Henry J. Hendrix

Hendrix graduated from Purdue University in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in political science. He holds master's degrees in national security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School and history from Harvard University, and a PhD in war studies from King's College, London.[1]

Hendrix with Admiral James Stavridis as director of the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Hendrix joined the United States Navy in 1988 as a commissioned officer, and completed his flight training to become a naval flight officer in 1989.[2] He was stationed with Patrol Squadron 10, and deployed to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, North Atlantic, and Caribbean. In 1994, he joined the USS Theodore Roosevelt as a tactical action officer, and deployed to the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. In 1997 Hendrix served as Fleet Training Officer for the Patrol Squadron 30 where he supervised the Aircraft Improvement Program. He then took command of Tactical Air Control Squadron 11 and deployed again to the Gulf.[2]

As a staff officer, Hendrix worked on the Chief of Naval Operations executive panel on homeland defense, naval aviation, and naval missile defense, as the Executive Secretary for the Irregular Warfare Quadrennial Defense Review at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, as an assistant to Andrew Marshall in the Office of Net Assessment, advising with regards to future developments in military technology, and was director of the Secretary of the Navy's advisory panel.[2]

At the time of his retirement, he was the director of the Naval History and Heritage Command and the official curator of the Navy.[2]

After retirement from the Navy, Hendrix worked at the Center for a New American Security, where he was a senior fellow and director of the defense program.[1] As part of his work with center, he testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower on strategies for achieving U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for a 350 ship navy.[10]

He is currently the vice president of the Telemus Group, a security consultancy specializing in defense forecasting, wargaming and qualitative analysis.[11]

Hendrix's work has covered a range of subjects within the fields of naval history, strategy, and planning. He is a vocal advocate of a "high-low" naval procurement policy, which combines limited high tech capabilities with an array of lower cost, lower maintenance ships, aircraft, and weapons systems in order to balance different grades of threats.[12] [13]

He is known for challenging the prevailing U.S. naval doctrine on a number of points. For example, he is critical of aircraft carriers on grounds of their high expense and questionable survivability in modern strategic environments.[14][15] [16] He has proposed modifying the structure of the carrier air wing to include more unmanned aerial vehicles, which he believes essential to countering modern threats. [17]

Hendrix also favors increasing the number and capabilities of strategic bombers. He contends that a large and effective fleet of bombers has a historical precedent of reducing the total length of wars, and can simultaneously force rivals to invest in air defenses while acting as a powerful deterrent.[18] His support for this policy is in part derived from his work on Theodore Roosevelt's use of naval power as a tool for diplomacy, which points to the conclusion that Roosevelt's naval strategy laid the foundation for establishing the United States as a great world power.[19] He is a proponent of Roosevelt's "big stick diplomacy,"[20] and views the strategic bomber as a means to carry on this tradition in the 21st century, and thus maintain the United States' status as a dominant superpower.

Hendrix has collaborated with Robert C. O'Brien, the current United States National Security Advisor.[21] His work has appeared in a number of media outlets, including the National Review, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, Fox News, the New York Observer, the Japan Times, Politico, as well as a number of national defense blogs.[22]

• Naval Historical Center's Samuel Eliot Morison Scholar, 1994, 2004[23]
• Naval Historical Center's RADM John D. Hayes Pre-doctoral Fellow, 2005–2006[23]
• Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's General Lemuel Shepherd Memorial Dissertation Fellow, 2005–2006[24]
• Surface Navy Association Literary Award – 2006[25]
• Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's Colonel Robert D. Heinl Award – 2007
• United States Navy League's Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement – 2007[26]
• United States Naval Institute Proceedings Author of the Year – 2007[27]
• United States Naval Institute General Prize Winner - 2007

Selected books

• Theodore Roosevelt, The US Navy and The Spanish American War, Edward Marolda, (edt.). Contributed chapter Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Thinking Prior to Mahan, (Palgrave Press, New York, 2001)
• Leadership Embodied, Joseph J. Thomas (edt). Contributed chapter Theodore Roosevelt: Knowledge (Annapolis, MS: Naval Institute Press, 2005).
• Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Diplomacy: The United States Navy and the Birth of the American Century. (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2009).

Selected articles, reviews, and commentary

• An Extraordinary Thing in a Routine Way, Foundation Journal, Fall 1999
• Fulcrum of Greatness, in Naval History Magazine, Naval Institute Press, December, 2002
• One Hundred Years Ago,: T.R.. Averts Crises, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, December, 2002
• Exploit Sea Basing, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, Aug, 2003
• T.R.'s Virtuoso Performance in American History Magazine, Primedia Press, Feb. 2004
• Active-Reserve Integration or Bust with CDR D.D. Centanni in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, Dec, 2004
• Drain the Entire Swamp, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, April, 2005
• An Unlikely Location, in Naval History Magazine, Naval Institute Press, Aug, 2005
• Control of the Sea Protects the New Global Heartland, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, April, 2006
• TR's Plan to Invade Colombia, in Naval History Magazine, Naval Institute Press, Dec. 2006
• Carried Away, in Armed Forces Journal, Defense News Media Group, Mar. 2008
• Buy Ford, Not Ferrari, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, April 2009
• More Henderson, Less Bonds, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, April, 2010
• An Influential 'Shaping' Navy, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, Feb., 2011
• Twilight of the $uperfluous Carrier, in Proceedings, Naval Institute Press, May, 2011
• At What Cost A Carrier?, in Center for New American Security Disruptive Defense Papers, March, 2013
• Retreat from Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation, in Center for a New American Security, October 2015
• Higher, Heavier, Farther, and Now Undetectable? Bombers: Long-Range Force Projection in the 21st Century, in Center for a New American Security, June, 2017