Mr. R. James Orr serves as Program and Course Director for the Homeland Defense Fellowship, a graduate certificate program for International Fellows. Professor Orr first joined NDU in 2015 as a member of the National War College faculty after having served as Dean of the School of Criminal Justice & Social Sciences at Tiffin University. While on the National War College faculty, he taught courses on Strategic Logic and Leadership, Cases in Statecraft, National Security Law and Ethics, and Theodore Roosevelt as Strategic Leader. He served as Dean of Faculty and Academic Programs for the National War College from December 2021 through June 2023, when he transferred to CISA to undertake the leadership of the HDF program.
Prof. Orr joined academia following his retirement in 2008 after 24 ½ years of service as a U.S. Navy Judge Advocate specializing in International and Operational Law. In his last military assignment, he served as the Deputy Legal Advisor for NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation, where he was responsible for developing and coordinating doctrine and training for legal advisors across the NATO Alliance and working in the field of post-conflict Rule of Law development.
A graduate of Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio (cum laude, 1981) with a degree in Political Science and History, Prof. Orr entered the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps Student Program while enrolled at The Ohio State University College of Law, from where he received his Juris Doctor in 1984. In addition to his J.D. from the Ohio State University, he holds a Master of Arts in Military History from Norwich University, a Master of Law in National Security Law from the University of Virginia College of Law, and is a graduate of the College of Command and Staff, U.S. Naval War College (with distinction). He is the co-author of the text Homeland and National Security Law and Policy: Cases and Materials (Carolina Press, 2017), several articles for the SAGE Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security, and Privacy, and has presented papers on various topics of American and naval history from the late 19th and early 20th century, focusing on the lives and careers of President Theodore Roosevelt and CAPT Alfred Thayer Mahan.
Prof. Orr is a member of the American Society of International Law, Society for Military History, Society for the History of the Golden Age and Progressive Era, and the American Bar Association. He serves as a member and Board Secretary of the Board of Trustees of Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio.
Prof. Orr is married to Dr. Kathleen Kozina Orr, who teaches writing and composition for the University of Maryland and University of Maryland Global Campus. Prof. and Dr. Orr have three adult children and two grandchildren.
FUNCTIONAL EXPERTISE: National Security Strategy, National Security Law, Constitutional Law, Law of Armed Conflict, Ethics and Just War Theory, Military History, Diplomatic History.
REGIONAL EXPERTISE: Western Europe, NATO