The Hoover Institution invites you to a virtual presentation of Wargaming the Pacific: Lessons from the Naval War College's Interwar Games on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, from 12:00-2:00 pm PT.
This webinar examines the interwar wargames conducted at the U.S. Naval War College before World War II and their foundational role in shaping U.S. naval doctrine and strategic planning. We will explore how these games contributed to America’s success in the Pacific Theater, their enduring impact on U.S. military effectiveness, and the remarkable archival materials preserved by the Naval War College.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Norman Friedman is a strategist known for melding historical, technical, and strategic factors in analyses of current problems. He spent over a decade at a prominent think tank, then a decade as a personal consultant to the Secretary of the Navy in the Office of Program Appraisal, and later served as a futurologist at Marine Corps headquarters. His government work has included studies on defense transformation, network-centric warfare, U.S. and British aircraft carrier development, over-the-horizon targeting, torpedo and mine countermeasures, and U.S. industrial mobilization, as well as major historical analyses such as interwar wargaming, U.S. Navy air defense missiles, and the MRAP program. Dr. Friedman has published over forty books, including the award-winning The Fifty Year War, and has received major honors such as the Westminster Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morrison Prize, the Lyman Prize, the Commodore Dudley W. Knox Medal, and the Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award. His writing has appeared widely in leading defense and national security publications. Dr. Friedman received his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University.
Jon Scott Logel is a professor in War Gaming Department of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the United States Naval War College. Since joining the War Gaming Department faculty in 2011, he has focused his research on the use of historical methods in war game analysis for gaining insights into maritime and joint operational issues. Specifically, he has collaborated in qualitative research and analytical projects that have informed the Navy’s development of future naval warfighting concepts, and the drafting of operational plans to address current and emerging threats. His additional research explores American history and the influence of military education and professionalization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is the author of Designing Gotham: West Point Engineers and the Rise of New York, 1817-1898 with LSU press, co-author of several white papers and chapters on war gaming and analysis, and multiple war game reports. He served twenty-one years as an Army Aviation officer, including combat deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. He holds BA from Wake Forest University and PhD from Syracuse University.
Jacquelyn Schneider is the Hargrove Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, and an affiliate with Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, autonomous technologies, wargames, and Northeast Asia. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the Naval War College as well as a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Dr. Schneider is an active member of the defense policy community with previous positions at the Center for a New American Security and the RAND Corporation. Before beginning her academic career, she spent six years as an Air Force officer in South Korea and Japan and is currently a reservist assigned to US Space Systems Command. She has a BA from Columbia University, MA from Arizona State University, and PhD from George Washington University.
