What does the Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) do when the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard release a new edition of the Navy’s capstone publication, Naval Doctrine Publication (NDP) 1, Naval Warfare?
A naval service-wide hard-copy distribution, of course!
For more than 25 years, NWDC has been the Navy’s central resource for providing doctrinal products to the Navy. NWDC serves the Navy’s doctrine and tactics needs by maintaining a 24/7-accessible online library, keeping Collaboration At Sea stocked with current doctrinal products for the at-sea warfighter, and producing DVD-ROMs of allied and multinational publications for semi-annual mailing to Navy commands. NWDC also assists commands with “print on demand” orders and makes sure precommissioning commands have a complete hard-copy library of publications in their initial loadouts.
The April 2020 edition of NDP 1, Naval Warfare, is a special occasion requiring a special distribution. As the pinnacle publication for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard’s doctrine libraries, it supersedes the 2010 edition with a complete revision, focusing squarely on the demands of our new era, where the maritime domain is no longer an assumed sanctuary and sea control is no longer a presumptive fact. It is written for a broad audience of Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guard men and women, as well as the civil servants and general public who support them.
For this reason, NWDC has endeavored to get hard copies mailed to the operational and supporting commands in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. A once-in-a-decade occurrence, a mailing of this magnitude requires the cooperation of all three Services and a lot of time and effort by printers, packagers, address database managers, and mail couriers—all dedicated individuals contributing to the team effort of getting this important product into your hands.
NWDC coordinated with its fellow naval Services to procure 12,600 copies for this broad distribution. Working closely with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), NWDC sought to print, package, and mail these copies as cost effectively as possible. Boxes of NDP 1 started arriving at NWDC in July for special distribution, and DLA managed the bulk of the distribution to Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard commands. To date, more than 8,000 copies have been mailed to nearly 2,800 commands. Copies have been sent to the various offices of the Chief of Naval Operations, and NWDC is currently working to get copies to our representatives in Congress.
Has your command received its NDP 1 distribution?
While NWDC wants to get this important publication into as many hands as possible, it is not feasible to reach everyone. If your command would like to have its first three copies sent free of charge, navigate to https://nll.navsup.navy.mil and order publication 0411LP1195233. The online version is available at https://doctrine.navy.mil and https://doctrine.navy.smil.mil. Contact NWDC_NRFK_FLEET_PUBS@navy.mil for assistance.