"Special Feature—Twenty Years of the China Maritime Studies Institute" - by CWP alum Andrew Erickson

This fall, the Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) marks twenty years since its official launch on 1 October 2006. Members of the self-organized faculty “China Maritime Studies Group” approached the College’s provost in the fall of 2004 with the idea of creating CMSI. The core founding members—Professors Lyle Goldstein, William Murray, Andrew “Dex” Wilson, and (this author) Andrew Erickson—proposed the institute to James Giblin, then provost of the College. Following approval from the President, Rear Admiral Jacob Shuford, Giblin established CMSI within the Center for Naval Warfare Studies’ Strategic Research Department on 1 October 2004; the institute quickly proved its worth and two years later became an official Navy program and the first service-level China center in the Defense Department.1 CMSI’s founding principles included a unique focus on People’s Republic of China (PRC) military maritime issues—a far broader remit than just naval affairs—encompassing activity across the waterfront. We insisted that scholarship can and should be relevant to the U.S. Navy and government. We saw our research as a collegial calling, with great emphasis on teamwork and scaling scholarship through intensive collaboration among professionals with diverse expertise, from linguistics and area studies to technology and military operations. We believed that rigorously analyzing pedigreed Chinese-language open sources could offer valuable insights, particularly by surveying PRC thinking and discerning inner layers indirectly, as well as through probing hard-to-measure emerging dynamics. These inductive methodologies would yield a better understanding for decision makers, who never have all the information they desire. The same methods would paint a picture of the context and underlying currents in ways otherwise unavailable to the U.S. government—even

Erickson, Andrew S. (2026) "Special Feature—Twenty Years of the China Maritime Studies Institute," Naval War College Review: Vol. 79: No. 4, Article 16. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol79/iss4/16

Andrew S. Erickson is professor of strategy in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the Naval War College. A core founding member, he helped establish CMSI and stand it up officially in 2006 and played an integral role in its development; ERICKSON 169 from 2021 to 2023 he served as research director. CMSI inspired the creation of other research centers, which Erickson has advised and supported; he is a China Aerospace Studies Institute associate. Erickson is also an adjunct professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. Erickson is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Asia Center, and he has been an associate in research at Harvard’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies since 2008. In 2024, Erickson was awarded the Navy Superior Civilian Service Medal. His research website is www .andrewerickson.com.

Photo Credit: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8551&context=nwc-review