Michael T. McMaster is a Professor of Joint Maritime Operations at the US Naval War College in Monterey, California. He served in the US Navy and is a retired commander. In 2006 and 2007, he presented two papers with Professor Kenneth Hagan on the history of US naval strategy at conferences of the Royal Australian Navy. He contributed to - and served as associate editor of - In Peace and War: Interpretations of American Naval History (Greenwood/ABC Clio, 2008). He was co-editor for Strategy in the American War of Independence (Routledge, 2009) and he co-authored 'His Remarks Reverberated From Berlin to Washington' in the Naval Institute Proceedings in December 2010. He and Professor Hagan presented a paper on the US Navy in the First World War at the Fifth Conference of the International Society for First World War Studies in London in 2009 and, in 2011, a paper entitled ‘William Sowden Sims and Five Classmates in the Old Navy’s School House, 1876-1880’ at the United States Naval Academy Naval History Symposium. He is co-author of ‘The Anglo-American Naval Checkmate of Germany’s Guerre de Course, 1917-1918' in 'Commerce Raiding: Historical Case Studies, 1755-2009', Naval War College Newport Papers 40 (Naval War College Press, 2013).

Donald Stoker is Professor of National Resource Security and Strategy and the National Defense University's Eisenhower School and a Senior Fellow with Atlas Organization, both in Washington, DC. From 1999 to 2017, he was Professor of Strategy and Policy for the US Naval War College's Monterey Program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, The author or editor of 12 books, his revised 'Why America Loses Wars' is being released in paperback in 2022. His 'Carl von Clausewitz: His Life and Work' (Oxford University Press, 2014), is on the British Army professional reading list. His 'The Grand Design: Strategy and the US Civil War, 1861-1865' (Oxford University Press, 2010), won the prestigious Fletcher Pratt award, was a Main Selection of the History Book Club, is on the US Army Chief of Staff's reading list, and is widely used as a text in strategic studies and history courses both in the US and abroad. In 2016, he was a Fellow of the Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford's Pembroke College. During the 2017-2018 academic year he was the Fulbright Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, Austria.

Cambridge University Press is publishing his latest book: 'American Grand Strategy Since 1775.'

Photo Credit: Maria Sigala