The School of Defense and Strategic Studies (DSS) is a unique and venerable institution
that has been educating national security professionals for more than half a century.
Founded by Professor William R. Van Cleave at the University of Southern California,
he relocated DSS in 1987 to the Springfield, Missouri, campus of Missouri State University.
In 2005, Missouri State relocated DSS to the Washington, DC, area. DSS has remained
true to the spirit and goal of its founder, which is to develop the type of scholarly
and realistic national security practitioners for which DSS is well known throughout
the U.S. policy community.
DSS has acquired a strong reputation in national security policy circles for the rigorous
and security-forward “flavor” of its instruction and the caliber of its graduates.
As the School continues to grow, to increase its academic offerings, and to expand
its engagement with the policy and strategy world and the broader higher education
community, it is important to set forth a clear vision of the principles that lie
behind our success to date and will guide us in the years ahead. We thus attempt to
articulate here what might be called the “Five Principles of DSS.
The DSS Philosophy
Consistent with Missouri State University’s commitment to being a community of citizen
scholars committed to public affairs, as well as the University’s vision of itself
as the nation’s leading public affairs university, the School of Defense and Strategic
Studies (DSS) is an academic institution dedicated to training outstanding national
security professionals and to producing and catalyzing the development of national
security wisdom and policy insight.
To this end, DSS reveres five principles:
Clarity and Rigor
Consistent with Professor Van Cleave’s original intent, DSS is committed to training
outstanding national security professionals. Our emphasis is on education with intellectual
rigor, careful study of evidence and history, and an unstinting honesty that makes
a true professional unafraid to speak truth to power with clarity.
Practitioner focused
DSS is a unique academic institution dedicated first and foremost to preparing future
policymakers and advisors for success and national leadership. A core strength of
our faculty is their deep experience as practitioner-educators who bring rich expertise
in real-world decision-making to training those who protect our nation and advise
its leadership.
National Security Professionalism
Building on Professor Van Cleave’s original vision for DSS, we are devoted to improving
the policy wisdom and perspicacity of national leaders. While resolutely dedicated
to the Good, our instruction reflects awareness of the many ways in which the human
condition all too frequently impedes progress from “what is” to “what ought to be,”
and that idealism can mislead when unalloyed by analysis and prudence. We thus understand
that enthusiasm, however noble, can distort perception and reason, and that pursuit
of the perfect can sometimes preclude achieving the best outcomes actually available.
We at DSS are dedicated to educating young and mid-career students to meet the challenges
of policymaking, strategy development, and mission execution with understanding and
wisdom in a sharp-edged world. Our motto is thus professionalism in pursuit of national security, with all of the rigor and responsibility that mandate
demands.
Nonpartison Instruction and Scholarship
Members of the DSS academic community are entirely free – and indeed are encouraged
– to hold and to express their own views. The School takes no official position on
matters of politics, religion, ideology, or public policy. We are a community of independent
scholars and are dedicated to presenting students with multiple perspectives and helping
them understand and evaluate the competing positions often taken with regard to how
to address fundamental issues of national security.
Freedom of Speech and Inquiry
DSS is committed to the Chicago Principles, adopted at the University of Chicago in 2014 and by many other institutions since
then. In this respect, we proclaim ourselves “committed to free and open inquiry in
all matters,” so that all members of the DSS community can enjoy the broadest possible
latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn. We do not feel it our role
to attempt to shield students from public ideas and opinions they find unwelcome,
disagreeable, or possibly offensive.
As the Chicago Principles make clear, it is vitally important that limitations on
speech never be used in a manner that are inconsistent with our commitment to the
free and open discussion of ideas: “debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because
the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University
community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” Instead, we seek to
foster the ability of members of our academic community to engage in debate and deliberation.
Being able to do so in an effective and responsible manner is an essential part of
the DSS educational mission. As members of a scholarly and civic community, we at
DSS will debate and express contending positions with civility and respect. In the
words of the Chicago Principles, we have, “a solemn responsibility not only to promote
a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that
freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”
