warfighter attitudes and capabilities.

Why it matters: The importance of learning is woven into core strategic documents and initiatives -- obviously the USMC Doctrinal Publication on Learning, MCDP-7, but also the Tri-Service Maritime Strategy and, most recently, the Chief of Naval Operations’ Get Real, Get Better program.

• Learning is essential to be able to understand where we are, conceptualize our strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors (get real), and chart a path for where we need to go (get better).

How it works: In presentation and subsequent conversation with students, Gen. Zinni explained the background and central ideas in “Desert Crossing”, a series of wargames he led in 1999 as a way to think through what could happen in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

• Desert Crossing gave participants a broader understanding of the nature of future conflicts that the U.S. could face should a conflict in the Middle East begin, and the broader implications that one would have to think through (not just military).
• Participants in the games included a broad set of institutions and organizations including the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, and others.

The findings of Desert Crossing were essentially a warning of the difficulties we could face if the government in Iraq collapsed: regional instability, societal fragmentation, and an unclear exit strategy, among other findings.

• These lessons could have come in handy just a few years later, but they were mostly forgotten or ignored.

Gen Zinni summarized the events leading up to the game, why it was pursued, the analysis and results. He noted the importance of thinking through problems through a broader lens than just a military one; to have a strategy before the first shots are fired; and to think and ask, “and then what” when going through military plans.

• The conversation with students explored themes such as what we can learn from our inability to learn from failure; how we can build better learning organizations; the importance of learning about and understanding how others think (cultural intelligence; not just our theories of others’ cultures); and how critical it is for leaders to also be strategic thinkers, lifelong learners, humble, and curious.
• These are essential elements not just for learning, but for building and leading innovative organizations as well (a theme also central to Get Real, Get Better).

What’s Next: The course isn’t over yet! Students are currently presenting their final projects and writing their reflection papers.  

• We’ll bring you another update on how the course finished in January’s newsletter.
• For more information about the course, email Prof Augier: meaugier@nps.edu.

Want to know more about Zinni’s Wargaming Lessons Learned?

• Check out this article: General Anthony Zinni (ret.) on Wargaming Iraq, Millennium Challenge, and Competition

Recent Events

Seapower Conversation: Carrier Strike Group THREE Post-Deployment Brief

On November 22 NPS hosted Captain Przemyslaw “Kaz” Kaczynski, Carrier Strike Group THREE’s Chief of Staff, to present a classified post-deployment brief.

CAPT Jeremy Gray, Surface Warfare Chair, facilitated the event and was pleased with the success.

• “Prior to reporting to NPS, I was the Air Defense Commander in Carrier Strike Group THREE for much of their deployment. When I came to NPS, I recognized there was a shortage of current, direct feedback coming to the students and the faculty about what's happening in the fleet right now at the operational and tactical level. I saw this brief as an opportunity to facilitate that,” said Gray.

Approximately 30 NPS students attended the event, including LT Charles Alcasid, who said, “Lectures like this bridge the gap between education and operations, further aiding in our professional development and preparing us for when we go back to our respective communities in the Fleet.”

• The event itself achieved maximum capacity and ran 45 minutes long due to student questions and interest.
• It was attended by a mixture of civilian and military faculty, warfare chairs, and students from varying services and curriculums.

The Impact: Seapower Conversations allow the NPS community to stay connected and apprised of the current nature of affairs in the service. They are also opportunities for NPS students and faculty to hear directly from, and engage directly with, warfighters and the fleet problems that could ultimately lead to study and research at NPS.

What’s next: Gray views this event as a success and predicts that “facilitating future Seapower Conversations like this on a routine basis is now a principal task for us.”

NPS in the News

Fellowship Connects NPS Information Warfare Students to NIWC Pacific Needs MC2 Lenny Weston, Naval Postgraduate School

The latest cohort of Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific Fellows, from left Lt. Matthew Coleman, Lt. Ashley Dodd, Lt. Jacob Dwyer, Lt. Cmdr. Marianna Luporini and Marine Corps Capt. Ryan Helm, are pictured with Naval Warfare Studies Institute Director Marine Corps Col. Randy Pugh on the steps of Herrmann Hall at NPS.

Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC Pacific) selected five U.S Navy and Marine Corps students from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) for the prestigious NIWC Pacific Fellowship. These warrior-scholars are directly connecting their education, ideas and research to fleet information warfare (IW) force design objectives in support of the capabilities necessary to counter adversary forces, improve command and control across the fleet, and to persistently cover the maritime battlespace for decision advantage.

The partnership between the two organizations provides a direct connection between select NPS research efforts and NIWC Pacific focus areas, advancing the impact of NPS education and research programs in IW for the U.S. Navy and DOD. In addition, the partnership lays the groundwork for future technical and project management assignments for NPS graduates at NIWC Pacific.  Read more.

Faculty Researchers Receive Menneken Awards

Congratulations go to this year’s recipients of the highly prestigious Carl E. and Jessie W. Menneken Faculty Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. Two awards are presented each year: one for Highly Meritorious Research and one for Significant and Sustained Contributions.

This year’s winners are:

For Highly Meritorious Research: Associate Professor Paul Lester of the Department of Defense Management. His research spans a range of behavioral science topics, including leadership, psychological health and well-being, resilience, insider threat, and courage. Dr. Lester has published 37 peer-reviewed papers, 21 book chapters, and currently has two books in press. Since joining NPS in 2019, he led an effort to establish a 10-year, $8M research support agreement with the Army Resilience Directorate, along with research Memoranda of Understanding with the Army Analytics Group and the Department of Defense’s Personnel and Security Research Center. 

For Significant and Sustained Contribution: Professor Timour Radko of the Department of Oceanography. His research addresses various problems of geophysical fluid dynamics, which include ocean turbulence, mesoscale currents and vortices, instability theory, double-diffusive convection, and stratified wakes.  Dr. Radko is the author of the critically acclaimed book entitled Double-Diffusive Convection, published by the prestigious Cambridge University Press.  The line of his research focused on the development of non-traditional algorithms for submarine detection is becoming increasingly essential for operational naval activities.  These efforts were supported by the highly visible Task Force Ocean program of the Office of Naval Research (ONR), as well as numerous NRP and CRUSER grants. Prof. Radko has also been funded by several divisions of NSF, which include the Physical Oceanography Program, Fluid Dynamics Program, Division of Astronomical Sciences, and Office of Polar Programs.  He is a recipient of the prestigious NSF CAREER award. Prof. Radko has published 82 articles. Of these, 25 papers are in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, which is by far the most prominent and selective journal in the field of hydrodynamics.  Timour Radko has mentored 4 Ph.D. and 48 MS thesis students and supported 4 post-docs and 3 research faculty.

NWSI Director Randy Pugh served on the selection committee alongside Associate Professor Di Zhang (Chair), Professor Eva Regnier, and Assistant Professor Mustafa Canan.

Upcoming Events

Fall Quarter Graduation
16 December 2022, 1000 PST King Hall,
NPS Campus
With graduation speaker Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Carlos Del Toro

Watch online on the NPS Livestream page.

Joint Interagency Field Experimentation 23-2
6-10 February 2023
NPS Field Laboratory at Camp Roberts

Focus Area: Human Performance Monitoring & Situational Awareness, including the following concentration areas:

• Human Systems Integration
• Cyber Situational Awareness
• Situational Awareness for Emergency Management
• Manned / Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T)
• Decision-Support Systems and Tools
• Non-Radio Frequency Tagging, Tracking and Locating (TTL)
• Enhanced Color Night Vision

Submission Deadlines

• ​Experiments with aerial vehicles: 08 December 2022
• All other experiments:  15 December 2022​​​​​​

Learn more about JIFX 23-2.

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  November 17, 2022

Designing an Innovation Infrastructure on the NPS Campus

As noted in the National Defense Strategy, our nation is currently experiencing great power competition, and a large part of that competition is a race for innovation - especially innovation related to military capabilities. 

• Accordingly, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) has taken on a new sense of urgency about being a center for interdisciplinary defense-focused innovation.

Campus leaders are now identifying structural changes that will support and turbocharge this collaborative innovation, while positioning NPS to lead innovation efforts across the Navy.

The Tech Demonstration Room at the NPS Library allows visitors to get first-hand experience with some of the recent technological innovations already in place or coming to the NPS campus.

NPS is putting in place the staffing, funding, and structure to run larger collaborative research and innovation projects.

• The new Office of Research and Innovation (formerly the NPS Office of Research) is being led by Dr. Kevin Smith, Professor of Physics and Vice Provost of Research, and will have new branches and programs to facilitate off-site connections.
• The Research Operations and External Partnerships branch will solicit and organize wider partnerships and program development. 
• The Naval Innovation Exchange Program will pull together multi-disciplinary teams of NPS faculty and students along with external naval warfare center partners, other naval labs, and industry to solve unique problems.
• NPS is hiring new faculty to lead these programs, including a Director for the Naval Innovation Exchange Program.

NPS is already recognized as the go-to place for the kind of interdisciplinary, operationally relevant research that can benefit the Navy of the 21^st century.  

• “Our naval warfare centers, DoD laboratories, and industry approach us quite frequently because they want to work with our students,” explains Dr. Smith. “The back-and-forth engagement with our operationally experienced warrior-scholars is critical to maturing these technologies for getting it into the hands of the warfighter.”
• NPS and NWSI have increasingly supported projects that go beyond departmental boundaries and fostered partnerships that span multiple fields, local industries, and the larger Navy. 
• NPS is lifting the Naval agenda to the forefront of technological innovation through a series of recent Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) with industry partners such as Microsoft, AT&T, TMGCore, Xerox,and many other leaders in industry.

Why it Matters: Meaningful naval innovation will come from connecting the perfect triangle that is the research power of NPS, the technological advancements within industry, and the needs of the Navy. 

• Smith remembers, “Admiral Paparo, commander of the Pacific Fleet, made an interesting comment a couple of months ago. He said that in his mind, it's important that the Navy understands that the Navy's going to have to solve its own problems. It's never going to be the solution you want unless the Navy is the one driving it.” 

What an innovative campus looks like: NPS leaders have been visiting innovation centers over the past few months to experience and note their key features. These fact-finding trips have been funded by the NPS Foundation as part of the shared mission to enable technological innovation on the NPS campus.  

• As NPS transforms to be more collaborative and dedicated to producing innovative outcomes, it will be applying these features to the NPS campus.

The NPS team gets a tour of modular creative working spaces at Lockheed Martin's Global Vision Center.

As one of the leaders of the transformation to NPS Next, Dr. Smith was onsite for many of these visits to centers housed at universities, industries, and military bases.

• “Innovation centers need to be attractive places that are highly capable. They need to meet all the hardware or power requirements to do some really interesting multidisciplinary types of work, and they need to allow for more engagements and interactions with others,” Smith summarized. 
• These centers are also highly modular so that they can be easily restructured to meet the needs of different size groups and projects that run for a few years each. 

The NWSI Impact:  NWSI has been laying the groundwork for the kind of collaborative partnerships that drive innovation in Naval warfare.  These efforts include  Research Groups aligned with operational commands, Research Task Forces aligned to priority Naval programs, and collaborations with industry partners.

• By connecting people and organizations at NPS to each other and to the larger research and innovation ecosystem, NWSI leaders began realizing the potential NPS has to create outsized innovation–and the changes needed to catalyze that potential into outcomes.

What’s Next: 

Smith predicts a cultural change on campus that will “really get faculty engaged in this new way of doing work.” 

• "We want teams of people to work on big projects that are going to then transition to some sponsor or to some warfare center. And then, as an institution, we need to start bringing in the resourcing for those kinds of projects.”

Recent Engagements

NPS Visits Qualcomm Campus to Spark Collaboration Opportunities

Qualcomm’s Bill Maheu and Ed Charbonneau pose with NPS visitors in front of a section of Qualcomm’s wall of patents. Photo by Col. Randy Pugh

A group of NPS students, staff, faculty, and alumni traveled to San Diego on October 27-28 to conduct collaborative brainstorming sessions with Qualcomm staff and engineers. The group was treated to a museum tour, technology demonstrations, and discussions on how to best utilize Qualcomm’s expertise with semiconductors and wireless technology for military applications.

• Students are submitting thesis proposals based on their conversations that can advance Naval technology through focused research on Qualcomm’s current projects and capability.
• Qualcomm has already partnered successfully with the DoD through Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) and is looking to create more of this kind of collaboration with students and faculty on the NPS campus.

Why it matters: Qualcomm is driving innovation in technologies crucial to current and future military capabilities.

• “Qualcomm started with phones and now specializes in chips like the Snapdragon chip that is in most android smartphones, tablets, and laptops. More recently, they have also had great advancements with artificial intelligence and 5G networks,” NWSI staff member Lt. Dominic Barbusa explains.
• Yes, and: NPS provides a unique ability to turn a technical potential into a real military capability.

Tapping into the NPS network: Two NPS alumni, both stationed in San Diego, attended to help direct the conversation toward research and projects that would most benefit the Navy and Marine Corps from their current operational perspectives. Captain Christian Thiessen is on the 13^th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Captain Benjamin Cohen is the NavalX SOCAL Tech Bridge Director.

• “These systems can make everything simpler,” says Lt. Barbusa. “That can really help the military if they are open to accepting the products.”

The NWSI Impact: NWSI leaders organized the trip to San Diego. Lt. Barbusa has been coordinating follow-through between Qualcomm and students.

What’s next: Select research proposals have the potential to become part of an official CRADA between NPS and Qualcomm.

• These proposals capitalize on student’s military operational experience, the insight of defense professionals studying at NPS, and the expertise of NPS faculty and Qualcomm engineers.

Upcoming Events

Naval Artificial Intelligence Summit
5-8 December 2022
Location: NPS campus, with attendance at unclassified portions possible via MS Teams

This is the fourth quarterly “Naval AI Summit” hosted by NPS in partnership with the Navy’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer. These summits bring together the Navy’s seven AI Task Forces, the Marine Corps’ AI leadership, engineers and scientists from the warfare and warfighting development centers and other government AI-related organizations, and Sailors and Marines from the Fleet/Fleet Marine Forces. Attendance available to U.S. military personnel and civilians.

For more information, email LT Dominic Barbusa.

NPS in the News

Naval Postgraduate School Foundation invests $145K in defense research of critical technologies and education programs

The Naval Postgraduate School Foundation recently invested a total of $145,000 in defense research projects and education programs led by Naval Postgraduate School faculty that support the exploration and application of critical emerging technologies for national security. The NPS Foundation’s Defense Innovation Fund moves projects from concept to capability by providing the initial investment to develop projects to the point where they can compete for federal spending. The SEED program uses a venture capital model to support research projects that address operational challenges and educational advancement. If the initial research shows sufficient progress and potential, those projects can become “Seedlings” and receive additional funding.  Read more.

NPS Professor Dr. Sam Buttrey recently competed in Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions.  He made it through the first two rounds last week, and lost in yesterday's final round in a controversial Final Jeopardy question.

• Watch highlights from Thursday’s success. 
• Read about the controversial loss.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  October 31, 2022

Happy Halloween! We have a special Halloween edition for you, featuring a real live ghost story. This lead story about the atmosphere’s impact on radar signals is just one of several tales of NPS researchers boarding ships to develop deep knowledge of the Fleet’s operational needs.

• Such real-time knowledge of the latest naval challenges and capabilities keeps NPS research and education laser-focused on the mission.

Ghosts Are Real, and NPS Research in Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Studies Is Using Them to Create Naval Warfighting Advantages

NPS meteorology professor Qing Wang works with ghosts–atmospheric conditions resulting in “ghost signals”–to improve national security. Her research on how the atmosphere affects radar wave propagation has turned her into something of a ghost hunter searching for conditions where radar or communication signals, termed “ghost signals,” can travel distances far beyond the radio horizon. 

She finds these ghosts by studying atmospheric ducts that carry radar signals to extreme distances. 

• Before atmospheric ducts were understood, radio signals that were expected to stay within a few miles of their origin traveled much farther, shocking radio specialists who were hearing “ghost voices," sometimes from across an ocean. 
• Radar ducts are channels in the atmosphere that have the right temperature and water vapor conditions to bend radar waves along the curvature of the earth. Targets can be detected hundreds to thousands of kilometers away from the radar inside these ducts. 

The threat: If military radar is in one of these ducts with an adversary, operators can detect each other from great distances. 

• “It’s a hide and seek game,” explains Dr. Wang. “You want to see others, especially the adversaries, but you don’t want them to see you.” 

To catch a ghost, send a ghost. To investigate these atmospheric ducts carrying ghost voices, Wang has been leading CASPER, the Coupled Air-Sea Processes and Electromagnetic Ducting Research project. 

CASPER has two major components:  

• Quantify the atmosphere: Meteorologists measure the atmospheric parameters and work to create more accurate atmospheric prediction models.  
• Measure electromagnetic wave propagation and see how it varies with atmospheric conditions. This is a two-ended measurement that requires a transmitter and a receiver. 

CASPER utilizes a Swiss army knife of tools that include research aircraft, wave gliders, buoys, research vessels and the particularly remarkable Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) that flips to its vertical position like a spar buoy once towed on station. 

Why it matters: Knowing the distance incoming targets can be detected by the shipboard radar in a specific moment informs the timing and manner in which the Navy responds to an attack or shift in conditions. 

• Atmospheric ducts are leaky and could allow for Naval detection of adversary radar from outside the ducts. 

• Data the team have collected have been used to help evaluate and improve the Navy’s operational environment forecast models.  

Accurate forecasting gives the Navy a distinct advantage in Electronic Warfare. 

• “This is the world of Electronic Warfare. Everything is in the spectrum, you just can’t ignore that,” Wang notes. “And the atmosphere is always in the way. It may help, and it may deter. So, we just need to know more about it because it is a perpetual presence.” 

Yes, and: The CASPER project is a collaborative effort initially funded by the Office of Naval Research through the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) Program. The grant funded six primary investigators from different universities led by Wang at NPS. 

• The team’s measurements and analyses have resulted in many publications on new discoveries of the physical processes in the lower atmosphere.  

What’s next: The CASPER project was renewed for a sixth year of funding, and Wang is excited to see the research evolve and improve with time.  

• CASPER’s success also brings opportunities for new offshoot projects like the Radar and Electromagnetic wave Ducting in the Stable Atmosphere over Water (REDSAW) that will build on the research completed through CASPER and continue its legacy. 

How it works: Wang and part of her team spent 30 days aboard the Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) to conduct her latest research. 

• This 355-foot research vessel is towed to the research location in the horizontal position, then slowly flips vertically to become a spar buoy.  

In the vertical position, the vessel extends 300 feet below the surface, and the extruding spar buoy can unfold three 60-foot arms.

Professor Wang and the research team onboard the FLIP.

“From the end of one arm we have a mast going down that is fully instrumented and can take undisturbed measurements away from the main body of the buoy,” Wang remembers. 

• “For 30 days I did not move. I was at one point on Earth. Every day there was a lot of stuff to do, and I didn't realize it until I was off and thought, oh wait a minute! I was on this thing for 30 days.” 

Learn more about Professor Wang’s work and other research in the NPS Meteorology Department.  

Recent Engagements

NPS Demonstrates Climate and Energy Research at Fleet Week

Faculty, staff, and students traveled to San Diego to take part in this month’s Fleet Week, at the invitation of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, where they showcased recent NPS work on the SECNAV Climate Action 2030 objectives.

• Faculty and students explained the operational impacts of climate change and how their NPS research is contributing to naval and national readiness.
• NPS tents featured hands-on STEM activities that demonstrated the latest applied naval research for a wide audience.
• Tens of thousands participated to learn about climate science, NPS, and the Navy’s leadership role in mitigation efforts.

On display: 3D printing was in full force, with printed game pieces, live solar-powered 3D printing, and examples of Xerox’s liquid metal printing from the USS Essex (initiated via an NPS-Xerox* Cooperative Research and Development Agreement).

Attendees also got a glimpse of the autonomous, sustainably powered float developed in collaboration with Seatrec* to study the impact of human-made noise on the environment and ambient ocean soundscape. 

• Combined with an Ocean Sonics* hydrophone, the first-of-its-kind system will enable acoustic data to be collected anywhere in the world’s oceans nearly indefinitely. Low cost, remotely operated and powered by the ocean’s own temperature differences, the float can provide extensive time series of information to researchers and operators.
• The project was selected by the Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) at NPS, which is funded by the Office of Naval Research.

A display on “Sounds of the Ocean” explaining undersea acoustics, featuring an unmanned underwater vehicle.

On the bus and onboard: Through the generosity of the NPS Foundation*, faculty, staff, and students had the opportunity to ride a chartered bus from Monterey to the San Francisco piers.  Once at Fleet Week, they were provided a special tour of the USS Princeton (CG-59). Two faculty in undersea acoustics arranged classified discussions with ship’s company in the sonar division.

• During the bus ride, John Hammerer, former Commanding Officer of CG-70, USS Lake Erie, and current Warfare Chair for Integrated Air and Missile Defense at NPS, briefed the team on the ship’s capabilities.
• Small world: An officer who had been one of Hammerer’s students happened to be assigned to the ship and on duty when the NPS team arrived. The Meyer Scholar helped make connections onboard.

What’s next: Two buses are already planned for next year to meet the demand from the NPS community. And research continues, including on future efforts to map the ocean floor with an echo sounder.

The NWSI impact:  NWSI supports events like Fleet Week that help faculty get hands-on military experiences and face-to-face contact with warfighters so that we are all working together as one team – highly diverse in expertise but tightly focused on the mission.

• It’s all a reflection of NPS’ position as a “central connector” between the Fleet and Fleet Marine Forces, Industry, Academia, and the Naval Research and Development Establishment.
• The whole NPS team works together to integrate technical and warfighting expertise and ensure graduates have the knowledge and skills they need to fight and win in the 21st century, while simultaneously helping to solve the most pressing problems of the Services.

* Material presented about collaborations is for informational purposes only and does not represent an endorsement of Xerox, Seatrec, Ocean Sonics, the NPS Foundation, or any other commercial company or non-federal entity.

And speaking of hands-on team experiences...

Faculty Embark on the Abraham Lincoln, CVN 72

In September, NWSI coordinated a trip for eight faculty members to spend two days aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. While aboard, the NPS professors and researchers had the opportunity to see the crew in action and to have technical conversations about critical challenges related to onboard communications, uncrewed devices, networking, security, strategy, and much more.

Why it matters:  Firsthand observations of the complexity of operations and the supporting processes and systems, as well as the knowledge and skills demanded of the crew’s officers and sailors, are driving real-time innovation on campus.  Faculty are already incorporating these experiences into new research projects and modifying their classroom lessons to more directly apply to naval operations.

The NPS faculty’s deep expertise in computer science, systems engineering, human-systems integration, oceanography, and mechanical and aerospace engineering–as well as proficiency with research methods–will enable faculty to frame mission-critical challenges in ways that guide future student research and empower students to solve these very real problems.

Yes, and: Faculty members got to see several NPS alumni in action, including the ship’s Executive Officer and Intelligence Officer. In their own words: “These two days at the carrier were by far the most interesting, intense, and informative of all my interactions with the Navy.” What’s next: As part of its “NPS-Fleet Engagement Program,” NWSI is planning many more trips to continue collaboration on research relevant to the Fleet, to interact with alumni deployed afloat, and to integrate NPS’ mission with those of the Fleet and Fleet Marine Forces. Read more observations about the trip from Systems Engineering Professor Ron Giachetti.

Warfare Innovation Continuum Workshop: Hybrid Force 2045

Topic: How might the convergence of emerging technologies offer new operational concepts and force designs to create a more effective and resilient naval, joint and coalition force across the spectrum of conflict and in all domains?  

This yearly rapid concept generation workshop was held 19-22 September 2022 and included 138 registered participants for a hybrid event on the NPS campus in Monterey and the NPS “Virtual Campus” via ZoomGov.

Concept generation teams composed of NPS students, civilian engineers, and researchers with diverse perspectives addressed contested littoral warfare, integrated and joint fires, integrated deterrence, contested logistics, and cloud computing at the tactical edge.

• Two U.S.-only teams worked on the NPS campus in Monterey in classified spaces on C5ISRT, undersea and mine warfare challenges.
• Four Discovery Panels included speakers from across NPS, the warfare centers, and industry – many of them leaders in their fields.

What they’re saying: "Our engineers don't always have military experience … Here they get some," said Lockheed Martin Senior Strategy Analyst Glen Sears. "To sit down and work through problems with recent operational officers and learn new things … Some of those impressions even lead to networks that they can use for years to come."

What’s next: The NWSI team will synthesize all the concepts provided by the teams into a final report for distribution to our own researchers and NWSI stakeholders.  This report will inform and influence this year’s NPS capstone classes, research topics, experimentation, the NPS Systems Engineering and Analysis project, wargaming, prototyping and theses over the remaining nine months of the Warfare Innovation Continuum “Future Hybrid Force.”

• Read the full Quick Look Report.
• Read more about the event in this article on navy.mil.

Upcoming Events

Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) 23-1: Focus Area: Expeditionary Energy and Power Solutions

Nov 7, 2022 to Nov 11, 2022
Location: NPS McMillan Field Laboratory at Camp Roberts California National Guard Post (San Miguel, CA)

Learn more about the event.

Naval Artificial Intelligence Summit

December 5-8, 2022
Location: NPS campus

This will be the fourth quarterly meeting of the group at NPS, which brings together representatives from seven Naval AI task forces to provide updates on their activities, challenges, and successes. The December summit will coordinate with the second offering of our AI Course for Senior Leaders.

• Read more about the inaugural executive AI course held this June.
• Want to know more about December’s Summit? Contact COL Randy Pugh at NPS.

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  September 29, 2022

Supporting Decision Advantage for the Future Fleet in and beyond the Classroom

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Zachary Knueven maneuvers through a window during Integrated Training Exercise (ITX) 2-21 on Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif. Photo: US Navy.

The NWSI critical thinking and judgment team recently supported Season 3 of NPS’ “Critical Thinking for Strategic Leadership” course, which helps our warrior scholars develop the cognitive and dispositional skills necessary for leading change in an uncertain and unpredictable future. Students engaged in Socratic conversations about leadership informed by critical thinkers and strategic leaders from a range of organizations, exploring the interplay between national security and the private sector.

• Final projects applied what they discussed in class to a national security problem, examining topics such as US-PRC competition 2045, Arctic Security and Climate Change, Futurizing Navy Medicine, and others.

Why it matters: As NPS transforms to move beyond industrial age approaches to what and how graduate students learn about defense, courses like these develop student appreciation for the cognitive and intellectual underpinnings of interdisciplinary ‘range.’

• Since we do not know what security challenges we will confront in the future, being able to think through ambiguous problems in holistic ways can hopefully avoid the ‘hammers looking for nails’ attitude that might result from military teaching only from narrow disciplinary silos.
• The course is firmly rooted in Cognitive Age approaches to learning that have been advocated by several leaders, including the Commandant of the Marine Corps in his Planning Guidance and President Ann Rondeau in her Proceedings article, “Future Military Leaders Need Interdisciplinary Educations.”

What’s next: This course is building the thinking foundations that Navy and Marine Corps leaders need to enable decision advantage as well as the knowledge, abilities, and attitudes needed to integrate the art and the science of warfare. 

• The next session will be offered next summer: GB 3400: Critical Thinking for Strategic Leadership. A follow-up elective on Maneuver Warfare and the art and science of learning (GB 4012) has just started.

How it works: Students read work by (and about) the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps General Al Gray, foreign policy strategist Andrew Marshall, Air Force Colonel John Boyd, Marine General Anthony Zinni, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Navy Captain Wayne Hughes, Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon, and leadership and strategy scholars such as Prof Henry Mintzberg.

• Students also examined case studies about leading strategic change in defense as well as in business and educational institutions, in addition to conceptual and practical readings.

This was the most interdisciplinary group of students yet to enroll in the course.

• Students came from more than 10 different programs and multiple departments, pursuing graduate degrees in curricula including Strategic Leadership, Applied Design for Innovation, Business Administration, and Information Strategy and Political Warfare. In keeping with President Rondeau’s emphasis on student-centered learning, these NPS curricula have elective slots/whitespace, as opposed to Industrial Age preloaded matrixes, or “selectives.” This is essential to creating interdisciplinary learning spaces.
• Some distance learning (DL) students were also working full time jobs, including a chief to the US Naval Mission to Colombia in Bogotá and a combat trauma surgeon, bringing current examples from their experiences to course conversations.
• Adding to that, students from different countries including Brazil, Singapore, Finland, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sweden, and the Netherlands brought unique international insights and perspectives to the discussions on how culture influences strategy, as well as how they view the current and future strategic competition.

That’s not all. General Zinni joined for a few additional learning opportunities as part of the course to talk with students in real time about strategic thinking and leadership.

• Zinni participated in a discussion about the importance of learning from failures after students had examined the importance of failures for both individual and organizational level adaptation. Zinni extended the discussion to also talk about national level failures and how to learn from them.
• In his second visit, he talked about strategic leadership and the importance of people in innovation and leading change, extending class discussions about General Gray’s leadership and the importance of cultivating particular thinking and leadership skills in our organizations.

What students are saying:

• "This elective allowed me to explore new concepts and ideas outside of my “military box” by reading business administration literature, case studies, and, most importantly, having in-depth discussions with peers from different services and countries, and with different experiences."
  • Joost Tuinman, Netherlands ARMY Special Operating Forces, Defense Analysis student
• “This course provided a diversity of experiences, concepts, perspectives, and ideas in a safe environment that allowed opportunity to challenge our own assumptions on rightness as well as developing collaborative solutions for tomorrow’s challenges. Regarding Strategic Leadership, whether you’re an aviator, logistician or analyst, the framework and value of critical thinking demonstrated how deliberate and thoughtful dialogue provides decision advantage leading to world-class performance, narrowing the gap from high and low quality solutions.”
  • Paul Nickell, Navy CDR, Department of Defense Management, DL student

• “The Marine Corps is going through a change process, which is geared towards preparing the institution for warfare in complex and uncertain environments. … The need to develop Marines intellectually is essential for promoting sound and quick decision-making.  This course gave me a new perspective on the importance of establishing learning environments that nurture critical thinking and strategic thought. The in-depth study of figures such as General Gray, General Zinni, Andrew Marshall, Colonel John Boyd, and General Van Riper broadened my knowledge and re-shaped my perspective on the importance of critical thinking and maneuver warfare.   As the Director of the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy Camp Lejeune, I am in a unique position to ensure the concepts in the class are incorporated into my faculty advisor's professional military education program.”
  • SgtMaj Dan Heider, Department of Defense Management, DL student

Want to know more? 

NPS and NWSI in the News

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Challenges NPS Students to Forge the Future of Warfare
MC2 James Norket, Naval Postgraduate School

At last week’s commencement address, Bob Work gave a shout-out to CAPT Wayne Hughes, whose legacy inspired the creation of NWSI and guides its mission, and he predicted that NPS will create more visionary innovators like him to solve the most pressing military challenges of the near future. Work: "The Naval Postgraduate School wrote the book on guided munitions warfare. Wayne Hughes, God rest his soul, he wrote the book [Fleet Tactics]. Somebody at NPS is going to write the book on algorithmic warfare [the biggest predicted area of strategic competition with China]. Why? Because here in one place you have strategic analysis, wargaming, simulations, high tech... you have warriors who understand operational problems working with world-class technological talent to solve those problems. You've got connections now with Silicon Valley. You do testing, prototyping. This is the place where it all comes together." Work was also inducted into the NPS Hall of Fame during his campus visit. He graduated from NPS in 1990 with a Master of Science degree in Space Systems Operations. Read more.

NPS, Partners Develop Executive Course on AI/ML Foundations for Senior Leaders
Matthew Schechl, Naval Postgraduate School

The last issue of the NWSI newsletter shared an update on NPS’ hosting of the Naval Artificial Intelligence Task Forces and mentioned this newly developed course on AI for senior leaders. This article explains the course in more detail.

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), in partnership with Stanford University and the Defense Innovation Unit in Silicon Valley, developed an intensive three-day course specifically for senior defense leaders on the emerging role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) in the military. Developed under the direction of the DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), the inaugural executive AI course, held June 7-9, provided approximately two dozen General and Flag Officers, Senior Executive Service (SES) civilians and other senior executives with a foundational knowledge of AI/ML systems, including technical cornerstones, practical implications, ethical guidelines and DOD-specific problems and solutions. With the success and positive feedback of the initial event, additional courses are planned for November 2022 and February 2023.  A Lead AI Course specifically created for the Naval context and use cases is planned for December 2022.  Read more.

NPS Foundation delivers collaborative national security research tool to the Naval Postgraduate School
NPS Foundation

The Naval Postgraduate School Foundation held a ceremony Sept. 6 symbolizing the transfer of Athena, a collaborative research tool, to the Naval Postgraduate School. Athena empowers researchers, sponsors, and leaders across the Naval Education Enterprise to access and query information currently stored in numerous separate databases by use of keywords, topics of interest, service priorities and other filters. The application is built on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Teams to assure security, enhance scalability, and deliver content across all devices. Read more.

Announcements

FY23 funding allocation results are now available for review in the Naval Research Program Topic Portal

The public list of “FY23 Navy & Marine Topic Review Board Results” is accessible in PDF format via the NRP Topic Portal external landing page. More detailed information may be viewed via the NRP Topic Portal Topic.  Search now. The Naval Research Program (NRP) at NPS addresses Fleet, Force, and OPNAV-nominated research topics. This program executes studies and analysis by NPS faculty and students aligned to the CNO’s NAVPLAN and S&T priorities.  For FY23, 267 topics were generated, and 198 proposals were submitted against those topics. 95 projects were selected. The operationally relevant research solves problems ranging from AI applications to hybrid force CONOPS, force optimization and readiness issues, while building faculty expertise and student applications upon return to the Fleet/Force. FY24 topics can be submitted now through April 2023.

Upcoming Events

Joint Interagency Field Experimentation JIFX 23-1
7–10 November 2022

Come experiment with us!

Focus Area: Expeditionary Energy and Power Solutions

Submission deadline for experiments with aerial vehicles: 27 September 2022. Submission deadline for all other experiments: 04 October 2022

2023 Design Challenge: Local Challenges, Global Solutions

The Naval Postgraduate School is excited to announce the Rapid Innovation Design Challenge for 2023. Schools and students in grades 6-12 are invited to envision, develop, and design innovative solutions to local climate challenges. Participants will create no-code custom applications for their challenge solutions using ServiceNow’s platform. Each registered team will be paired with student/faculty mentors from the Naval Postgraduate School. Teams will compete against each other for a chance to win cash prizes sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School Foundation.

Mentor Registration open September 20- November 1, 2022

Challenge submissions due March 17, 2023

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  September 1, 2022

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is increasingly becoming a convening place and a “central connector” for stakeholders across the government, the military services, academia, and industry. 

• Leaders come to NPS to exchange information, make critical connections, fill gaps in their knowledge, learn new skills, and ensure that their individual learning is converted to organizational learning via NPS’ educational and research capabilities and capacity. 

This newsletter highlights two recent events that showcase how NPS is bringing together communities to drive Naval warfare innovation: the Naval AI Summit and the Pacific Fleet Commanders’ Conference.

• August may mean vacation time for some, but the NWSI and NPS teams have been hard at work!

Naval Artificial Intelligence Task Forces Convene at NPS

On August 22-26, the Naval Postgraduate School hosted the latest Naval Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit. This is the third quarterly meeting of the group at NPS, which brings together representatives from seven Naval AI task forces to provide updates on their activities, challenges, and successes.

Representatives of the seven AI task forces gathered on the NPS campus to understand and strategize applications of artificial intelligence to Naval warfare and military operations.

Why it matters: NPS has the infrastructure to host events like this at the highest classification level and the expertise to lead conversations about the highly applied aspects of emerging technologies.

• The Naval AI Summit is keenly focused on applying AI to military operations—a conversation that can’t happen just anywhere.

The big picture: The Navy established the Artificial Intelligence Task Forces so that warfare communities can develop knowledge, skills, data models, applications, and algorithms that will provide our forces 21st century decision superiority and combat advantage.

These task forces cover the range of Naval applications:

• Surface Warfare – Task Force Hopper
• Navy Special Warfare – Task Force Proteus
• Undersea Warfare – Task Force Turing
• Naval Aviation – Task Force Ellyson
• Explosive Ordinance Disposal – Task Force Titan
• Information Warfare – Task Force Station HYPO
• Unmanned systems (for CENTCOM) – Task Force 59

AI holds the potential to revolutionize warfare. 

• Human-machine teams are able to cycle through the Orient-Observe-Decide-Act cycle faster than the enemy.
• Yes, and: AI is critical to other technologies like intelligent autonomous systems or the business of leading and managing a large and complex organization like the Navy and Marine Corps.

This was the third AI Summit and this one was different—and better.  The Task Forces have begun to realize opportunities to share subject matter expertise, lessons learned, processes, and even data and algorithms.

• This coordination will make each of them more efficient but also, because they’re exploiting ways to complement each other, more effective. 
• This Summit also included the Marine Corps and held several working groups to analyze and propose solutions to some tough challenges related to integrating and adopting AI and machine learning in the operating forces.

The NWSI impact:  NWSI’s constant focus on the military application of emerging technologies and awareness of the Fleet’s and the Service headquarters’ challenges helped to shape the agenda and the participant invitations for this event.

What’s next:  NPS looks forward to hosting the Naval AI Summit again next quarter. Current plans are to hold the Summit coincident with an offering of the “Lead AI” 3-day course. 

• “Lead AI” provides General Officers, Flag Officers, and members of the Senior Executive Service with the insights they need about AI to take full advantage of AI during operations, to manage risks associated with integrating and adopting AI into our formations and systems, and to make policy and resourcing prioritization decisions. 

NPS hosts the Pacific Fleet Commander’s Conference

Two weeks before the AI Summit event, Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, assembled his subordinate and supporting commanders at Naval Postgraduate School.

• These commanders of numbered fleets, type commanders, and warfare development centers gathered in real life to talk about issues that matter across the fleet, with each other and with representatives from the NPS community.
• The group assessed the current operational environment and discussed the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s priorities and challenges focused on the Indo-Pacific Region.

Why gather at NPS? Our interdisciplinary team provided unique expertise on the technology, concepts, partners, and systems needed to maintain naval warfighting advantage—and, more importantly, how to develop these capabilities with an integrated approach.

The NWSI impact: NWSI led a briefing that provided insight into key work in support of the specific challenges he provided to NPS.

• Yes, and: NWSI also demonstrated to senior leaders that NPS can deliver better solutions to operational problems when we have continuous fleet and technical engagement.

One example: Admiral Paparo previously challenged NPS to evolve warfighting simulation and analysis beyond traditional hex maps and pucks.

• We briefed our response by giving a demo of Project Voltron, a 21^st century digital wargame that uses physics-based modeling, operations research, and machine-enabled forecasting of probable decision outcomes.
• NPS has developed this prototype in partnership with Microsoft, applying their Xbox gaming technology, digital mapping, and productivity suite to create a scalable and distributable capability.

The first phase of development is centered on digitizing a game and developing the supporting visualizations.

• Our focus is on refining user interface and building the chassis that supports game development & design, execution, and insight capture.
• We’ll also be advancing the analytic engine that provides rapid adjudication and understanding of the likelihood of the potential consequences.

This prototype is all part of how NPS is leading a naval innovation ecosystem bringing together academia, industry, and warfighters to advance capabilities in 21st Century Gaming, Experimentation, Modeling & Simulation (GEMS). 

What’s next: This and other engagements are informing the focus of the Nimitz Research Group and other targeted research efforts at NPS. Earlier this year, NPS established the Nimitz Research Group, a team of warrior-scholars and faculty aligned to key operational problems facing the Commander of the Pacific Fleet and the U.S. Navy.

• While some of this research will remain at the classified level, the NPS research ecosystem will be digging in to these core issues, both in the classroom and in applied research efforts.

NPS and NWSI In the News

Rebalancing the Science and Art of War for Decision Advantage
Vice Admiral Ann Rondeau, U.S. Navy (Retired)  | Proceedings

From NPS President Rondeau, a reflection on how (and why) to ensure intellectual overmatch in the Naval education and operational enterprises.

The paradox in warfighting is that while we prize, hail, and reward initiative, we organizationally expect initiative as a natural phenomenon, rather than as a deliberately leveraged manifestation of considering the human being the decisive element. The further paradox is that as we pursue technologies such as unmanned systems, we distance the human from the system while also counting on the human to design, intuit, and interact with the system. We expect and will demand accountability at the point of decision-making. As such, the local human element— properly equipped both technically and cognitively—is essential to achieving intellectual overmatch and gaining decision advantage.

So, how do we get to the optimal balance? The answer is in part by overhauling how we think about education, learning, and innovation at the enterprise level. Here are some suggestions.  Read more.

The State Of The Warfighter Mentality In The SWO Community
Lieutenant Judith Hee Rooney, USN  |  CIMSEC

Findings from a recent NPS graduate’s thesis have been published in article format.

As the United States shifts focus from the Global War on Terror to peer competitors, senior naval leaders have increased messaging to the fleet that focuses on preparing for war at sea. Considering this shift, I investigated the state of the warfighter mentality in the Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) community to gauge how the community felt about its own readiness as part of my program at the Naval Postgraduate School. Although the Navy gauges readiness in many ways, my goal was to go directly to the source by interviewing members of the SWO community – while avoiding the constraints and endemic fatigue so common in survey methodology. I used semi-structured interviews to identify attitudes, opinions, and trends related to the warfighter mentality across the ranks of O-2 to O-6.  Seven common themes about the warfighter mentality emerged from these interviews.  Read more.

Updates

Wargaming with European Partners

The NWSI Wargaming Center Mobile Education Team (Jeff Appleget and Rob Burks), supporting the Energy Academic Group (EAG), conducted a two-week wargaming workshop for the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid COE) from 15-26 August 2022.

The workshop included hybrid threat courses taught by Hybrid COE personnel plus wargaming design and execution courses taught by NPS personnel.

• The workshop focused on understanding what capabilities Proxy/Partner Actors could bring in a Hybrid Threat environment to tip the scales in favor of a preferred faction.

Participants produced two wargames focused on assessing the Baltic States’ energy sector resilience to the actions of proxy/partner actors.

• Students came from eight different EU/NATO countries: Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, Hungary, Norway, Germany, United Kingdom, United States.

FY23 funding allocation results are now available for review in the Naval Research Program Topic Portal

The public list of “FY23 Navy & Marine Topic Review Board Results” is accessible in PDF format via the NRP Topic Portal external landing page. More detailed information may be viewed via the NRP Topic Portal Topic.  Search now. The Naval Research Program (NRP) at NPS addresses Fleet, Force, and OPNAV-nominated research topics. This program executes studies and analysis by NPS faculty and students aligned to the CNO’s NAVPLAN and S&T priorities.  For FY23, 267 topics were generated, and 198 proposals were submitted against those topics. 95 projects were selected. The operationally relevant research solves problems ranging from AI applications to hybrid force CONOPS, force optimization and readiness issues, while building faculty expertise and student applications upon return to the Fleet/Force. FY24 topics can be submitted now through April 2023.

Upcoming Events

NPS Blockchain Research Symposium 
Sep 12-13, 2022

Students and faculty of NPS will be hosting a research symposium focusing on the intersection of blockchain technologies and national security. Learn more.

Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop 2022 Future Hybrid Force
Sep 19-23, 2022

“How might the convergence of emerging technologies offer new operational concepts and force designs?”

The FY22-23 WIC “Future Hybrid Force” kicked off this summer with coursework leading to this design challenge workshop. The year-long interdisciplinary effort builds on last year’s “Hybrid Force 2045” WIC involving nearly 300 students and faculty and projects like counter-swarm systems for Unmanned Task Force. This year the WIC goes further into emerging technology applications, focusing on various opportunities to inform force design options as called for by the NAVPLAN. Capstone projects, theses, and research will investigate hybrid force solutions.

Learn more and register.

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  August 18, 2022

NPS is an intellectual gathering place in the naval and national security ecosystem, and recent engagements facilitated by the NWSI team are strengthening this unique capability.

This newsletter highlights two significant engagements from the first half of August: NPS hosted innovation organizations NavalX and the National Security Innovation Network, and the Commander of the Pacific Fleet hosted its Commanders’ Conference at NPS. This newsletter gives details on the first engagement and shares an article on the second. Our next newsletter will give more of the NWSI perspective on the Commander’s Conference. Read on!

NPS Strengthens Collaborations with Regional Military Innovators 

Leaders from the NPS Research Enterprise hosted two regional military innovators earlier this month: NavalX, the innovation arm of the Office of Naval Research, and the National Security Innovation Network, a tech outreach & innovation organization in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. 

• At these meetings, NPS leaders, faculty, and students demonstrated NPS capabilities and identified areas for collaboration that support our transformation to NPS Next.

Why it matters: The two engagements strengthen NPS’s position as a leader in the national security innovation ecosystem and highlight our unique strength: operationally experienced warrior-scholars performing applied research with expert guidance from faculty. 

Yes, and: These partnerships can increase the reach of NPS research through technology transfer and innovative Naval projects.

From left to right, CAPT Casey Plew, incoming Director of NavalX; Dr. Arielle Miller, Technical Director of NavalX; Dr. Kevin B Smith, NPS Vice Provost for Research; Dr. Johannes Schonberg, Director of the Northwest Tech Bridge (located at NUWC-Keyport); Dr. Aaron Darnton, Chief Technology Officer for NUWC-Keyport; and Mr. Chris Manuel, Director of the Central Coast Tech Bridge.

The NWSI impact: NWSI continues in its role as a connector of research innovation efforts on and beyond the NPS campus.

• The NPS Research Enterprise connects NWSI with the Office of Research and Innovation (OR&I) at NPS.
• NWSI enables both NavalX and OR&I with its connections to the Fleet/Fleet Marine Forces and its understanding of the challenges faced by the warfighter.

How it works, part 1: NPS + NavalX NavalX is evolving its program and approach to its mission, as is our own NavalX Central Coast Tech Bridge.  Prior to this meeting, the NPS Vice Provost for Research, Dr. Kevin B. Smith, had been talking for months with the NavalX incoming Director, CAPT Casey Plew (and the current Director, CAPT Ben Van Buskirk) about how NPS can best support the mission of the NavalX program and its ecosystem of Tech Bridge offices. This in-person meeting continued conversations about the transformations both organizations are undergoing. Yes, and: We’re strategizing how the work at NPS, including science & technology research as well as the education and practice of innovation, can complement the work being conducted at various Naval labs and warfare centers where Tech Bridge offices operate. That’s not all: Visitors got tours of the Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research, the Quantum Sensing Lab, the Space Systems Lab, and the Energy, Additive Manufacturing, and Hypersonics Labs out by the golf course. We briefed on the NPS Transformation and the framework of the NPS Research Enterprise, Athena, and various NPS innovation programs. NavalX presented their vision of “NavalX 2.0” and the concept of Innovation, how it is defined, and what metrics may be used. The outcome? NavalX will have a clearer vision for how it can support the Navy and Marine Corps, and they will be able to better define innovative practices and associated metrics.  In turn, this will help define the roles of the various NavalX components, including the NPS Tech Bridge, and better position NPS as a leader in the Naval innovation ecosystem.

How it works, part 2: NPS + NSIN The National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) is focused on engaging industry and academia in support of national security and the innovative concepts and technologies being produced by those institutions.  Much of this engagement involved discussions with NPS faculty and students on how NSIN programs could support technology development. Why it matters: NSIN has various programs that could support internships and fellowships for professionals to work with NPS on emerging tech.  NSIN also has a program to help promote discovery and invention, and can transition concepts patented at NPS into the commercial marketplace for further development and potential adoption. NSIN has regions around the country with specific university hosts and is a partner organization to the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). NPS has some very talented faculty and students that are creating novel products in support of national defense.  Yes, but: We don’t always have a good mechanism for advancing such work outside of the NPS laboratory. NSIN can support this development by helping connect our work to academia and industry, with the goal of maturing the technology towards adoption.

How it works, part 3: NPS + NavalX + NSIN There’s a synergistic relationship between these three organizations, and NPS has a key role to play. The view from Chris Manuel, Director of the NavalX Central Coast Tech Bridge: “NPS can regionally bridge NSIN and NavalX based on the unique aspects that our warrior-scholars bring to the innovation ecosystem.” The view from Kevin Smith, Vice Provost for Research: “As emerging technologies are being explored and evaluated, either at NPS or at other Naval labs and warfare centers, our students provide the critical link to ensuring successful innovation. “NPS provides a full spectrum of expertise throughout the innovation pipeline that is not available anywhere else. The NPS Research Enterprise evaluates technology through the lens of Fleet/Fleet Marine Force needs, explores concepts of operations and employment, and examines the pathways through validation toward acquisition.”

Who participated in these meetings?

From NPS:

• Kevin B Smith, NPS Vice Provost for Research
• Chris Manuel, Director of the Central Coast Tech Bridge (located at NPS)
• VADM (ret) Dave Lewis, Director of the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute
• Agata Maslowska and Kathryn Hodges, NPS Tech Transfer Specialists from the Office of Research & Innovation
• Col (ret) Todd Lyons, NPS Foundation Vice President
• Cecelia Panella, Faculty Associate from Defense Analysis Department
• Various faculty and students during lab tours

From NavalX:

• CAPT Casey Plew, incoming Director of ONR’s NavalX
• Arielle Miller, Technical Director of ONR’s NavalX
• Johannes Schonberg, Director of the Northwest Tech Bridge (located at NUWC-Keyport)
• Aaron Darnton, Chief Technology Officer for NUWC-Keyport

From NSIN:

• Pavan Gill, the NSIN Director for the Northwest Region
• Kaitie Penry, the NSIN University Program Director at UC Berkeley

Connect with NWSI

Recent engagements

U.S. Pacific Fleet Hosts Commander’s Conference at NPS

Last week, NPS hosted the U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander's Conference, providing expertise and unique capabilities that allowed for leaders to assess the current operational environment and discuss the fleet's priorities and challenges, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.  Read more.

Updates

FY23 funding allocation results are now available for review in the Naval Research Program Topic Portal

The public list of “FY23 Navy & Marine Topic Review Board Results” is accessible in PDF format via the NRP Topic Portal external landing page. More detailed information may be viewed via the NRP Topic Portal Topic.  Search now. The Naval Research Program (NRP) at NPS addresses Fleet, Force, and OPNAV-nominated research topics. This program executes studies and analysis by NPS faculty and students aligned to the CNO’s NAVPLAN and S&T priorities.  For FY23, 267 topics were generated and 198 proposals were submitted against those topics. 95 projects were selected. The operationally relevant research solves problems ranging from AI applications to hybrid force CONOPS, force optimization and readiness issues, while building faculty expertise and student applications upon return to the Fleet/Force. FY24 topics can be submitted now through April 2023.

NPS and NWSI In the News

Wisdom and Warfare – Athena Sets Sail at NPS to Solve Fleet Operational Problems

Following years of discussion, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is launching an ambitious initiative that will help keep NPS, and the Department of the Navy, in-the-know on operationally-focused research – past, present, and future – to help accelerate solutions to critical problems impacting naval forces today.  Aptly named after the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, Athena is an innovative collaboration tool intended to accelerate NPS research into capabilities by illuminating the totality of prior and current work at NPS. Athena will increase NPS impact by creating a dynamic, real-time resource for connecting fleet and joint force needs to prior NPS work, our students, faculty and other researchers across the Naval Research and Development Establishment (NR&DE).  Read more.

Innovation: People Are More Important than Technology
General Anthony Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), Mie Augier, and Major Sean F. X. Barrett, U.S. Marine Corps  |  USNI Proceedings 

Featuring Mie Augier, NWSI’s lead for Critical Thinking and Judgment

New technology is important, but it is not a silver bullet solution that can be added at random when an organization confronts a challenge. Rather, it must be built into an organization’s capabilities, resources, and processes by collaborative, charismatic leaders who can think strategically, critically, and creatively but also encourage, lead, and manage teams to adopt, integrate, and maintain technologies over time. Military leaders must move beyond using “innovation” merely as a buzzword and establish a better understanding of what innovation is and is not, the organizational characteristics and features of innovation, what it takes to lead innovative organizations, and the traits and skills of innovative leaders.  Read more.

II MEF Marines Apply Future Concepts in Wargaming

U.S. Marines with II Marine Expeditionary Force attended the Basic Analytic Wargaming Course, culminating in a wargame scenario on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, July 18-22. The BAWC is a 5-day course conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School that provides students a hands-on experience with designing, executing, and analyzing a wargame in an instructor-led environment.  “The idea is we bring a group of students up to speed on wargaming and what it does to allow us to examine the human decision-making process,” said Dr. Jeff Appleget, a senior lecturer from the Naval Warfare Studies Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, and a retired U.S. Army Colonel, “which is key to executing plans, getting ready to go into theater, and doing the things we have to do in wartime.”  Read more.

Upcoming Events

Secretary of the Navy Guest Lecture with the Honorable Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy
August 18, 2022  |  1015  PST  – TODAY!

King Hall, NPS Campus (in-person only; may be available for streaming on-demand later)

Hypersonics Week
August 15-18, 2022 (concludes today)

A collection of interdisciplinary sessions on the capabilities, engineering, threats, and strategic implications of hypersonic weapons, open to all faculty and officers. The week includes classified and unclassified presentations by leading Navy and industry subject matter experts.  Presenters include intelligence experts from the Naval Warfare Center Dahlgren and China Lake, the System Engineering Group hypersonic technical fundamentals. Events will be provided to offsite audiences via ZoomGov and classified VTC.

• POC: CAPT (Ret) John Hammerer, hammerer@nps.edu

NPS Blockchain Research Symposium 
Sep 12-13, 2022

Students and faculty of NPS will be hosting a research symposium focusing on the intersection of blockchain technologies and national security. Learn more.

Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop 2022 Future Hybrid Force
Sep 19-23, 2022

“How might the convergence of emerging technologies offer new operational concepts and force designs?”

The FY22-23 WIC “Future Hybrid Force” kicked off this summer with coursework leading to this design challenge workshop. The year-long interdisciplinary effort builds on last year’s “Hybrid Force 2045” WIC involving nearly 300 students and faculty and projects like counter-swarm systems for Unmanned Task Force. This year the WIC goes further into emerging technology applications, focusing on various opportunities to inform force design options as called for by the NAVPLAN. Capstone projects, theses, and research will investigate hybrid force solutions.

Learn more and register.

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  July 18, 2022

In this issue: Updates from the latest JIFX event, showcasing how NWSI amplifies NPS’ leadership in mission-critical technologies including unmanned aerial systems.

The NWSI team creates a fluid connection between activities throughout the innovation lifecycle at NPS and within the larger research innovation ecosystem: from sponsor-directed research to concept generation to experimental testing grounds to deployed officers educated to apply these innovations in the field.

How do we do it?

• Read on.

NPS Experimentation Discovers Military Uses for Latest Tech Innovations

The most recent Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event tested 5G communications and multi-domain technologies at two NPS facilities that allow innovators to see their latest creations in action on land, air, and water.

xRotor's first flight of the heavy-lift, multi-use tactical resupply drone at JIFX 22-3.

• Why it matters: Research or technology that has reached the level of prototyping can be tested in an accommodating field environment that connects industry, academia, the Navy and the larger national security community – worlds that are often too separated to learn from each other.

What the collaboration produces:

• Industry members get to see how their commercial products perform in a military environment.
• Navy and other military representatives get to see the newest advanced concepts and products from the commercial sector in action.
• When the two worlds intersect, participants collaboratively imagine ways to apply these technologies to military needs.

What NWSI Brings to JIFX

The NWSI team applies its naval warfare expertise and multidisciplinary network to amplify the impact of JIFX experiments, connecting these innovations with an audience larger than those who attend in person.

How it works:  Interim Director VADM (Ret) Dave Lewis attends every JIFX to find out what’s going on.

• Yes, and: He then reaches out to operational stakeholders to see if they’re aware of this technology and its potential. Often, these leaders from the Navy and Marine Corps immediately see the value and become involved in future experiments.

For example, a recent test of the TMGCore self-contained, liquid-cooled, highly portable high performance computer that was tested at the SLAMR facility at the NPS Beach Lab has gotten sustained interest from Navy and Marine Corps organizations.

• In short, NWSI positions NPS as an innovation leader for naval field experimentation.

You might also like this JIFX 22-3 experiment:

• Autonomous Deployable Drone Station with Rapid Battery Swapping

Airrow Inc. tested its Dronehub, an autonomous Drone station, that can automatically swap and charge batteries in deployed unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as well as manage all operations. Dronehub has the potential to fully automate takeoff, mission execution, and landing using computer-vision-guided robotics for precision in dynamic conditions.

JIFX by the numbers:

• Sixteen experiments were conducted across the venues by 186 registered participants from 59 organizations. These organizations included
  • 6 Navy organizations
  • 4 industry partners with active CRADAs
  • 3 Army organizations
  • 3 Air Force organizations
  • 3 combatant commands
  • 3 universities or university research centers
• Seventy aerial sorties and dozens of ground sorties were safely executed.

What, where, and who: JIFX 22-3 was held May 23–26 at the NPS McMillan Field Laboratory at Camp Roberts California National Guard Post, the SLAMR facility at the NPS Beach Lab near the main campus, and on Zoom. In attendance were a mix of representatives from NPS faculty and students, industry, military services, combatant commands, and other universities and research centers.

What’s next from industry partners:

Four industry partners with active Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) with NPS were on site to observe how their commercial technologies can be deployed for defense purposes. What they saw inspired plans for future collaborations:

• AT&T is exploring the potential to provide a Technical Operations Center, a 5G antenna, and storage for robotic aerial and ground systems for the NPS Field Laboratory. 
• TMGCore and NPS plan to modify our CRADA to examine afloat and expeditionary applications of their bistatic liquid cooled supercomputer.
• Gantz Mountain Intelligence Automation Systems has been getting traction from a variety of potential military users in part because of their CRADA with NPS and their participation in the JIFX events.  They plan to renew and extend their CRADA.
• Microsoft, the most recent NPS CRADA partner (profiled in the last newsletter) was on site to gather data related to how JIFX participants get and share information related to JIFX and defense opportunities. 

The next JIFX (22-4) will be held August 15-19, 2022, with a focus on Navigation in GPS-denied environments and Subterranean UGV Communications.

Learn more about JIFX events and calls for future experimentations.

Connect with NWSI

Future Hybrid Force Warfare Innovation Continuum Kicks Off

This month the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute Warfare Innovation Continuum begins its 13th year with the topic of “Future Hybrid Force.” 

• The larger research question for this continuum is: “How might the convergence of emerging technologies offer new operational concepts and force designs to create a more effective and resilient naval, joint and coalition force across the spectrum of conflict and in all domains?”

How it works: Each year the NPS adopts a major theme of naval interest to align over 300 faculty and scholars’ classroom, research, and capstone project work with emerging naval concepts, operational issues, and new technologies. The Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) is a series of independent but coordinated cross-campus educational and research activities to provide insight into the opportunities for warfighting in the complex and electromagnetically contested environment at sea and littorals.

Why it matters: Products from these efforts often precede and contribute to warfare development centers’ concept development campaigns.   The WIC contributes to the NPS mission in providing a graduate education experience which prepares our officers for uncertain conflict environments as technological and operational leaders. 

• Yes, and: This WIC’s efforts will contribute to, and be informed by, the Navy’s Analytic Master Plan events and studies as it progresses. For example, issues from Naval War College wargaming on the Future Force Design 2045 may shape the NPS WIC while in progress.

It’s all connected: Hybrid Future Force workshops enable problem-based design thinking and concept generation on the role of unmanned aerial systems in the Fleet. Experiments at JIFX events provide a testing ground for these concepts and prototypes, moving them from concept to application.

Get involved:

• For more information on the year-long warfare innovation continuum, contact Prof. Jeff Kline at jekline@nps.edu. 
• For opportunities to participate in the September Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop 19-22 September 2022 on the NPS campus in Monterey and on ZoomGov, contact Lyla Englehorn at wiw@nps.edu.

NPS Wargames Deliver Results for Naval Sponsors

The NWSI Wargaming Lead, Jeff Appleget, continues to support wargaming activities at NPS and in the field. These activities connect students, faculty, and operational sponsors around real-world challenges. Some of the latest accomplishments from the Spring 2022 quarter include the following:

• 51 NPS students in the wargaming applications course designed and developed nine wargames over the quarter, working directly with real-world sponsors in ongoing relationships that culminated in wargames lasting four days to explore the collaboratively defined problem set.
  • For example, one team worked with sponsor OPNAV N4 (Fleet Readiness and Logistics) on a contested logistics wargame. The team assessed how commanders can maximize time on station for deployed ships in a combat environment while accounting for intermediate level maintenance and battle damage assessment and repair.
• NPS assisted the US Army Europe and Africa wargaming section to develop their Commander’s wargame.
• Four NPS students are conducting thesis research to develop a strategic competition irregular warfare wargame for special operations staff planners.

Read more about NPS Wargaming Efforts.

Fleet Impact: Additive Manufacturing

USS Essex First Ship to Participate in Naval Postgraduate School 3D Printer Research

Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) partnered with Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMNAVSURFPAC), VADM Roy Kitchener, in facilitating the installation of a Xerox ElemX 3D printer on Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022. Essex is the first ship to participate in the initial testing and evaluation of the 3D printer during underway conditions to determine the printer’s viability when out to sea. Read more.

• The NWSI effect: CAPT Dan Sunvold, the Surface Warfare Chair in NWSI, made the connection with VADM Kitchener (an NPS alumnus), who first learned about the technology through the NPS-Xerox CRADA. Seeing its potential, VADM Kitchener gave his full support to NPS to install the technology on a ship for RIMPAC 2022.
  • Data from this at-sea experimentation are continuing to inform NPS research efforts in Additive Manufacturing.

Upcoming Events

Leading in the Cognitive Age -- Center for Executive Education Workshop
July 19, 2022 to July 23, 2022

Artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly changing the world around us from how we choose what to purchase to what new medicines we develop to how we protect our nation. It is on the verge of being one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created and has an evolving role in military applications. The purpose of this course is to help Navy leaders start becoming "AI-prepared" to lead in the emerging cognitive age. 

Objectives: 

• Understand what the technologies under the banner of artificial intelligence (AI) are
• Identify the geopolitical use and dispersion of AI
• Know the military applications of AI
• Ethical and responsible applications of AI
• Leading in a world altered by AI
• Applying an ADAPT mindset
• Recognize future AI trends

Who Should Enroll? 

The LCA course is designed for US Navy civilian GS-14 and GS-15s, active-duty Senior Chief Petty Officers, Master Chief Petty Officers, Lieutenant Commanders, Commanders, and Captains.

Learn more: https://nps.edu/web/cee/courses

JIFX 22-4
August 15-19, 2022

Focus Area: Navigation in GPS-Denied Environments & Subterranean UGV Communication

Location: NPS McMillan Field Laboratory at Camp Roberts California National Guard Post (San Miguel, CA)

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  June 3, 2022

NPS Partners with Microsoft to Accelerate the Digital Transformation of Naval Warfare Through Research and Education

Last month, NPS announced our latest industry partnership: we’ll be collaborating with Microsoft in a relationship cemented by a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). This collaboration will explore how rapidly evolving commercial technologies can solve operational challenges faced by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.

Microsoft Executive Vice President Jason Zander and NPS President VADM (Ret.) Ann Rondeau announce the CRADA at the Microsoft National Security Symposium in Washington, DC

The first stage of this partnership has four lines of effort:

• Edge cloud computing: Explore recent technical breakthroughs in intelligent edge computing solutions and cloud-enhanced networks, as well as how the Naval forces can leverage these developments for advantage.
• Campus of the future: Harness recent advances in digital teaching to create an NPS “smart campus” capable of delivering critical knowledge and skills to Sailors and Marines – anytime, anywhere.
• Gaming, exercising, modeling, and simulation (GEMS): Conduct research into how gaming, experimentation, modeling and simulation can improve military capability development and command decision making in an AI-enabled, all-domain battlespace.
• Innovation lab: Create a campus facility for testing and integrating the latest experiments from a joint innovation lab to the field, accelerating the pace of innovation to deliver emerging capabilities for our war fighters.”

Why it matters: Naval warfare meets emerging technology

This CRADA creates a framework for NPS researchers and students to bring their operationally informed and data-driven naval warfare perspective to bear on how this established technological leader develops the next generation of computing-enabled capabilities.

It’s a win-win.

• Faculty and students gain new research opportunities that are informed by real-time interaction with industry experts and commercial technologies. These opportunities include new capstone innovation projects and Secret-level collaboration projects on cloud capabilities and gaming, exercising, modeling, and simulation projects.

How NWSI led the effort

Since its inception, NWSI has always been considered a “change agent” at NPS. 

• With that in mind, in late 2021, NPS’ President challenged NWSI to find a way by which NPS could connect its research activities and the operational experience of its mid-career officer students with commercial companies who were clearly realizing cutting-edge technology breakthroughs with dual-use potential.

The test case for this government-industry approach to applied research at NPS was one of the Department of the Navy’s largest and most longstanding partners -- Microsoft. 

• Following a series of NWSI-led engagements at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington headquarters and NPS’ campus in Monterey, California, the two organizations quickly realized their shared goals and complementary capabilities.
• Accordingly, our two organizations signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) in February 2022.
• This four-project CRADA now brings Microsoft’s expertise and experience in cloud computing, collaboration tools, gaming, and experimentation to NPS and NPS’ expertise and experience in military operations, intelligence, and combat decision making to Microsoft, to everyone’s mutual benefit.

With this CRADA, NWSI is acting as a force multiplier for NPS. Our team connects disparate organizations in the Naval and national security research ecosystem to each other and to the NPS research community.

More about CRADAs

This CRADA follows other recent cooperative relationships NPS has established with industry partners over the past year and a half.

• NPS partnered with Xerox in February 2021, making NPS the first recipient of Xerox’s ElemX liquid metal printer.
• In August, NPS signed a CRADA with TMGCore to install their OTTO EdgeBox high-density computer in the NPS main data center.
• NPS and AT&T signed a CRADA in September that has led to the creation of a 5G tower at the SLAMR facility. This and related 5G capabilities have become testing grounds used at events like the latest Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event held last month.

Want to learn more about CRADAs? Review this handy guide.

What’s Next?

Check out next week’s Secretary of the Navy Guest Lecture with Microsoft Executive Vice President Jason Zander and NPS President Ann Rondeau. See details in the Upcoming Events section below.

For Short Attention Spans

Watch the two-minute video version and hear what leaders at Microsoft and NPS have to say about this collaboration.

Want to get involved?

Upcoming Events

Fifth Domain Competition: A Conversation with Microsoft Executive Vice President Jason Zander
June 6, 2022  |  3:00 pm PDT

In continuation of the recently announced partnership, don't miss this incredible event bringing together Microsoft's Executive VP Jason Zander and Naval Postgraduate School's President Ann Rondeau for the next Secretary of the Navy Guest Lecture. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Watch live on the NPS Live-Streaming Channel.
 

Wargaming Week
Jun 6, 2022 to Jun 9, 2022  |  0800-1700
Location: NPS Campus 

The culmination of Jeff Appleget's Wargaming Course. Multiple games are scheduled for the wee, including three games for sponsor U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, part of the Nimitz Research Group's support to PACFLEET. For more information, contact Jeff Appleget.
 

Seapower Conversation: The Need for U.S. Seapower in a Challenging World
June 7, 2022  |  12:00pm PT
Location: Online and in Glasgow 109

How does the emergence of new technologies and competitors disrupt established naval operations and force structure? We've set up a panel connecting retired Navy Capt. Bill Hamblet, Executive Editor with USNI Proceedings, with two of the three NPS faculty members who recently wrote “A Maritime Conversation with America:” retired Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kline and Dr. James Wirtz.
 

Marine Corps Intelligence Activity CO visit
June 8, 2022 to June 10, 2022  |  0800-1700
Location: NPS Campus 

Col Brendan Harper, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA) Commanding Officer, is coming to see NPS and talk to the NPS Marines. He is leaving MCIA this summer, going to II Marine Expeditionary Force to be the G2.  POC: Col Pugh
 

Maritime Gray Zone meeting with Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office (JIFCO)
June 9, 2022  | 1200-1300
Location: Glasgow 109 

Col Leimbach will brief and discuss the Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office and their work with non-lethal, disabling capabilities for the Joint Force. This presentation reinforces some work already done by Prof Ann Baylouny and her team in NSA and CS. It also provides the opportunity for additional information.
 

Leading in the Cognitive Age -- Center for Executive Education Workshop
July 19, 2022 to July 23, 2022

Artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly changing the world around us from how we choose what to purchase to what new medicines we develop to how we protect our nation. It is on the verge of being one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created and has an evolving role in military applications. The purpose of this course is to help Navy leaders start becoming "AI-prepared" to lead in the emerging cognitive age. 

Recent Engagements

NAVAL Artificial Intelligence SHURA
May 17-19, 2022

The Navy’s major warfare communities have all established Artificial Intelligence Task Forces in order to better understand the Service’s man, train and equip-associated opportunities and challenges for accelerated AI adoption and then to explore and pursue ways to apply artificial intelligence to improve peacetime and wartime mission efficiency.   The principal objective of the Navy AI Shura was to facilitate Naval AI Task Force cross-communication, information-sharing and lesson-learning to the benefit of each Task Force and the DoN-enterprise as a whole; sharing data, models, catalogs, algorithms, experiential data and other AI building blocks are key to the DoN objective of scaling AI.  

DRDO, India's Premier Defense R&D Organization, Visits NPS to Explore Establishing Joint Learning and Research Initiatives

On May 4, 2022, NPS hosted Dr. Satheesh Shetty, Chairman, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), India, and his team to explore a mutual collaboration between the two institutions, NPS and DRDO, in support of the US and Indian Navy’s emergent technology needs. The visit was championed by Dr. Brij Agrawal, Prof. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and included representation from NPS’s legal, international partnership departments and NWSI.

DRDO is the premier agency in the Ministry of Defense of the Government of India, charged with the military’s R&D. With a network of 45 laboratories, university partnerships, and ~ 7000 scientists covering fields ranging from aeronautics, armaments, electronics, life sciences, materials, missiles, to naval systems, DRDO is India’s largest and most diverse research organization with an annual budget of ~3 billion dollars.

Discussions were encouraging. NPS has offered to evaluate the potential of two efforts:

• a joint training program in 3D manufacturing and artificial intelligence, to include student exchanges as necessary
• additional collaborative R&D programs in areas of mutual benefit.

India will seek permission from NPS to benefit from courses currently available from NPS in the public domain and/or work with NPS to evolve new courses for the Indian Navy.

Why it matters: This effort is significant in light of the renewed focus within the DoD on international partnerships and leveraging alliances with likeminded nations for common cause in evolving solutions to looming national security threats.

NWSI Launches Warrior-Scholar Reading Group

On May 6, the NWSI critical thinking and judgment branch held the first meeting of an informal reading group composed of learning leaders coming together to embrace reading, small group discussion, active learning and other founding principles of General Al Gray.  A former Marine Corp Commandant, known as the father of Maneuver Warfare, General Gray founded Marine Corps University on a vision of active learning, critical thinking and judgment; developed material for reading and learning including the USMC first reading list. Current Navy and MC leadership have emphasized learning and reading as well, recognizing the importance of cultivating growth mindset for our warrior scholar leaders.

 The initial group consists of about a dozen students/graduates from a handful of different curricula, most of them also alumni from our courses on “critical thinking” and “art and science of learning.” The group of learning leaders will meet about once a month on weekends. In keeping with the CMC’s emphasis on post-industrial age learning (and the emphasis on learning codified into strategic document, such as MCDP-7), the informal discussion operates organically rather than following a classroom model, designed as a pilot initiative to cultivate warrior-scholars who are intrinsically motivated to learn outside of institutional and instructional learning. The first book is “Winter is Coming”. If successful, we may establish an on-campus version of the group.

Stay tuned for updates / extensions; or for more information contact meaugier@nps.edu

Recent Publications from the NPS NWSI Team

John Boyd on competition and conflict
Barry Watts and Mie Augier, Comparative Strategy

This article reprises central aspects of John Boyd’s thinking about competition and conflict, including his unwavering reliance on analogies and connections between disciplines as disparate as fighter tactics, decision theory, history, philosophy, and physics. We trace how elements of Boyd’s ideas about winning and losing have been incorporated (or neglected) in the doctrines of the U.S. military services. Given the richness of Boyd’s ideas there is much we can learn from the view of decision making underlying the Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop, for which he is best known, as well as the analogical reasoning embodied in slide presentations such as his massive “Patterns of Conflict.”