Dr. Douglas C. Peifer is a Professor in the Department of Strategy and Course Director of the Foundations of Strategy curriculum. He holds a MA and Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His primary field of concentration is modern diplomatic and military history, with a special interest in the nexus between strategy, history, international politics, and culture. He has published The Three German Navies: Dissolution, Transition, and New Beginnings (translated and published in Germany as Drei Deutsche Marinen. Auflösung, Übergänge und Neuanfänge) and Stopping Mass Killings in Africa: Genocide, Airpower, and Intervention, along with articles in The Journal of Military History, Strategic Studies Quarterly, War in History, War and Society, Contemporary European History, European Security, and The German Studies Review. He is currently researching the historical record of “gunboat diplomacy,” air control, and coercive airpower, with his broader area of interest and expertise centering on the dynamics of military disintegration; the coercive use of force; the interaction between history, culture, and foreign policy; European security issues; and the challenges posed by genocide and mass killings.
CDR Robert E. (Bob) Poling III is a Surface Warfare Officer teaching in the Department of Warfigthing. He received a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of San Diego in 1991 and was commissioned through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corp. His assignments afloat include tours in USS PYRO, USS FLINT, USS CHANCELLORSVILLE, USS LEYTE GULF, USS DECATUR and Commanding Officer of Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron TWO. Ashore, CDR Poling has taught at the United States Naval Academy, served on the staff of Commander THIRD FLEET as the MIO/VBSS officer and maritime planner, served as the section head for Ballistic Missile Defense in the Surface Warfare Directorate in OPNAV and as Deputy Executive Assistant to the N8. His academic background includes the Naval War College, Distance Education Command and Staff Program, a Master of Arts in Naval History from the American Military University, and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the Air War College.
