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Cyber

The IMO’s 2021 Cyber Guidelines and the Work that Remains to Secure Ports

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By CDR Michael C. Petta

Introduction

The coming of a new year often holds promise for the future. With the coronavirus pandemic dominating center-stage last year, many have their eyes keenly focused on new beginnings with the start of 2021. For some in the maritime industry, especially owners and operators of commercial vessels involved in international trade, 2021 brings a new set of guidelines for protecting vessels—the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) guidelines on maritime cyber risk management.

These new guidelines, a milestone for maritime safety and security, are the product of collaboration and hard work among shipping industry leaders and IMO Member States. Some in the shipping industry consider this development to be game changing. Whether game changing or not, implementation of this new model is a vital step toward forging a uniform approach for combating cyber threats against vessels.

Notably, however, the 2021 guidelines leave an equally vital, and maybe just as vulnerable, part of the shipping industry—port facilities—without a similar set of principles. Now that the IMO’s vessel guidelines are in the implementation phase, Member States and maritime industry leaders should again prioritize cybersecurity and collaborate at the IMO to develop uniform cybersecurity standards for port facilities.

The IMO and International Maritime Regulation

Before exploring the need for port facility cybersecurity standards, it may be useful to review the IMO’s role in developing international regulations. In 1948, the Member States of the United Nations created the IMCO, which changed its name to IMO in 1982, to facilitate global cooperation with regulation and practices of shipping engaged in international trade. The IMO’s goal is to ensure safe, secure, and sustainable shipping, facilitating trade and friendly relations among all states. Because shipping is historically and inherently an international endeavor, the IMO depends on and promotes cooperation among its 174 Member States to build uniform regulations that support this essential goal. The IMO construct has remained durable and inclusive since its inception.

Few maritime regulatory regimes exemplify the IMO’s impactful work across the globe more than the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). SOLAS is a treaty from the early 1900s drafted in response to, among other things, the infamous sinking of the RMS Titanic. After its initial adoption in 1914, SOLAS further evolved via multiple conventions over many years with the last convention adopted in 1974. Consequently, the treaty is commonly referred to as SOLAS 1974.

In general terms, SOLAS establishes minimum safety standards related to ship construction, equipment, and operation. Countries party to the treaty ensure vessels under their flags comply with SOLAS’s terms by way of nationally administered certification programs. At the time of this writing, 166 countries, representing about 99 percent of the world’s shipping tonnage, were contracting parties to SOLAS 1974.

Although the last SOLAS convention was adopted in 1974, the treaty has been amended various times since then via the IMO’s “tacit acceptance” procedures. And like SOLAS itself, these amendments often followed tragedy, such as when the International Safety Management (ISM) Code was added as a chapter of SOLAS after a 1987 ferry accident in Belgium killed nearly 200 people. Because casualty investigators found the company’s poor safety culture contributed to the accident, IMO Member States developed the ISM Code, a global safety management standard, to combat what one investigator called the “disease of sloppiness” on ships and ashore. Entering into force in 1998, the ISM Code has made “shipping safer and cleaner” for more than two decades.

The IMO’s 2021 Cyber Guidelines

The ISM Code serves as the foundation upon which IMO Member States have built the 2021 guidelines for cyber risk management. The guidelines were consigned in 2017 via three key declarations. First, in Resolution MSC.429(98), Maritime Cyber Risk Management in Safety Management Systems, the IMO affirmed a view that the ISM Code already requires mitigation of cyber risks. Per this view, cyber risk management is already encompassed in the code’s existing general requirement that companies establish safeguards against all risks to ships, personnel, and the environment.

Resolution MSC.429(98) also contains a second important declaration. In it, the IMO encouraged countries to “appropriately address” this preexisting requirement no later than January 1, 2021. Put in more practical terms, now that the anticipated deadline for IMO’s cyber guidelines has arrived with the start of this new year, the IMO encourages Flag States not to issue compliance documents to vessels if cyber risks are not appropriately addressed in the respective safety management system.

The third important IMO declaration is in a July 2017 circular, in which the IMO announced that its Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) and its Facilitation Committee jointly approved specific cyber risk management guidelines. Member States developed these non-mandatory guidelines in partnership with shipping industry leaders to promote compliance with the aforementioned preexisting ISM Code requirement to mitigate cyber risks. In the July 2017 circular, the IMO recommends vessels and Flag States utilize the guidelines during compliance checks to assess whether cyber risks have been appropriately addressed.

As a risk management regime, the ISM Code is expected to adapt well to the management and mitigation of cyber risks. Government officials and maritime industry leaders, experienced from roughly 18 years of ISM Code practice, are expected to rise to the challenge of applying the code in the emerging cyber arena. Moreover, by identifying in the ISM Code a preexisting, albeit seemingly dormant, cyber requirement and then complementing that requirement with non-binding industry guidelines, Member States avoided the lengthy process of amending SOLAS 1974 and the ISM Code.

This is all to say, harnessing the ISM Code’s risk management framework to mitigate cyber threats was an efficient approach. In 2021, Flag States will begin to utilize this approach and work toward global uniformity.

The Work that Remains to Secure Ports

SOLAS 1974 has been amended numerous times, often to implement subsidiary regulations such as the ISM Code. Another subsidiary regulation within SOLAS is the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code, the IMO’s comprehensive mandatory security regime developed after a different tragedy—the 9/11 attacks. Interestingly, as the IMO’s new model for addressing cyber threats was being considered, the MSC reported, via MSC 97/22, that some Member States felt ISPS might be more suitable for addressing cyber threats. Nonetheless, seemingly moved by the United States’ 2017 assertion that the ISM Code’s “application is sufficiently wide to include emerging risks associated with cyber-enabled systems,” the IMO chose to harness the ISM Code, not ISPS, to promote global maritime cyber standardization.

While tapping into the ISM Code’s wide framework was efficient, such resourcefulness also came with a major limitation. Unlike the ISPS Code that covers certain ships and the port facilities that serve them, the ISM Code, even with its broad risk management concepts, applies only to vessels. This limitation means owners and operators of port facilities around the world will not reap the protective benefits realized with 2021’s implementation of IMO’s new cyber guidelines.

Port facilities play a vital role in global trade and rely heavily on technology to operate. As the May 2020 incident at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port terminal demonstrates, a cyberattack at a port facility can be crippling. Since 2017, each of the four biggest maritime shipping companies in the world have been the victim of a cyberattack, with a recent attack taking place only a few months ago in September 2020. Considering these events, one should have no doubt that port facilities across the globe are presently vulnerable to cyber threats and the potential that these vulnerabilities will be exploited is undeniably real.

With the reality of cyber threats in mind, Member States and maritime industry leaders should collaborate at IMO to develop uniform cybersecurity standards for port facilities, just as they did to protect vessels. Coincidentally, in 2016 the Islamic Republic of Iran offered this exact proposal to the MSC. In MSC 97/4, Iran stressed the critical need for cyber risk management guidelines specific to ports. This proposal, somewhat prophetically considering the 2020 events at the Port of Shahid Rajaee, underscored the serious consequences a cyberattack could have on a port and on critical infrastructure.

While the MSC did not act on Iran’s proposal, in December 2016 the MSC expressly thanked Iran for its recommendation and “invited interested Member States to submit a proposal” for consideration at a future MSC session. No record has been found that any Member State has submitted such a proposal. Now is the time for Member States to accept the invitation.

Conclusion

The IMO’s guidelines for managing cyber risks on vessels are a key development for the shipping industry. Flag States and shipping companies worldwide now have an industry-sponsored framework from which to recurringly assess cyber safeguards on ships. There is more work to be done, however, to appropriately protect the rest of the maritime transportation system. Like Flag States and their vessels, Port States and their ports require guidelines to ensure cyber risks are uniformly addressed at maritime facilities. With 2021 finally ushering in cyber standards for vessels, now is the time for Member States, in partnership with the maritime industry, to assemble at the IMO and develop similar standards to secure ports across the globe.

Commander Michael C. Petta, USCG, serves as Associate Director for Maritime Operations and professor of international law in the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Navy, the Naval War College, or the Department of Defense.

Featured Image: CMA CGM’s Benjamin Franklin at the Port of Los Angeles, December 26, 2015. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Call for Articles, Project Trident

Project Trident Call for Articles: The Future of Maritime Cybersecurity

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By Jimmy Drennan

Submissions Due: Extended to February 22, 2021
Week Dates: March 1-5, 2021
Article Length: 1000-3000 words
Submit to: [email protected]

CIMSEC is partnering with Cyber Nation Central to launch the latest Project Trident call for articles, this time on the impact of cybersecurity on future international maritime security. Cyber Nation Central “focuses on industry and government leadership in cyberspace defense, and its mission is to create cyber-secure renditions of physical nations for the U.S. and its global partners.” Cyber Nation Central seeks to spur cybersecurity innovation and bring practical transformation, think tank expertise, and strategic advice to corporations and governments to solve the most pressing problems in national cybersecurity infrastructure, specifically the autonomous and connected systems in transportation, defense, and healthcare sectors.

The December 2020 reveal of a major cyberattack on U.S. federal networks reaffirmed the ever-growing importance of cybersecurity. The need to defend computer networks against attack now influences almost every aspect of the global political and economic landscape, and the maritime sector is no exception.

Maritime networks are inherently distributed and vulnerable to attack. One cybersecurity firm noted after a year of investigation that “shipping is so insecure we could have driven off in an oil rig.” Criminals, terrorists, and nation-states are taking note. In the last three years, cyberattacks on maritime infrastructure and shipping have increased 900 percent. Norwegian Cruise Line and Carnival Corporation each suffered network breaches in 2020; the cruise industry is a particularly desirable target due to the amount of personal and financial data they carry. Shipping companies have already incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in losses resulting from computer virus infections, and some speculate that the financial impact of coordinated attacks on certain ports could rise into the billions.

Cybersecurity has rapidly become an essential element of naval warfare as well. Not only must navies be able to defend their own networks, but they must also maintain offensive and maneuver capabilities in the cyber domain. Given the dependence of modern warships on electronic data and networks, achieving maritime superiority in conflict may soon be impossible without first achieving cyber superiority.

Authors are invited to write on any topic related to maritime cybersecurity, particularly the following:

1. What investments, infrastructure, and technological innovation should governments and private entities pursue to achieve maritime cybersecurity

2. How could cybersecurity shape future naval conflict and naval force development?

3. Given the global rise in cyber whaling,1 what measures should be taken to “cybersecure” maritime senior leaders and executives from threats specifically targeting them as the holders of the most sensitive “digital crown jewels” (data, access, etc.)? What domino effect could this method of cyber warfare cause in maritime security?

4. Is cyber “security” even possible in the burgeoning cyber “arms race”?

5. With cyber-hacking becoming less and less prevalent as a technical problem and, instead, 97 percent of hacking crimes done via social engineering, what behavioral training should maritime entities undergo to foster a culture of cybersecurity?

6. What maritime cybersecurity policy areas should lawmakers rethink or consider introducing, and to what end?

7. What improvements could be made in cybersecurity technology distribution speed and effectiveness? How can the cyber supply chain be improved?

8. What cybersecurity recruitment and talent management strategies should maritime entities pursue?

Authors are invited to answer these questions and more as we consider the future of maritime cybersecurity. Send all submissions to [email protected].

Jimmy Drennan is the President of CIMSEC. Contact him at [email protected]. 

Endnotes

1. Phishing that targets the most senior stakeholders of organizations through their (1) professional networks/devices, (2) personal networks/devices containing professional information, and (3) families’ home networks/devices, allowing hackers to exploit the information to breach the broader organizational network.

Indo-Asia-Pacific

China as a Composite Land-Sea Power: A Geostrategic Concept Revisited

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The following is adapted from a new report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), Seizing on Weakness: Allied Strategy for Competing With China’s Globalizing Military. 

By Toshi Yoshihara

China’s military is going global. Beijing possesses the largest navy in the world and is fielding an expeditionary fleet at a rapid pace. It established a permanent base in Djibouti in 2017 and is reportedly prospecting for more locations, from the South Pacific to the east coast of Africa, that could provide logistical support to China’s forward-deployed forces. In the coming decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be well-positioned to influence events and conduct a wide range of missions, including limited warfighting, far beyond the Western Pacific.

As the PLA goes global, Chinese leaders will need to meet multiplying demands on their attention and resources. They will have to work hard to defend their core interests in offshore areas, keep the peace along its interior, and maintain a durable overseas presence. Beijing’s omnidirectional and increasingly global security burdens will require adroit statesmanship to avoid overextension, a classic blunder that has humbled past great powers.

Imperial overreach is not as farfetched as one might assume, despite China’s impressive wealth creation over past decades. As a classic land-sea power, which faces the seas and shares contiguous borders with its neighbors, Beijing must always stay alert to threats in the continental and maritime domains. This inescapable two-front challenge imposes perpetual opportunity costs: every yuan spent on one area is one fewer yuan available for the other flank and vice versa. The trade-offs between its landward and seaward commitments could impose built-in limits on China’s global plans.  

Composite Land-Sea Power Concept

The idea that China’s dual orientation could complicate, if not derail, its ascent is not new, not least to Chinese strategists themselves. They took up the debate two decades ago when two scholars assessed the “composite land-sea power (陆海复合型国家)” concept and its implications for China’s future.1 Since then, analysts have wrestled with China’s dual-domain dilemma. The internal debates offer fascinating insights into how Beijing likely assesses its geostrategic obstacles. This discourse could regain salience as China opens a new global front to fulfill its ambitions as a world power.

The main lesson is that land-sea powers must obey geography’s limits. Past great powers that violated those constraints brought misfortune on themselves. At a minimum, land-sea powers must field armies and navies strong enough to defend both their terrestrial and maritime interests. According to two scholars, such powers “cannot neglect either sea power or land power. Both fists must strong.”2 By implication, land-sea powers must devote adequate resources against liabilities in the continental and maritime directions and they perpetually run the risk of diluting their energies across the two domains.

At the same time, dominance in the maritime and continental directions simultaneously is rarely sustainable over the long term. Land-sea powers must abide by the principle of strategic concentration, favoring one orientation over the other. But they must be careful not to blindly pursue sea power or land power while neglecting the other domain. To one scholar, Imperial Germany’s “excessive worship” of naval power unmoored it from its continental interests and spelled disaster for its long-term ambitions.3

Land-sea powers face the gravest danger when they are squeezed concurrently between hostile rivals on the landward and seaward flanks. Indeed, two-front wars have invariably spelled doom for past great powers. Mao Zedong’s “dual adversary” diplomatic strategy in the 1960s that pitted China against the United States and the Soviet Union has taught his successors the potential existential risks of picking two fights at the same time.

Russian, Chinese, and Mongolian troops take part in a military equipment parade at Tsugol training ground in Siberia not far from the Chinese and Mongolian border in September 2018. (Photo via AFP)

For land-sea powers, prudent statesmanship is invaluable. Leaders must strike a delicate balance between their multi-directional commitments and their scarce resources. To complicate matters further, resources dedicated to maritime affairs are frequently inapplicable to continental matters and vice versa. Sound judgments about risk, trade-offs, and so forth are therefore essential to success.  

No Longer a Dilemma for China?

For the past three decades, the dilemmas of a land-sea power have not been acute for China. Since the Cold War’s end, China has inhabited a congenial security environment, arguably unprecedented in its modern history. As one scholar claims, Beijing’s surroundings have been “the most favorable since New China’s founding, if not in its entire history.”4 Sustained amity with Russia and an uneasy peace with India have opened new strategic vistas to China. The absence of significant liabilities along its land borders have enabled China to invest in maritime and aerospace capabilities on a massive scale, transforming the PLA into a formidable force.5

Nevertheless, Chinese commentators have expressed misgivings that China’s rising maritime power might still trigger countervailing geopolitical responses. Some worry that China’s rapid ascent at sea could stimulate resistance by the United States, the leading naval power, and by China’s neighbors on land and at sea. Such “dual pressure (双重压力)” could undo China’s rise, just as similar counteractions have spoiled the ambitions of past land-sea powers.6

To avoid triggering such countervailing responses, some scholars urge Chinese leaders to develop “limited sea power (有限海权)” to reassure the United States and China’s neighbors that Beijing harbors no hegemonic ambitions.7 Another argues that constructing a Chinese navy meant to maintain good order at sea might telegraph China’s benign intent.8

Still others believe that China’s best hedge against a dual-front challenge is to maintain good ties with Russia, by far the most powerful actor bordering China. According to this logic, Beijing can withstand pressure in the maritime direction if its relations with Moscow are on a steady footing.9 One analyst contends that Xi Jinping’s global initiatives to court partners, such as the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, could “reduce balancing pressures by maritime and continental great powers.”10

Despite the varying prescriptions—some of which have clearly been overtaken by events—these writings share an overriding imperative to avert counterbalancing coalitions that balked past land-sea powers.

The Return of Geographic Constraints?

For years, the opportunity costs of going to sea have been low, if not negligible. Put another way, Beijing has not yet had to pay significant penalties for turning decisively in the maritime direction. But convivial geostrategic conditions could well be reversed. China’s recent skirmishes with India along the Himalayan border, for example, show how territorial disputes could stoke great power animosities in unexpected ways. Indeed, sustained Sino-Indian border tensions could metastasize into a more intense rivalry, drawing Beijing’s attention to its southern flank. The standoff could serve as a test case for determining how well Beijing can manage landward liabilities even as it extends its reach at sea. 

To the north, several factors could complicate Sino-Russian relations, despite the strategic partnership between the two powers, including close military cooperation. The end of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 freed Moscow to deploy ground-based theater-range conventional missiles. If Russia were to field such weaponry in numbers and in ways that threatened China, Beijing could respond forcefully to a more complex geometry of conventional missile competition in the continental direction, diverting resources from the maritime front. China’s quests for access to the Arctic and for influence in Central Asia, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative, could also introduce friction in Sino-Russian ties.

Wang Hai, deputy commander of the Chinese Navy, shakes hands with Russian Marines in a joint naval drill off Guangdong province on September 14, 2016. (Xinhua/Zha Chunming)

Other contingencies, such as the resumption of conflict on the Korean Peninsula, could draw Beijing into a major military conflagration and suck China into protracted, manpower-intensive postwar duties, including occupation and other stability operations. A security vacuum caused by political upheaval in a neighboring Central, South, or Southeast Asian country, could similarly pull China into a prolonged and costly landward commitment.

Implications for the United States and Its Allies

As China goes global and as its relationship with the West enters a more rivalrous phase, Washington and allied capitals should consider how they can leverage Beijing’s predicament. However, for the moment, the allies are constrained in their collective capacity to steer China’s relationships with its great continental neighbors, Russia and India, in directions that favor them. Geostrategic logic suggests that Sino-Russian enmity, akin to that of the Cold War rupture, would be a nightmare scenario for Beijing. But the current configuration of international politics indicates that efforts to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow would likely prove fruitless. Similarly, New Delhi’s tradition of independence and non-alignment have repeatedly dashed some Western hopes that India could be persuaded to counterbalance China’s ascent more overtly. 

Given that the close allies possess limited agency for now, they may have to settle for opportunism to exploit China’s geostrategic dilemma. They should watch closely for developments that could complicate Sino-Russian and Sino-Indian ties. China could well cooperate in allied plans and stumble into confrontation with its giant neighbors. In such scenarios, the allies would need to assess the opportunity costs of China’s landward commitments and the extent to which such additional fronts might lead to overextension. If signs of overreach were evident, then the allies would do well to apply even more pressure in the maritime domain—near and far from the mainland—to attenuate Chinese power. By doubling down on the maritime flank, the allies would force the PRC to compete more vigorously on both fronts while denying it relief in the seaward direction.

A theme that runs through the Chinese discourse is a clear-eyed sense of the limits on China’s geostrategic choices. Chinese strategists who possess a tragic sensibility about great power politics understand that favorable circumstances are never permanent. They recognize that Beijing must strive to cultivate conditions conducive to its outward orientation and that hostile great powers, especially if they were to coalesce against China, could undo its global plans. As the PLA goes global, it behooves allied policymakers to adopt a similarly tragic worldview and revisit age-old geostrategic dilemmas that will likely prove as nettlesome to China as they have for past aspiring land-sea powers.

Toshi Yoshihara is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). He is co-author, with Jack Bianchi, of Seizing on Weakness: Allied Strategy for Competing with China’s Globalizing Military, a CSBA report from which this article is drawn.

References

1.  邵永灵 时殿弘 [Shao Yongling and Shi Dianhong], “近代欧洲陆海复合国家的命运与当代中国的选择 [The Destiny of Modern European Hybrid Land-Sea Power and Contemporary China’s Choices],” 世界经济与政治 [World Economics and Politics], no. 10, 2000, p. 50.

2. 郑义炜 张建宏 [Zheng Yiwei and Zhang Jianhong], “论陆海复合型国家发展海权的两难困境—欧洲经验对中国海权发展的启示 [On the Dual Dilemma of Developing Seapower for Hybrid Land-Sea Powers—Lessons from Europe’s Experiences for China’s Seapower Development],” 太平洋学报 [Pacific Journal], no. 3, 2013, p. 64.

3. 刘中民 [Liu Zhongmin], “关于海权与大国崛起问题的若干思考 [Some Thoughts on the Problems of Seapower and the Rise of Great Powers],” 世界经济与政治 [World Economics and Politics], no. 12, 2007, pp. 10-11 and 刘中民 [Liu Zhongmin], “中国海洋强国建设的海权战略选择—海权与大国兴衰的经验及其启示 [Seapower Strategy Choices for the Development of China’s Maritime Great Power—The Experiences and Lessons of Seapower and the Rise and Fall of Great Powers],” 太平洋学报 [Pacific Journal], no. 8, 2013, p. 78. See also 古天姣 [Gu Tianjiao], “我国建设海洋强国的困境分析及战略选择 [An Analysis of the Dilemmas of Our Nation’s Development into a Maritime Power and Our Strategic Choices],” 行政与法律 [Public Administration and Law], no. 9, 2014, p. 77.

4. 刘中民 [Liu Zhongmin], “中国海洋强国建设的海权战略选择 [Seapower Strategy Choices for the Development of China’s Maritime Great Power],” 太平洋学报 [Pacific Journal], no. 8, 2013, p. 78.

5. See 王勇 [Wang Yong], “浅析中国海权发展的若干问题 [Analysis of Several Problems of China’s Seapower Development],” 太平洋学报 [Pacific Journal], no. 5, 2010, p. 95 and 刘新华 [Liu Xinhua], “海权优先: 当代中国的地缘战略选择 [Seapower Takes Precedence: Contemporary China’s Geostrategic Choices],” 社会科学 [Journal of Social Sciences], no. 7, 2008, p. 58.

6. 吴征宇 [Wu Zhengyu], “海权与陆海复合型强国 [Seapower and Hybrid Land-Sea Great Powers], 世界经济与政治 [World Economics and Politics],” no. 2, 2012, pp. 47-50 and 吴征宇 [Wu Zhengyu], 论陆海复合型国家的战略地位—理论机理与政策选择 [On the Strategic Position of Hybrid Land-Sea Powers—Theoretical Mechanisms and Policy Choices], 教学与研究 [Teaching and Research], no. 7, 2010, pp. 69-70.

7. 郑义炜 [Zheng Yiwei], “陆海复合型的中国发展海权的战略选择 [China’s Strategic Choices for Developing Seapower as a Hybrid Land-Sea Power],” 世界经济与政治 [World Economics and Politics], no. 3, 2013, p. 25 and 刘中民 [Liu Zhongmin], “中国海洋强国建设的海权战略选择 [Seapower Strategy Choices for the Development of China’s Maritime Great Power],” 太平洋学报 [Pacific Journal], no. 8, 2013, p. 80.

8. 吴征宇 [Wu Zhengyu], “海权与陆海复合型强国 [Seapower and Hybrid Land-Sea Great Powers], 世界经济与政治 [World Economics and Politics],” no. 2, 2012, p. 50.

9. 郑义炜 [Zheng Yiwei], “陆海复合型中国“海洋强国”战略分析 [Analysis of China’s Hybrid Land-Sea “Maritime Power” Strategy],” 东北亚论坛 [Northeast Asia Forum], no. 2, 2018, p. 88.

10. 秦立志 [Qin Lizhi], “陆海复合型国家战略转型的动力机制—兼论对中国的启示 [The Dynamic Mechanism Behind the Strategic Transformation of Hybrid Land-Sea Powers—Implications for China],” 太平洋学报 [Pacific Journal], no. 2, 2019, p. 11.

Featured Image: Russian and Chinese forces operating in a combined exercise in Spring 2018. (Photo via Russian Ministry of Defense)

Wargames

Wargaming at the Academy: Why Invest in NHWL and Building A Culture of Wargaming 

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By M. Scott Bond

The reemergence of peer competition suggests the naval services may not operate in the same manner or with the same freedom as they have in recent decades. In response, the Navy and Marine Corps are developing new operational concepts which embrace distributed warfare, which pushes command and capabilities down the organizational chain. As such, junior officers may need to learn combat decision-making skills earlier in their careers than their predecessors. Combat decision-making, like all critical thinking, requires time and practice to develop. As Sebastian Bae notes in the July 12th edition of the Preble Hall podcast, just as “reps and sets” in physical training provides the foundation for athletic performance, wargames provide mental reps and sets for military decisionmakers. Wargames are effective because, as Peter Perla and Ed McGrady note, they provide a space for students to make decisions and deal with the consequences. The Navy, Marine Corps, and Joint Chiefs have also recognized wargaming’s educational value by designating it a leadership development tool. Yet, the professional military education (PME) pipeline only has so much compressibility. As such, there is a growing demand to teach junior officers the basics of combat decision-making. The Naval Academy can try to meet this need by leveraging its nascent Naval History Wargaming Laboratory (NHWL) to give midshipmen the opportunity to think through tough tactical problems before the lives of Sailors and Marines are on the line.

Some may argue that, despite demand signals, classroom constraints make wargaming a poor fit for the academy. It is true that classroom time and space constrains may limit game effectiveness Additionally, educators often must design, procure, execute, and adjudicate a game without any support to offset costs, in both time and money, or ensure quality. That said, these barriers to educational wargaming are not insurmountable. Jim Lacey and Philip Sabin have separately written about adding wargames to their seminars, and noted increased student preparation, participation, and comprehension of the subject matter as positive results. Institutions such as the Naval War College (NWC) or Army Command and General Staff College have mitigated the above constraints through funding trained wargaming staffs, effectively underwriting wargaming costs for educators. While it is true that the NHWL is already providing curricular and extracurricular wargames under its own funding, its capacity to expand may be limited. The NHWL’s current staff consists only of a part-time director and a part-time adjunct. This minimalist structure likely has little capacity to expand beyond this proof-of-concept stage and could be vulnerable to future personnel changes. The academy will need to invest more in the NHWL to reap the maximum benefits wargaming has to offer.

Equally important is creating a culture of wargaming. The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that make up academy culture play a critical role in setting priorities for midshipmen and educators. If academy culture does not value wargaming as a worthwhile educational tool, then the overall benefit to the academy will be limited. The NWC’s oft cited success during the interwar period was in part due to student and educators’ culture which placed a strong emphasis on wargaming. A similar trend can be found at other PME institutions with records of wargaming excellence. The NHWL and broader wargaming’s benefits may be limited without broader cultural buy-in from midshipmen and educators.

Options for Investment 

There are many ways the academy can invest into the NHWL and foster a culture of wargaming, each with its own costs and benefits. There are five options in particular which might maximize the academy’s return on investment while also fulfilling its mission. 

Option 1: Explore Creative Funding Options  

It is important to recognize the zero-sum nature of the academy’s budget. Top-down cuts to add funding to the NHWL may hazard budget fights, which could create inter-departmental tensions that undermine the lab’s effectiveness. While some reallocations may prove necessary, the academy could explore alternative funding. For example, the academy could choose to add a “Wargaming Lab” fee to the amount withheld from midshipmen pay, such as has been done for necessities like laundry and haircuts. Along similar lines, the academy could adopt a “pay to play” methodology, with departments paying a fee to the lab for access to game design and execution support. 

Another option is to mimic the success of USNA athletics. The Naval Academy Athletic Association (NAAA) is a 501c3 whose mission is to “promote, influence, and assist in financing the athletic contests of the midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy.” Navy athletics owes much of its success to the NAAA’s ability to secure funding for quality staff and facilities. The academy could set up a similar wargaming association to help find and generate funds for the NHWL, decreasing the need to adjust internal budgets. True, NAAA benefits from the high visibility of sporting events. Yet, the rise of e-sports seems to indicate that wargaming could have similar levels of visibility. 

Option 2: Leverage the NHWL to Incorporate Educational Games into other Subjects 

If the academy wishes to maximize its return on investment and foster a culture of wargaming, it could work with the lab to develop targeted wargames which augment current academic programs. Wargames have educational utility outside of combat decision-making. Educational research indicates that student information retention and comprehension increase when traditional classroom methods are augmented with educational games. As such, the NWHL could be leveraged not only to provide quality games directly to the students but also to assist educators in other departments in enhancing their own curricula. For example, the professional knowledge (or ‘ProKnow’) curricula could be augmented with targeted wargames for each warfare module. The NHWL’s inaugural wargame coincidentally coincided with the players’ surface warfare ProKnow module. While unplanned, most players found the opportunity to apply the professional knowledge to be a valuable experience. Other academic fields can equally benefit. For example, the University of the City of London’s Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture programs use a modified version of the game Harpoon to teach engineering trade-offs in warship design to naval architecture and maritime engineering students.  

Option 3: Embrace Distributed Gaming

COVID restrictions on gathering size have renewed interest in distributed wargaming. Distributed play through digital media, either via digitized tabletop games or combat simulations, may hold special value for the academy. Collocating enough people for enough time to play a manual wargame limits the possible number of iterations, and thereby constrains learning outcomes. Distributed wargames remove the need for collocation and reduce playtime by automating rules adjudication and thereby increase the amount of possible game iterations. Digital wargaming platforms such as OSD’s SWIFT, the open source VASSAL engine, or Command: Modern Operations (C:MO) could allow educators to assign games as homework. It should be noted that there seems to be little reason for the academy to accept tailored game development costs given the breadth of games within the Department of Defense wargaming ecosystem and across commercial platforms. Leveraging these games in assignments could be combined with a player-written analysis of game events and outcomes to leverage traditional educational techniques. Granting midshipmen access to these tools outside of assignments could also foster a culture of wargaming by allowing students to enhance their personal interest in their education.

Option 4: Teach Midshipmen How to Play

The NHWL has already added a wargame design course. This could be an important first step both for developing capable future officers and building a culture of wargaming on campus. Equally important is teaching students how to play wargames. A major hurdle for an analytical wargame’s referee team (or white cell) is shepherding non-gamers through the learning curve while also running the game. A course dedicated to introducing and playing DoD wargames, such as the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab’s Assassin’s Mace or NWC’s War at Sea, would not only give the mental reps and sets required to succeed in future naval operations, but also could equip students to use the same analytical tools that are already being used in the fleet. This effort might also strengthen the academy’s own connections with the fleet and help integrate it with the wider naval wargaming community. 

Option 5: Connect with the Greater Wargaming Community

The NHWL has already noted its desire to host inter-academy events. If this becomes a reality it could represent an important start to integrating with the wider wargaming community. Such a program could be expanded to include NROTC or international teams, perhaps in a similar fashion to the Army’s Ranger Challenge competition. Such a program could leverage existing competitive spirits to build interest in wargaming. The academies of several U.S. allies already include wargaming within their curricula, thus this could be an easy sell. Joint events using mixed teams could be used to build joint understanding and camaraderie between future combat commanders.  

Knowing the Limitations

Marcus Jones noted in the same Preble Hall podcast that wargames cannot teach the realities of combat. While wargaming helps prepare students to make the most of their own and their senior officer’s experiences by reinforcing the fundamentals, real-world experience and combat exercising is more likely the master educator. Neither can wargaming replace the time-tested educational techniques at the heart of the academy’s academic traditions. Rather, they complement and enhance each other. Rex Brynen pointed out in 2016 the benefits of educational area function of the games’ design, implementation, curriculum integration, and educational requirements. If any one of these factors is missing, the benefit of the game diminishes. The time and space constraints of the classroom also impose both opportunity costs and limits to game effectiveness. Balancing the expected game benefits against sacrificed lecture material or other teaching methods could be a critical step in safeguarding the academy’s investment.

Conclusion 

It is important to keep in mind why wargaming and warfighting education at the academy seems necessary. The naval environment is undergoing systemic changes which have undermined the assumptions upon which the current officer warfighting educational pipeline is built. The Navy and Marine Corps’ new operational concepts could demand that officers be schooled in tactical and joint thinking much earlier in their careers. The days of officers slowly acquiring tactical and operational knowledge in preparation for command appear to be coming to an end. Rather, the fleet will need young officers ready and able to operate jointly in a rapid, lethal, and complex maritime warfighting environment. Creating such officers could necessitate pushing warfighting education down to more junior levels as early as possible.

The Naval History Department and Museum’s announced NHWL could give the academy a valuable new tool to meet this need. The maritime threat environment is changing, and the Navy and Marine Corps are evolving in stride. Military educators – including those at the academy – would do well to embrace this transformation.

M. Scott Bond is a Technical Analyst researching emerging warfare concepts and East Asia with the nonpartisan, nonprofit RAND Corporation. He also services as the Junior Analyst Ambassador for the Military Operations Research Society’s Wargaming Community of Practice.

Featured Image: ANNAPOLIS, Md. (July 18, 2020) The United States Naval Academy holds an Oath of Office Ceremony for the members of the Class of 2024, Companies 16-30. (U.S. Navy photo by Stacy Godfrey/Released)