Academic Chairs

Trent Hone is the Marine Corps University Foundation Chair of Strategic Studies at Marine Corps University (MCU) in Quantico, Virginia. In addition to teaching naval history and theory, he consults with organizations and federal agencies to improve their art of practice, accelerate learning, and innovate more effectively. Mr. Hone’s work is fueled by an interest in organizational learning and operational effectiveness. He is excited to bring these perspectives—and his rich expertise in naval history, strategy, and innovation—to MCU and grateful to the Foundation for the opportunity to do so. He joined the MCU team in August 2025.

Mr. Hone’s book Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945, brought a new and valuable perspective that explains how the U.S. Navy harnessed learning mechanisms to accelerate victory. It was the U.S. Naval Institute’s Book of the Year for 2018. Mr. Hone’s article, “U.S. Navy Surface Battle Doctrine and Victory in the Pacific” was awarded the U.S. Naval War College’s Edward S. Miller Prize and the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Ernest M. Eller Prize. His essay, “Guadalcanal Proved Experimentation Works” earned second place in the 2017 Chief of Naval Operations Naval History Essay Contest.

Mr. Hone’s latest book, Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific War, was published in September 2022. It is a detailed examination of Admiral Nimitz’s leadership during World War II and describes how Nimitz used his talents to win crucial victories against the forces of Imperial Japan, seize the initiative, and execute an offensive campaign that created the conditions for victory in the Pacific.

Mr. Hone has addressed a variety of organizations and institutions, including the U.S. Naval War College, the CNO Executive Panel, OPNAV N7, the Naval Warfare Development Center, NSWC Carderock, the USMC National Operations Training Symposium, the Joint and Combined Warfighting School, the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, the Australian War College, and the Indian Naval War College. Mr. Hone has also spoken at the National World War II Museum, the National Museum of the Pacific War, Johns Hopkins APL, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World War II History Round Table, as well as a wide variety of conferences in the United States and Europe.

Dr. James Lacey has been the Professor of War Policy Strategy at the Marine Corps War College (MCWAR) at the Marine Corps university (MCU) for the past decade. Prior to that he was a widely published senior analyst at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, DC. Lacey served over a dozen years on active duty as an infantry officer and is retired from the Army Reserves. In addition to teaching at MCWAR he has also taught graduate level courses in Military History and Global Issues at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities. Dr. Lacey was an embedded journalist with Time magazine during the invasion of Iraq, where he traveled with the 101st Airborne Division. He has written extensively for many other magazines and his opinion columns have been published in, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the New York Post, the New York Sun, Foreign Affairs and many other publications. Jim Lacey is also regularly published in Military History Magazine, Military History Quarterly, and the Journal of Military History.

Lacey is the author of Moment of Battle (Bantam), The First Clash (Bantam), Takedown: the 3rd Infantry Division’s 21-Day Assault on Baghdad (Naval Institute Press), Pershing (Palgrave-Macmillan) The Making of Peace (Cambridge University Press) and The Making of Grand Strategy (Cambridge University Press) and Keep from all Thoughtful Men (USNI, 2010) He also has published a trilogy of works on global terrorism (Naval Institute Press). His two most recent books are Great Strategic Rivalries (Oxford, 2017) and The Washington War, dealing with the relationship between FDR, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the War Cabinet during WW II (Bantam, 2019).  His latest work, Gods of War, dealing with those times in history when great captains have fought each other was published in May 2020.  He is currently researching The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire and Models of Great State Competition.

Mr. Kael Weston represented the U.S. government for over a decade as a State Department official. Across seven consecutive years in Iraq and Afghanistan (2003-2010), he worked closely with frontline U.S. military units, local Iraqi and Afghan leaders, and coalition partners in Fallujah, Baghdad and Sadr City, and Khost and Helmand provinces. He served as the State Department Political Advisor to Marine commanding generals in both wars, including Generals James Conway, John Sattler, Robert Neller, and Larry Nicholson.

While serving previously at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York City, he was the U.S. representative on the UN Security Council’s Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee and helped oversee U.S. government sanctions policy on Iraq.

Weston is author of the book, The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan (Knopf/Penguin Random House, 2016), a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Military Times’ Best Book of the Year, and recipient of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award. He has also written for Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal and has been frequently interviewed on NPR about U.S. foreign policy.

Weston is a graduate of the University of Utah (BA), University of Cambridge (MPhil), and did additional PhD coursework at the London School of Economics and was a Fulbright Scholar in the Netherlands.

As the Marine Corps University Kim T. Adamson Chair of Insurgency and Terrorism since 2018, Mr. Weston lectures across the schools, including the Marine Corps War College – MCWAR, the Command and Staff College – CSC, the School of Advanced Warfighting – SAW, and the Expeditionary Warfare School – EWS. Through MCU’s College of Distance Education and Training, he has taught a course focused on the civilian experience in warfare (“Homefronts as Warfronts”) and another course that explores war through film and documentaries. Weston has instructed Marines in Okinawa and Hawaii, 29 Palms, and through ongoing joint PME with retired LtGen Larry Nicholson. In a related capacity as the MCUF Adamson Chair, he advises and mentors Marines (active duty and reserve) regarding their various writing projects, such as newspaper opinion pieces, national security and military journal articles, as well as books (novels and nonfiction).

“MCUF continues to serve a critical function for MCU education and training objectives. In my role, I have focused PME instruction on the importance of healthy State Department – Pentagon relationships, both in DC and abroad, and how diplomacy is done to reinforce U.S. national security. Former Secretary of State George Shultz — a former WWII-era Marine Corps captain — rightly compared diplomacy to gardening: how relationships inside government and between governments takes care, consistency and work. MCUF helps ensure today’s Marines are ready for today’s global challenges — and opportunities.”

Website: www.jkweston.com