During the administration of Admiral Raymond Spruance as president of the Naval War College (1946-1948), plans were initiated to establish a resident civilian faculty, composed of prominent academics who would be visiting faculty members for a full academic year.

In response to this suggestion and with further authorization from the Navy Department, Spruance initiated publication of a periodical.

In its fifth year of publication, Information Service for Officers had reached a circulation of 6,000 copies and was being distributed to major commands.

At that point, the name was changed to Naval War College Review and, in December 1953, the publication was down-graded to "For Official Use Only", a security classification that remained in effect until September 1964.

Further changes in editorial policy that allowed the journal to publish articles by civilian academics did not occur until the editorship of Commander Robert M. Laske between 1968 and 1975, when a dearth of material forced him to search for contributors at meetings of the American Political Science Association and the Inter-University Seminar on the Armed Forces and Society.