51

Welcome - Department of Defense Analysis

The mission of the Defense Analysis Department is to arm select US and international military professionals and interagency personnel with the critical thinking skills and specialized knowledge that they will need for waging and prevailing in the complex conflicts under way — and those to come.

Explore the Department

The Department of Defense Analysis is home to three very unique and highly respected graduate programs—the USSOCOM-sponsored Special Operations and Irregular Warfare (SO/IW) program, the USDP-sponsored Information Strategy and Political Warfare program, and the NSW-sponsored Applied Design for Innovation (AD4I) program. In addition, the Department also offers a graduate certificate in Social Network Analysis, Research and Practice.

The Defense Analysis Department features an interdisciplinary faculty representing a wide range of academic and operational specialties, purposefully built that way to examine the complexities of irregular warfare and information strategy.  The department believes the security challenges of the 21st century cannot be addressed by only one academic discipline

Visit our Research Centers:

 


CODA Lab

 

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Upcoming Events

September 23, 2024 to September 26, 2024
Warfare Innovation Continuum Workshop
September 27, 2024
2024 Summer Graduation
September 29, 2024 to October 3, 2024
EUCOM International Symposium

contact us

Contact the DA Department

dainfo@nps.edu
Department of Defense Analysis
(Code DA)
589 Dyer Rd , Room 214
51
Monterey, CA 93943

A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR, DR. CARTER MALKASIAN

51 Defense Analysis Chairman, Dr. Carter Malkasian

Welcome to the Defense Analysis Department (DA) at the 51. Our traditional motto is, “train for certainty, educate for uncertainty.” In short, educating students is the most important activity we do. Our central focus is preparing our students to perform exceptionally well as leaders in the world they will face after graduation, both in their next assignments, and also for a lifetime.

First and foremost, as a graduate school, 51 inverts the common educational paradigm. At 51 and DA , f contribute to the latest developments in their chosen disciplines, but our focus is on the development of human capital: . Bottom line difference: at 51 the faculty work for the students, and all of us together pursue the core national security mission.

Department News

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Latest Articles

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The race to build autonomous weapons will have as much impact on military affairs in the twenty-first century as aircraft did on land and naval warfare in the twentieth century. 


In On the Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin wrestled with the question of why people would ever be willing to risk themselves for strangers. Only in 1871, in The Descent of Man, did Darwin find an answer.

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Faculty Publications

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The American War in Afghanistan is a full history of the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020. It covers political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war and details the actions and decision-making of the United States, Afghan government, and Taliban. The work follows a narrative format to go through the 2001 US invasion, the state-building of 2002–2005, the Taliban offensive of 2006, the US surge of 2009–2011, the subsequent drawdown, and the peace talks of 2019–2020. 



Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser, who have both served in the military, examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way.

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