James Holmes is the inaugural holder of the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and a recipient of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal honoring his research and writing. He previously served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs, Center for International Trade and Security, where he remains a Nonresident Fellow. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University.
A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer and combat veteran of the first Gulf War, he served as a weapons and engineering officer in the battleship Wisconsin, engineering and firefighting instructor at the Surface Warfare Officers School Command, and military professor of strategy at the Naval War College. He is the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger.
Jim is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vanderbilt University (mathematics and German) and completed graduate work at Salve Regina University (international relations), Providence College (mathematics), and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (international relations), where he was named the A. Eiken Hohenberg Scholar. He was the first recipient of the Naval War College Foundation Award, signifying the top graduate in his Naval War College class.
Jim's most recent books are Habits of Highly Effective Maritime Strategists, a nominee for the U.K. Maritime Foundation’s Mountbatten Best Book Award for 2022, A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy, and a second edition of Red Star over the Pacific: China's Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy. His books have appeared on the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Indo-Pacific Command Professional Reading Lists since 2012.
General Jim Mattis calls him "troublesome.";