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Warfighting Development

Bring Out the Knives: A Programmatic Night Court for the Surface Navy

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By Chris Rielage

Time is our critical resource now. The Navy knows that we have a few scant years before we face major risk for an invasion of Taiwan. In the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) headquarters in San Diego, countdown clocks on the wall measure the days before mid-2027 arrives. The force is in a dead sprint, not a marathon – and we need to throw off excess weight.

To meet the challenge of war with China, the surface force has been driving hard towards more tactical competence. New equipment is rapidly hitting the fleet. New simulators are being built around the world. New cohorts of Warfare Tactics Instructors (WTIs) are graduating. SMWDC is even expanding the Surface Warfare Combat Training Continuum (SWCTC) to boost and standardize tactical knowledge across the surface force.

All of this looks good on paper. But when these efforts reach the ships, they collide with the tight schedules of sailors who count the hours in the day and often come up short. Sailors already work an average of 88.3 hours a week while underway. Where will the time for these warfighting reforms come from?

If sailors are already fully occupied and their schedules are overflowing, it hardly matters how good the new simulators or WTIs are. The present system of time allocation in the surface fleet is not a deliberate product of a warfighting-centric focus, but rather an unchecked process of creeping administrative overload. When new tacticians and training tools hit the fleet, they are eclipsed and diluted by a vast array of miscellaneous requirements. The leaders of the surface force must launch an effort to systematically protect time for tactics by aggressively pruning other requirements, or else these new efforts will fall short.

Guarding the Fleet’s Time

Thankfully, a model for how to do this already exists – a “night court.” Twice, Secretaries of Defense have convened night courts, which are rapid reviews of large groups of programs by a top official to aggressively triage acquisition programs. Most recently, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper convened a night court for both the Army and the larger Pentagon in 2019. In the process, Secretary Esper refocused billions of dollars to better fund reform efforts. In the defense world, night courts like this are also occasionally called “zero-based reviews.” The difference is subtle – a zero-based review starts from a clean slate and adds programs that are considered the most necessary, while a night court starts with the existing plan and cuts out excess.

The term “night court” will be used here, but the Navy could reasonably use either method. The end goal is the same. Senior admirals should review every program that owns a fraction of a sailor’s day, and ruthlessly remove the ones that, as the Secretary of War wrote recently, get in the way of “winning our Nation’s wars without distraction.” 

Are there truly programs the fleet can afford to cut? Certainly. Consider the Fall Protection program. Warships are expected to:

  • Appoint a Fall Protection Program Manager and several “Competent Persons” to run the program. 
  • Send those individuals to school – three days for the program manager and four days for each Competent Person. These individuals are usually senior Combat Systems personnel, already hard-pressed to maintain equipment and train for war.
  • Develop a command instruction for fall protection and rescue plans for a fall.
  • Perform a shipwide inspection for hazardous areas – anywhere with any height over four feet – and make design changes to the ship to remove the hazard. When this is impossible (which is usually the case on warships), post warning signs.
  • Train end users – any sailor who might go near a height over four feet – on the program. 
  • Regularly inspect the program, and be prepared for outside assessors to audit it.

The Department of the Navy’s Fall Protection instruction, which outlines these requirements, is 185 pages long – twice as long as many of the surface fleet’s latest tactical publications. 

We all agree that stopping falls is good in the abstract. No one wants to see a shipmate get injured. However, the truth is that the fleet simply cannot afford to spend precious time like this when pressing warfighting demands are calling. Sailors are continuously ensnared by programs, well-intentioned but ultimately misguided, that detract from fundamental tactical work. Warships do not have two crews – one that handles programs and one that handles combat. We face a zero-sum game with our time. Every minute that a sailor spends on an administrative program is a minute not spent on sharpening combat skills. 

Leading the Night Court

Commander, Naval Surface Force Pacific (CNSP) – the surface fleet’s Type Commander (TYCOM) – is best placed to run this night court. Not only is CNSP close enough to ships to personally speak to the urgency of the problem, they also have the senior authority to directly cut many programs. CNSP has the holistic perspective to rebalance the time allocations of the surface force, understanding both the urgency of the strategic situation and which administrative requirements do truly matter. No one leader can remove every detrimental program alone. Fall Protection, for example, will require congressional action to exempt warships from OSHA. CNSP is senior enough, however, to cut a wide swath using the span of their own authority, and to advocate for the changes that require departmental or congressional authority. 

CNSP is not the only path to success, but it is the simplest. The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) or Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) could also build a programmatic night court – more directly replicating the acquisition night court that Secretary Esper created – but they are too distant from the fleet. The more echelons a leader is removed from a problem, the more they face what public economist Anthony Downs called a “message-distortion problem.” In any large bureaucracy, each layer of the chain of command, even when completely well-intentioned, naturally filters out some portion of any message as it works its way up. This feature of large bureaucracies makes the Navy’s most senior leaders ill-placed to judge which programs should be removed to improve time allocations at the deckplate level. Not only is CNSP closer to the fleet, senior leaders at CNSP have bypass mechanisms – tours, direct conversations with sailors, and a network on the waterfront – available to get to the core of each program’s value. Instead of leading it directly, the CNO and SECNAV are better suited to act as senior champions for a TYCOM-led night court.

The Night Court Process

The night court should go through three phases. First, measurement. Surface force leaders need to understand every program that takes up a sailor’s time. The team that runs the night court should be careful here. If they turn this information-gathering step into yet another tasker for ships, they may actually make the problem worse. The better answer is to put three or four SWO-qualified officers who have just departed sea tours in a room, and have them brainstorm a list of every requirement they encountered. Start the night court off of that rough draft, and only afterwards follow up with more comprehensive studies and requests for information. The goal is to move quickly, not to waste a year waiting for a formal – and quickly outdated – product.

The next step is adjudication. Each program must defend its existence to the night court. The key here is that program owners must not simply explain that a problem exists, but convince CNSP that their program meaningfully addresses the problem. Using Fall Protection again as an example, it is not good enough to list fall statistics – the Fall Protection team must convince CNSP that their program stops falls without putting an undue burden on ships.

Once the night court judges against a program, the last and hardest step is removal. The night court should identify the source of the program requirement, and if it is within CNSP’s influence, cut it directly. If the requirement is imposed on the surface fleet by a higher authority like congress, CNSP should push them for reform. Some of this work will generate natural friction amongst stakeholders. To build support, the night court should aggressively publicize how many hours of fleet time it saves, emphasize how many pages of administrative requirements it has cut, and cultivate support from combat-focused leaders who can speak to the warfighting benefits.

The goal is that, in the long run, regular night court reviews – perhaps every 1-2 years – cease to be radical. Ideally, guarding sailors’ time to emphasize warfighting will become a standard part of how the surface fleet operates and conceives of its identity: a more austere and focused force, supported by a more disciplined bureaucracy.

Dragging the Fleet Down

If surface force leaders like CNSP do not do the work of cutting time requirements, more time will not magically appear. Instead, the task of prioritizing will fall to unit commanders, junior officers, and chiefs. They will be forced to make changes within the margins of a system overflowing with years of creeping administrative overload, which has long surpassed the available time of sailors. The best of them will be honest about the fact that they cannot do everything, and accept hits to their record in exchange for a ruthless prioritization of combat skills. Ships with strong warfighting focus will fail more administrative inspections, earn fewer awards, and look worse on paper. Those leaders – the ones willing to be honest – will be winnowed out by a personnel system that does not appreciate nuance. The remaining leaders will take dishonesty as a norm and even an unavoidable price to be paid in exchange for career security. They will superficially hit their required administrative wickets at the cost of lethality. The Army War College report “Lying to Ourselves” famously described this dynamic within its own service, and the surface fleet is just as prone to it. Our failure to control excess time demands on ships yields an overflowing system that incentivizes dishonesty.

At this late hour, we cannot keep everything. When a crew member falls overboard, we teach them to immediately shed their steel-toed boots. Boots are normally vital – they keep our sailors safe in a shipboard industrial environment. But in the crisis of a man overboard, they drag sailors down. Our peacetime programs are the same. We can shed weight now, or we can drown in wartime.

LT Chris Rielage is a SWO and ASW/SUW WTI onboard USS CARL M LEVIN (DDG 120) in the Pacific. His publications have previously appeared in USNI’s Proceedings and CIMSEC. These opinions are expressed in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the Department of the Navy or the U.S. government.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (May 3, 2017) Rear Adm. James Bynum, commander of Carrier Strike Group (CCSG) 9 addresses the Wardroom of the guided-missile destroyer USS Sampson (DDG) 102, during a Group Sail training unit exercise (GRUSL). (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Bill M. Sanders/Released)

Podcast

Sea Control 587: 20 Years After the Military Response to Hurricane Katrina

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By J. Overton

Elaine Helm joins the program to reflect on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and her time as a journalist embedded with the U.S. military during their response and recovery operations in New Orleans and Houston.

Elaine Helm is a communications professional and former journalist who lives and works in the Seattle area. She was the military reporter for the Kitsap Sun and the founder and editor of the pioneering Northwest Navy News site. 

Download Sea Control 587: 20 Years After the Military Response to Hurricane Katrina

Links

1. Elaine Helm Linkedin.

J. Overton is Co-Host of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the podcast team at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

Jonathan Selling edited and produced this episode.

Alliances and Partners

The Playing Fields: Sports and Warfighting Readiness

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By Phil Bozzelli and Paul Giarra

The Duke of Wellington’s aphorism “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton,” has been widely accepted as a validation of sports and their greater relevance to warfighting and victory. We take that statement at face value but go further.

Using the renewed emphasis upon warfighting within the defense and naval establishments, we propose that sports at our service academies, especially the U.S. Naval Academy, do more than provide venues for exercise or competition. Rather, those activities and their participants should be an integral part of the warfighting curriculum of those institutions just as everything else there should be.

This theme leverages the basic relationships between sports and warfighting. In the former one needs to know and understand himself, his teammates and his opponents. It is no different in warfare, where the stakes are higher and therefore the knowing and understanding of one’s self, allies and enemies is of even greater importance for success. Warfare thinking and action are focused upon the international environment.

The global population has embraced sports as a way to improve understanding and relations between nations. The Olympics are the most obvious manifestation of this reality. We have all witnessed how this venue has become, over the decades, a demonstration of either national pride, wealth, political ideology, or a combination of all as well as other positives and negatives. These gatherings have, as a minimum, permitted an up-close and extended engagement by and among the individual athletes themselves.

America does bring foreign officers to the U.S. for training and education exchange programs. Some exchanges involve officers at the more senior levels whose thinking has already been largely shaped and is done in a generally formal classroom environment. This schooling process includes little participation of America’s less friendly counterparts and for the most part it takes place on American soil.

USNA has 33 varsity sports at the national competition level and 25 intramural and club sports for those not competing at the varsity level. America’s other service academies operate similar programs (e.g. West Point offers 25 varsity sports and 28 intramural and club teams). All midshipmen (and cadets) are engaged in one or more sports or athletic activities, but essentially all on the domestic scene.

This sporting, intramural, and club scene is dynamic not only in content but in venue and physicality. The digital age has introduced E-Sports, gaming and wargaming as competitive processes that fill stadiums and require superb hand-eye coordination analogous to that of professional basketball players but while seated at a computer screen. The games have transitioned from general games to those that mimic live sports as well and they too have transitioned to international levels of competition monitored by its version of the NCAA (Global Esports Federation – GEF). Similarly, the military-focused wargaming genre has joined this digital competitive environment.

The National Defense Academy of Japan (NDAJ) manages to field 37 sports at various levels (even including traditional American sports like football, basketball, etc.). USNA (and USMA) have about the same number of students as at the NDAC with the major difference being that the NDAJ offers a three-year education to future officers of all services before they go on to separate one-year schools for their individual militaries.

To varying degrees, militaries have officer-based sporting teams at different levels of skill within and without the primary service school. The Indian Navy has the largest naval academy in Asia and offers at least nine sporting teams. The Royal Navy, in addition to sports teams at its Naval School, fields a vast variety of teams throughout its naval establishment. China’s PLAN sporting focus, as can be determined from afar, appears to be more of a utilitarian team building type, although it does field a seriously respected rugby team. Interestingly, the PLA has not lagged in joining the digital age of competition, with E-Sports and wargaming popular among its military and civilian schools.

The various USNA teams should engage internationally with their friendly and not-so-friendly international military equivalents. The numbers of USNA teams provides significant engagement opportunities at varying appropriate skill levels dispersed over the entire calendar year. An environment exists where competition can be fair and appropriate as well as useful to help produce the warfighting leadership of the future. This proposed international engagement via sports far exceeds that international experience available to midshipmen from any other current program. It is on the international fields and seas where these officers will engage in war and peace.

We do not wish to engage here in a debate regarding how strong the warfighting focus has been of the USNA in recent years. However, it is clear that “warfighting” is currently being emphasized. The newly installed Secretary of Defense has made clear his focus and emphasis is upon warfighting and war readiness. This echoes the previous Chief of Naval Operations in her 2024 Navigation Plan for its “Warfighting Navy” headline and focus.

There is a renewed awareness and focus upon warfighting ability and readiness as the primary, if not singular, mechanism for maintaining peace. As one of the nation’s commissioning sources of naval officers the burden is upon USNA not only to support but to lead in this warfighting mission via its classrooms, dormitories and playing fields.

We are not starting from ground zero. The USNA offshore sailing team recently competed and won at the Ecole Navale International Sailing Week Competition, and in May 2024 the USNA had part of its men and women rugby teams participate in a State Department sponsored Rugby 7 tour of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. We are proposing an organized expansion of these efforts not just for the sport but for the inherent benefit it brings to America’s national security via the education of its future Naval leaders in meeting the USNA mission that the naval officer “must be a great deal more.”

August 23, 2025 – U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Luis Camacho, Scrumhal for the U.S. Marine Corps Men’s 7s Rugby team scores the winning try against the U.S. Coast Guard team. (Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Theodore Lee)

Our interest in this subject came about when we became involved on the periphery of an invitation from the NDAJ’s four-star level civilian head to the USNA rugby team, via its coach, for the team to join in a rugby tournament at the NDAJ that would include teams from the NDAJ, the UK (Royal Naval College) and France (Ecole Navale). USNA’s Rugby team’s schedule and other factors (e.g., financing, event timing, NCAA rules etc.) precluded USNA participation.

We must first call attention to and highlight the significance of this NDAJ rugby initiative given the historical political and societal factors operating in that nation. We see sports related thinking as a “big deal.” The NDAJ rugby initiative not only reinforces the transnational utility of sports but offers a focused interpersonal engagement vehicle for military forces – friendly and not – which the U.S. and U.S. Navy should leap upon and expand. The more important aspect is the engagement with non-friendly nations.

The NDAJ and USNA catalog of sports is more typical than not of what exists at the world’s various service academies. Further, and more importantly, is the global shift in military attitudes exemplified by the Japanese government’s more visible foreign policy on the world’s stage to include this invitation to both the USN and its major seagoing allies via their officer producing schools.

Our contention is that it is all about warfighting to include having the necessary warfighting skills to achieve success without war. In the words of Wellington, “Not all naval battles are fought at sea!” Once one accepts this dictum, the tradeoffs required in terms of time and funding between these events and more traditional activities of Midshipmen (e.g. summer cruises) can be more equitably evaluated.

The “whys” for doing this are probably limited more by experience than imagination, so we list but a few of the more obvious. Whether one is a “globalist” or not, the reality is that America’s military has been involved globally since its founding and this is especially true of its sea services – the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard – whose officers are expected to function as diplomats in their international engagements, even at junior levels. Doing this well requires more international engagement sooner and over a longer period of service time.

The history of the world and certainly that of America from its beginning has made clear the need for supporters, friends, allies, partners regardless of whether the objective is military, political, economic or diplomatic. Whether that non-American shows up as a ship in our formation, a soldier in an adjacent fox hole, an article in some foreign media, a vote in some organizational chamber, some piece of needed foreign real estate or overflight, a trading partner or lender or simply an unpretentious “flag” among many – we all know and accept this need and the utility of someone to satisfy it. Perhaps, even more importantly, we appreciate that we must nurture these relationships if they are to be maintained or improved upon. For the military officer, this is not about “good will” or “friendships” it is about what is required in terms of knowledge about both allies and possible enemies.

For the naval officer this relationship between knowledge and warfighting is lifelong and consistent. It begins at USNA with its motto Ex Scientia Tridens (From Knowledge Sea Power), engraved on every USNA graduate’s class ring. It continues and is reinforced with the U.S. Naval War College motto of Viribus Mari Victoria (Victory through Sea Power); and these academic guidons become seagoing reality in the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s Ready power for peace.

The authors’ experiences have been that there has been and remains a great deal of ignorance and misunderstanding of what transpires in the minds and cultures of others. This deficiency occurs at all institutional levels, public and private. Therefore, being able to make critical judgments regarding what others present becomes ever more important as the pace and sourcing of information is growing exponentially. While critical thinking ability is essential for the domestic environment as well, our focus is warfighting wherein both the opponents and allies will be foreign.

A major, if not the greatest, impediment to international success and a contributor to contentions has been ignorance or misunderstanding of the history, culture, motivations, beliefs, psychology of others. A deficiency compounded in this modern era where English is the new global lingua franca. Because American “culture” (e.g. Apple, pop music, entertainment) is dispersed to the furthest corners of the globe and all are joined together via the Internet and social media, we therefore assume, incorrectly, that others think and are motivated as we are.

Despite varying bloody, military conflicts since World War II’s VJ day, the vast majority of America’s military effort, and especially that of its Navy, has been on peaceful non-kinetic engagement with neutrals, friends, allies, opponents, competitors around the world. All of these actions are either directly or indirectly pointed to enhancing that warfighting prowess to be there when needed and be visible and accepted so as not to be needed.

Although the NDAJ and rugby were the impetus for this article, the opportunities are more extensive and the demand pressing enough that the U.S. and especially the U.S. Navy should take a leadership role in making this happen using the hype created by the Olympics, international athletic competition, and the ever-present forces necessitating “gray zone” engagement. As demonstrated repeatedly, sports allow engagements where otherwise precluded by politics.

This puts the NDAJ invitation in a different light, not just as a friendly school-to-school athletic challenge, but as an opportunity for international exposure, country-to-country understanding, and bonding with friends and allies. And to emphasize the earlier points, this is not just about Japan or Rugby but the broader opportunities across all sports and all nations for a deliberate military to military engagement program in a different sort of classroom and “battlefield.”

Clearly, there are requirements that would have to be met, such as funding, carving out time in already packed academic and sports schedules, and meeting NCAA restrictions. Held against the international opportunities for building personal and professional relationships and improving understanding among all parties, these are not obstacles, but simply the cost of doing business. It is probably not an exaggeration to state that all that takes place in the lives of Midshipmen is geared to turning them into competent naval officers, citizens, and leaders. Consequently, the time allocated to these various endeavors is justified and valid as is the funding, regardless of its source (e.g. government budgets, donations, alumni funding, sports revenue etc.)

These are all costs that need to be sourced. However heavy the financing thumb is on the scale, it should be balanced by potential gains, financial and otherwise. Depending upon where and how these contests are conducted there is the opportunity for revenue such as from advertising, broadcasting and tours. Neither USNA nor the U.S. government itself are novices in this category. On that same counterweight side of the scale are the intangible benefits of image, recruiting across the board, good will, cultural understanding and messaging all done via the more acceptable and less intrusive vehicle of sport.

Although this proposal is directed at the junior levels of the military, our experience has been that a shared background of military service provides a degree of basic rapport that often does not exist between the military and civilian of even the same nation. This is especially true for the sea services where the impartiality of the seas, winds and skies allows one ship’s captain to readily baseline himself with another regardless of nationality. Similarly, competitive athletes at all ages have this shared understanding among their international colleagues. A boxer or wrestler or oarsman or whatever knows, appreciates and has a common foundation with his fellow competitor regardless of nationality because the common vigor of the shared sport transcends borders. Thus, there is an important starting framework from which to go forward – shared naval schooling background combined with common sporting experience.

Basically, getting to “Yes” will include understanding by U.S. leaders that this is both an internal and external political – military issue of great significance. We recommend the following:

1. Begin with “Of course we will participate” and find a way.

2. Start early, quickly and small – focus upon a successful beginning.

3. As with the launching of ships, it is important to “grease the skids” at all stakeholder levels, from coaches to national governments to funders to help ensure success

4. Following on to the NDAJ receptivity and initiative regarding Rugby, Rugby may be the logical beginning; however, pursuing this as the first step may violate the above idea of “early, quickly and small.”

5. The U.S., U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Naval Academy have so many options in terms of sports, timing, venues (domestic and international), and opponents that it is difficult to see an obstacle to an early success once the decision is made to participate.

6. There are several way to fund this program: Academy supporters, athletic and team supporters, patrons, corporations, U.S. DOD and non-DOD funds.

7. Planning around academic year class schedules is difficult, but not impossible. Summer cruises can be designed around team participation as is done now for major sports; venue selection can facilitate the time required for the event. Therefore, we see this as a year-round activity.

8. Treat this program the same as Olympic team participation. There are clear precedents for scheduling and funding for military personnel.

9. Recommendation 1, above, to participate, is not enough: Lead!

Finding a way requires the collaboration of many parties. However, the leadership initiative rests with the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy who has authority for the human resources required for this program and whose staff includes an International Engagement Office, which may need expansion in both depth and breadth to develop and execute a successful program.

There will be various arguments as to why the above is either too difficult or unnecessary. We address three:

1: NCAA rules: important enough to USNA’s Division 1 status and all that goes with it to have a compliance officer on the USNA Athletic Association staff to ensure the coaches adhere to the rules. However, as any tourist to Annapolis will see on display in either a souvenir shop or on the back of a midshipman tee shirt the logo “USNA, not college”. Within and without the USNA, there needs to be a reminder that the service academies have a purpose that goes beyond and sometimes conflicts with that of just being a major educational institution. Further, there are NCAA rules, such as the transfer portal entry, that the USNA is not able to employ. If the USNA becomes serious about executing this proposal, working the NCAA rules process to satisfy all requirements is probably achievable.

2: USNA’s to-do list: that USNA’s superintendent has much to do and adding something else such as this to that work list is counterproductive. The US government and the US Navy furnishes the Superintendent with a significant sized staff to include an already existing International Engagement Officer. We acknowledge that there is no shortage of projects being thrust upon the USNA leadership; however, we think all these endeavors, whether new or traditional, first need to be evaluated and prioritized accordingly by the leadership, writ large, before being rejected. As addressed above, we see the USNA’s primary mission as being that of educating and training entry level naval officers in a manner consistent with the missions of the operating fleet and its other educational institutions. Under this logic every opportunity to educate midshipmen within the framework of warfighting makes sense as an element of the USNA mission.

3: Vehicles, such as CISM (International Military Sports Council) already exist to do such: therefore, use that mechanism rather than something new or different. For reasons best known to USNA, the institution has had no noticeable participation via CISM. Those reasons would certainly have included obstacles such as the NCAA rules, financial support, schedules etc.

While useful in part within that structure, the NDAJ rugby invitation and its acceptance by others sends the message that other vehicles exist, are used and are probably preferred. The recent USNA sailing competition in France and the USNA Rugby 7 tour of some of the South Pacific islands are but two examples. Perhaps most importantly are the objective and who leads.

The objective is to enhance warfighting prowess of America’s Naval Forces. Objectives of such institutions as CISM (“The ultimate goal is to contribute to world peace by uniting armed forces through sports. The motto under which we operate is “Friendship through Sport“) or even that motivating the USNA Rugby 7 tour of the South Pacific (“to enhancing our partnership with the Pacific Islands and the respective governments to achieve our shared vision for a resilient Pacific Islands region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity”) are all well and good but should not and cannot be the objectives of military forces. We say this with full appreciation that a competent warfighting military force can certainly help produce the environment for these other outcomes, as reflected in the US Seventh Fleet’s maxim “ready seapower for peace,” but the operative action is power – seapower and warfighting ability.

The ability of America’s military to perform its primary function – defense of the United States and its objectives – will, as always, depend upon the skills and willingness of its military leaders to lead – to lead internally and externally. Without denigrating the utility, value, importance of friends, allies and international cooperation, the reality – welcomed or not – is that the external world for the foreseeable future is looking to and expecting U.S. leadership. Therefore, we expect America and its naval leadership to lead here as well.

We close with this reminder – “Not all naval battles are fought at sea!”

Captain Phil Bozzelli, USN (Ret.) is a retired Surface Warfare Officer who served as Defense Attache in Rome.

Commander Paul Giarra, USN (Ret.) served as a Navy pilot, attended the National War College-equivalent National Institute for Defence Studies in Tokyo, and was a varsity lightweight oarsman at Harvard.

Photo: Members of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard Men’s 7s Rugby teams contest for possession of the ball during a scrum, Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Theodore Lee)

Asia-Pacific

China’s Coming Small Wars

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By Michael Hanson

The world took note of the meteoric growth of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), both in size and capability. Specifically, the PLA and PLAN’s amphibious capabilities development is impressive and alarming. According to many experts, the reason for this rapid development is the forceful reintegration of the island of Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China (PRC).1 Analysts argue that a PLA cross-strait amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be the largest amphibious assault in history, greater in scale and complexity than invasions of Normandy and Okinawa, the largest amphibious operations in each theater during World War II.2

A cross-strait operation would be a serious challenge for a world-class military. Though the Chinese military is quickly reaching peer status with the United States military in many areas, the PLA is not currently ready for a daunting amphibious invasion of Taiwan. The PLA remains untested. Chinese leaders will likely subject their prototype to a series of test runs before committing to such a fateful mission. History and current events show small wars and limited interventions serve as useful training grounds to develop the leadership, processes, and capabilities of military forces for larger designs. At present, North Korean troops are active participants in the war in Ukraine to presumably gain combat experience of their own.3 Likewise, before China embarks on a major war, it will likely hone its edge in small ones.

According to the renowned military historian Basil H. Liddell Hart, “A landing on a foreign coast in the face of hostile troops has always been one of the most difficult operations of war.”4 To establish a lodgment, not only does the offensive force have to overcome a defending force, but significant geographic and climatic factors. Once successfully seizing a beachhead, the attacker must break out from it and begin a land campaign in which it can still meet defeat if it does not have adequate logistics to sustain its campaign. Even once ashore, the challenges of sustaining a campaign overseas are significantly greater than doing so overland. It is for these reasons that successful amphibious campaigns have been the domain of a relatively few militaries in modern history.

China seeks to join the small pantheon of militaries effective at amphibious operations. However, China’s military last combat experience occurred during the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. In that conflict Vietnamese militias stymied Chinese offensive thrusts while the bulk of Vietnam’s People’s Revolutionary Army was simultaneously engaged in Cambodia. Though the Chinese never officially acknowledged their casualty figures, independent estimates contend China suffered up to 25,000 killed in action and 37,000 wounded in the month-long war.5

The PLA made enormous strides in the 45 years since its last war. In 1979, China possessed a peasant army organized and equipped for what Mao Zedong called “Peoples’ War,” or guerrilla war.6 However, modern conflict changed China’s calculus. Following the American overwhelming triumph in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, China embarked on a massive military modernization.7 Chinese President Xi Jinping, recently charged the PLA to prepare for war, even uttering the words “dare to fight” during a visit to the Eastern Theater Command, the military district responsible for Taiwan.8,9 Experts assert President Xi is referring to forceful reunification of Taiwan.10

Before undertaking such an enormous and consequential operation the PLA must demonstrate its proficiency. China has conducted numerous exercises and drills, but these displays of military might will not prove sufficient. 11 The crucible of real combat must test PLA leadership, units, and operational methods before attempting an invasion of Taiwan. China’s adversaries should remain attuned to China’s engagement in small wars as means to advance political objectives and test its forces in preparation for a Taiwan invasion.

Contingency operations provide a wealth of knowledge and experience. For these reasons, these limited engagements serve as the most effective training operations. Indeed, throughout history countries have used active battlefields as schoolhouses for improving their combat capabilities, especially engaging in small wars to prepare for a larger one.

From 1937 to 1939, civil war raged in Spain and outside powers supplied troops and equipment to both sides. Though volunteers came to Spain from around the world, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union provided support with the express purpose of gaining knowledge and experience, and testing equipment and doctrinal methods with an eye on the future. Germany, rearming from the severe restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, exploited this opportunity to test its new tanks and airplanes, while employing new concepts.12 Germany’s famed Condor Legion, a unit consisting of both air and ground elements, was the vessel that gave some 19,000 German soldiers and airmen experience in a warzone.13 This was to be an investment that would pay off handsomely in a few short years.

As German arms and ideas were subjected to experimentation in Spain, the Wehrmacht learned other valuable lessons during Adolf Hitler’s bloodless conquests. In Germany’s remilitarization of the Rhineland, as well as its annexations of Austria, the Sudetenland, the rest of Czechoslovakia, and finally Klaipeda, the Wehrmacht gained valuable experience in these unopposed invasions. These campaigns without battles allowed the German military to execute planned movements to seize objectives and secure key terrain and critical infrastructure. The Germans employed tactical and operational methods to set conditions for mutual support when contested. Though the Germans faced little opposition, they experienced other friction and fog inherent in war. In the process of working through these challenges, the Germans profited enormously, specifically in the areas of mobilization, deployment, logistics, and command and control.14

The United States, in fact, has a long history of developing its military in small wars close to home, but perhaps the most notable are in the period between the world wars known as the Banana Wars. Many American senior commanders in World War II cut their teeth as junior officers in these Latin American interventions, from the soldiers who chased Pancho Villa on the Mexican Border just before World War I, to the Marines who fought bandits in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua during the interwar period. More notable than the personalities who served in these small wars are the lessons in warfighting they brought back with them, such as the Marine development of close air support to tactics in jungle fighting that the “Old Breed” passed to their new recruits in preparation for Guadalcanal.15

More recent small-scale interventions in America’s near abroad have had notable impacts on the American military as well. Early confusion in Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada exposed gaps in intelligence, planning, and joint interoperability in execution that helped instigate the reforms of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Act which dictate high level organizations and processes to this day.16 On the other hand, the rapid success of Operation Just Cause in Panama seemed to validate doctrinal planning and training methods.17 Both short and decisive operations did much to improve America’s military stature in the rough wake of the Vietnam War.

Other countries have learned from limited adventures abroad as well. The severe shortcomings of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia with its rusty leftover Soviet military served as a wake-up call to President Vladimir Putin. The poor performance of Russian leaders, personnel, units, equipment, and procedures led to massive overhaul of the Russian Army, with a modernization program to upgrade all of these areas of disappointment.18 After several years of development, President Putin utilized Syria as a testing ground for new Russian weapons as well as a stage to advertise their capabilities to the world.19 The results of this build-up, combined with Russia’s initial proxy war in Ukraine, served to convince the world of a daunting Russian military machine, an image that was only dashed when Putin squandered these reforms with his ill-advised and poorly planned conventional invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Yet while the Russian war machine is bogged down in cratered and shell-blasted Ukrainian landscapes reminiscent of the battlefields of World War I, China continues developing its own capabilities. Chinese military spending rose significantly in 2024 to $236 billion.20 Recent Chinese developments include the 2022 launch of a Type-003 Fujian aircraft carrier, comparable to an American Nimitz class super carrier.21 In addition to this crown jewel of power projection, the PRC launched their fourth Type 075 Helicopter Landing Dock (LHD) ship, comparable to the American Tarawa and Wasp class amphibious ships, and other amphibious dock landing ships that complement this platform to round out the Amphibious Ready Group construct.22 Like the American Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs), these acquisitions give China a suite of crisis response and power projection capabilities. They have even built several classes of at-sea replenishment ships to support their fleet far from home waters.23

PLAN Type 75 LHD CNS Hubei during a training exercise. (China Daily photo)

The question remains whether platforms similar to Nimitz class aircraft carriers, Tarawa/Wasp Class helicopter ships, and underway replenishment ships are necessary for a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan when the island is already within range of airfields on the Chinese mainland. More likely these are intended for power projection in their near abroad. In other words, the world may witness a coming era of Chinese gunboat diplomacy and small war interventions similar to the Banana Wars during the period of rising American hegemony. With over $1 trillion invested since 2013 and as of 2023, 147 countries signing on to the Belt and Road Initiative, China has lots of opportunities to intervene in overseas contingencies to defend its national interests.24 In line with former Chinese President Hu Jintao’s call for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to conduct “new historic missions,” the PLAN is already at work flexing its muscles abroad.25

Since 2009 the PLAN has participated in international counter-piracy operations in areas such as the Gulf of Aden, Bab-el-Mandeb, and Arabian Sea.26 Since the start of the Israel-Gaza War, the PLAN dispatched naval forces to the region following Houthi attacks on merchant ships in the waters off of Yemen.27 While the PLAN routinely operates from a military base in Djibouti, one expert warns this outpost will only be the first of many Chinese overseas military bases.28, 29 Yet Chinese involvement in multilateral military missions extend to the land as well.

In recent years, over 2,000 Chinese troops deployed to conflict zones in Mali, Darfur, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.30 These deployments are not a recent developments. Since 1992, China has deployed over 50,000 troops to no less than 29 United Nations peacekeeping missions, losing 24 killed in these operations.31 Of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, China contributes the most personnel to UN missions. President Xi Jinping offered to provide 8,000 troops to a United Nations standby force in 2015.32 As Chinese sailors, soldiers, and airmen gain experience in overseas contingencies, the Chinese military builds its capability to pursue larger missions, like an invasion of Taiwan.

Conclusion

The world has time before China could attempt to use force to bring Taiwan under its heel. However, every year that passes, they increase their readiness. Drills and training exercises certainly increase a military’s abilities. However, only so much can be learned in sterile, controlled training environments. China will likely test its military might in small wars before embarking on a larger one. The world should take note of China’s entry and actions during a small war. When the People’s Republic of China does engage in a small war, the world will know China is preparing for the forceful reunification of Taiwan.

Major Michael A. Hanson, USMC, is an Infantry Officer serving at The Basic School, where the Marine Corps trains its lieutenants and warrant officers in character, officership, and the skills required of a provisional rifle platoon commander. He is also a member of the Connecting File, a Substack newsletter that shares material on tactics, techniques, procedures, and leadership for Marines at the infantry battalion level and below.

References

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Featured Image: Rigged with combat loads, paratroopers assigned to a brigade under the Chinese PLA Army file into a Mi-171E transport helicopter during a parachute training exercise in September 2025. (Photo via eng.chinamil.com.cn/by Hu Qiwu)