National Defense University Foundation

06/10/2026

This week at the National Defense University Foundation (NDUF), we are sharing the latest updates from the university alongside our mission to support strategic education and leadership. This community of donors, alumni, staff and partners continues to drive impact at the intersection of education, defense, and national security.

Click here to read the full skim:

NDU 50th Anniversary Series Crossing the Stage: A Reflection on Commencement in NDU's 50th Year Article submitted by the 50th Anniversary Committee This week at Fort McNair, NDU graduates will gather beneath a tent near Roosevelt Hall to mark the completion of an academic journey. Families arrive fr

06/09/2026

SPECIAL OPERATIONS

Military activities conducted by specially designated, trained, and equipped forces to achieve strategic objectives through unconventional, covert, or direct action missions.

Where conventional forces operate with mass and firepower, special operations forces operate with precision, speed, and strategic effect. These are the missions that rarely make headlines but frequently determine outcomes. From direct action raids to unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense, special operations represent one of the most consequential and complex instruments of national power available to a commander.

Understanding how and when to employ that instrument requires more than operational expertise. It demands strategic judgment, regional understanding, interagency fluency, and the ability to connect tactical action to national security objectives. That is precisely the intellectual terrain National Defense University prepares its leaders to navigate, across every college, every seminar, and every program designed to develop the next generation of America's most consequential decision-makers.

06/09/2026

Fort Bragg, June 4th. The JSOMA Class of 2026 crossed the stage.

The programs laid out. The books that shaped a year of rigorous thinking stacked alongside them. The caps and gowns in their seats, waiting. These images capture something that no statistic can fully convey: the weight of what it means to step away from the operational force, invest a year in sharpening your strategic mind, and walk across that stage ready for what comes next.

NDU Foundation proudly congratulates the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts graduates of the College of International Security Affairs. You return to your commands with an intellectual edge that will define your leadership for years to come.

Congratulations, JSOMA Class of 2026.

06/08/2026

Nationals Park. President's Cup. Eisenhower School.

Congratulations to the ES students, faculty, and staff on taking home the 2026 President's Cup. A culture of excellence that shows up in the classroom shows up everywhere else too.

NDUF is proud to amplify this win.

06/07/2026

When companies like and host students and fellows they gain valuable insights into the industrial base, its leadership and capabilities, and they begin building their long term understanding and network that will inform their careers and our national security. Thank you!

06/05/2026

A fitting close to the academic year at the National War College.

General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered this year's Scowcroft Lecture at NWC, sponsored by the National War College Alumni Association.

His remarks carried the weight of decades at the highest levels of American military leadership and offered the Class of 2026 exactly the kind of strategic perspective that this institution was built to deliver.
NDUF is proud to amplify this moment. When a leader of General Dunford's caliber takes the time to speak to the next generation of America's senior strategists, it reflects everything the Scowcroft Lecture Series was created to represent. Strategic clarity, earned through a lifetime of service, passed forward to those who will carry it next.
Thank you, General Dunford.

06/05/2026

This week at the National Defense University Foundation (NDUF), we are sharing the latest updates from the university alongside our mission to support strategic education and leadership. This community of donors, alumni, staff and partners continues to drive impact at the intersection of education, defense, and national security.

Click here:

JFSC’s 80th Anniversary: A Leader in Joint Education The decade from 1976 to 1986 was a transformative period for the Armed Forces Staff College (AFSC), as the institution adapted to major changes in military strategy, professional education, and national defense priorities. Emerging from the Viet...

06/05/2026

June 6, 1944. In the early hours before dawn, more than 156,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel toward five beaches on the coast of Normandy, France. What followed was the largest seaborne invasion in history, a feat of joint planning, coalition leadership, and individual courage that changed the trajectory of the Second World War and the course of the free world.

Eighty-two years later, the lessons of that day remain foundational to how America thinks about joint operations, alliance strength, and the strategic discipline required to execute at scale under the most unforgiving conditions imaginable.

NDU Foundation pauses to honor every soldier, sailor, airman, and Allied service member who stood at the water's edge on June 6(which is tomorrow), 1944.

We remember.

06/04/2026

Graduating during NDU's 50th Anniversary year carries a pride that extends far beyond the ceremony. Today at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the National Defense University Foundation proudly congratulates the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts Class of 2026.

These graduates enter their next assignments carrying the analytical rigor, strategic clarity, and specialized expertise that CISA's JSOMA program is built to develop. The work they will do, the decisions they will make, and the leaders they will become are exactly why NDU's mission matters.

Class of 2026, the NDU Foundation honors your achievement. The mission continues with you.

06/03/2026

Leading up, leading down, and knowing the difference. The NDU Student Town Hall brought together military, civilian, and private sector perspectives to prepare the Class of 2026 for exactly the kind of senior leadership the nation requires.

NDUF is proud to amplify this moment as graduation approaches.