Podcast

Sea Control 358 – Information Fusion Center Singapore with CDR Jeremy Bachelier (French Version)

Leave a comment

By Alexia Bouallagui

L’animatrice, rédactrice et productrice Alexia Bouallagui s’entretient avec le Commandant Jeremy Bachelier, Officier de Liaison français au Centre de Fusion de l’Information (IFC) à Singapour. Ils discutent des missions du centre et de la contribution de l’IFC à la sécurité maritime du point de vue d’un Officier de Liaison français. Ils abordent également les défis actuels et futurs de la sécurité maritime dans la région Indo-Pacifique ainsi que l’évolution des menaces pour la sécurité maritime et les outils à la disposition de la communauté locale et internationale.

Sea Control 358 – Information Fusion Center Singapore with CDR Jeremy Bachelier (French Version)

Alexia Bouallagui is Co-Host and producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the team at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

Podcast

Sea Control 358 – Information Fusion Center Singapore with CDR Jeremy Bachelier (English Version)

Leave a comment

By Alexia Bouallagui

Commander Jeremy Bachelier, the French Liaison Officer at the Information Fusion Center (IFC) in Singapore joins us to discuss the missions of the center and the IFC’s contribution to maritime security from the perspective of a French Liaison Officer. We also explore the current and future challenges to maritime security in the Indo-Pacific as well as the evolution in the types of threats to maritime security and the tools at the disposal of the local and international communities.

Sea Control 358 – Information Fusion Center Singapore with CDR Jeremy Bachelier (English Version)

Alexia Bouallagui is Co-Host and producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the team at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

Tactics

40 Years of Missile Warfare: What the losses of HMS Sheffield and RFS Moskva Tell Us about War at Sea

13 Comments

By Steve Wills

The recent loss of the Russian Navy guided missile cruiser RFS Moskva from a cruise missile strike called forth many comparisons to previous losses of large surface combatants, including the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano and even the Japanese super dreadnought Yamato. Only a few however remembered the HMS Sheffield from the Falklands War. While Moskva was a large and capable surface warship that invited comparisons with the losses of larger combatants, the Russian cruiser’s demise may have much more in common with that of the Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer than Belgrano or any World War II warship.

The birth of the modern cruise missile in the Cold War, and the many sensors, communication tools, and other systems needed to use or defend against anti-ship missiles set the stage for a whole new era in naval warfare. A series of unfortunate events laid the British warship open to attack and a similar version of those events may have doomed Moskva as well. Modern warships are very much “eggshells armed with hammers” and even one hit is enough to put the ship out of combat action or cause her sinking. As the 40th anniversary of the first successful cruise missile attack of the Falklands War recently transpired, it is useful to review the fate of HMS Sheffield to understand what her loss and the loss of the Moskva mean for war at sea now and in the future.

Sentinels in Dangerous Littorals

Air defense is one of the most challenging warship missions in the current environment of cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as conventional aircraft threats. Sheffield and Moskva were both on the front lines of their respective wars serving as air defense units protecting other ships from air and missile attack. Sheffield acted as a picket vessel with the mission of engaging any aircraft and missiles that threatened the British task group aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible. Moskva’s task organization is unknown, but as the Black Sea Fleet’s best air defense warship she likely would have been providing air and missile defense for other nearby Russian warships.

A warship’s defense posture matters greatly in her ability to effectively respond to air and missile attack. That readiness may also depend on other ships in the same task group. Sheffield was nominally prepared to respond to air and missile attack, but several factors limited her responsiveness. According to the post-attack investigation and subsequent revelations, Sheffield’s anti-air warfare officer was out of the operations room at the time of the attack, and a satellite telephone call caused interference with the ship’s electronic support measures (ESM) gear. That disruption blinded the ship’s ability to “see” the inbound missile and by the time lookouts identified the attacking weapon it was too late for Sheffield to respond with weapons and countermeasures. Sheffield’s crew might have been excused for that issue, except a battle was raging around them at the same time with other British task force units tracking supposed missile contacts. The other British air defense destroyer HMS Glasgow was in the process of trying to identify an air threat to the group, but the time from the start of Glasgow’s engagement of the unknown aircraft to impact of the Exocet missile fired by one of those aircraft was less than 3.5 minutes. Missile warfare is fast-paced and any degradation in readiness can be fatal.

May 4, 1982 – HMS Sheffield burns after being struck by an anti-ship missile. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Moskva may also have been engaged in normal activity that masked the ability of her onboard sensors as did Sheffield’s satellite phone call. Moskva may have disregarded the threat of air and missile attack to the point that, like a later cruise missile victim USS Stark (also hit by Exocet missiles in 1987,) her defenses were turned off and not available. Warships must always be vigilant in littoral waters where the risk of cruise missile attack is greater due to closer range to shore-based platforms and limited time for response. The Israeli corvette Hanit escaped severe damage or loss from such a surprise attack in 2006 only because the missile did not arm and struck a glancing blow.

What history shows us is that many warships that have fallen victim to anti-ship missile attacks were struck because of poor readiness and situational awareness. These ships were not struck because their defenses could not hold their own against overwhelming missile salvos. Rather, these ships were struck by exceedingly small salvos of only one or two missiles, attacks they were expected to be able to manage handedly. But poor readiness and awareness resulted in their defenses being virtually absent from the engagement, allowing small missile strikes to wreak enormous damage.

May 18, 1987 – USS Stark (FFG-31) the day after being struck by two anti-ship missiles. (U.S. Navy photo)

Eggshells armed with Hammers

Winston Churchill was perhaps one of the first recorded personalities to describe modern warships as eggshells with hammers, but his description is even more valid today than when he was first quoted as saying it in 1914. Heavy armor for the sides (armor belts,) decks, gun turrets, conning towers, and other critical command and control or engineering sections was common in warship construction from the period of the American Civil War through the end of World War II. While evaluations of armor effectiveness were mixed, it was assumed that some amount of steel plate was useful in protecting large and medium warships from damage. Destroyer-sized ships and smaller lacked much armor, but still had some additional protection around gun mounts. Today by contrast only the largest ships such as aircraft carriers have armor. HMS Sheffield was a destroyer but was larger than her World War II counterparts and might have carried armor. Moskva was a cruiser and previous cruisers had moderate armor protection, but the Russian cruiser too was unarmored. What changed to the point where most warships eschewed armor protection altogether, especially in the face of cruise missile attack?

The addition of missiles and the electronic tools needed to search for opponents and guide weapons to targets fundamentally changed warship design in the early Cold War. Missiles were not turret mounted, and at first were fired from rotating launchers and later from vertical tubes inside the hull. Sensors needed to be placed on tall masts, and to keep the ship stable, the missiles and other heavy gear needed to be mounted lower in the ship. This suggests armoring a ship’s hull, but weapons technology changed in many ways with the introduction of the missile. These weapons were large in the case of those designed as ship killers with even early versions possessing 1,000-pound warheads. Some anti-ship missiles can strike a ship at supersonic speeds and deliver an amount of kinetic force that rivals battleship shells. Later variants possessed shaped-charge warheads that upon impact inject a superheated molten jet into the armor, melting a hole for the rest of the warhead to follow. (The Javelin missile employed so effectively by Ukrainian troops against Russian tanks has a shaped-charge warhead.) In addition, the introduction of nuclear weapons served to make armor pointless. While target ships survived terrible atomic test blasts, the radiation from those weapons could not be deflected and would have killed crews without the weapons that carried them penetrating the ship.

Chinese YJ-12 anti-ship missiles at the PLA 70th anniversary parade in 2019. (China Ministry of National Defense)

Once a missile penetrates and explodes, the damage it inflicts can rapidly immobilize or render a warship unusable. The Exocet missile that hit Sheffield did not explode, but it ruptured a fuel oil tank and fragments from the impact ruptured the ship’s firefighting water system. Deprived of water to fight fires, the crew of the Sheffield were driven from the ship to its exposed decks forward of the bridge and aft of the helicopter hanger; a situation that hampered firefighting efforts. Moskva’s final pictures also show heavy damage, from missile impacts in the middle of the ship (amidships) and many scorch marks emanating from port holes and other undamaged sections suggesting a massive fire. Commercially available wargames have also suggested that the Slava-class cruiser (Moskva was named Slava before her 2000 refit) could survive multiple cruise missile hits, but in this case seems to have succumbed to just two hits from medium-sized weapons.

This is not surprising and not a new development. The robust warships from the World War II era, including capital ships, could be immobilized with one or two torpedo hits as well. Even one cruise missile hit can be disastrous to a small or medium-sized ship as evidenced by the 2016 cruise missile attack on the former U.S. High Speed Vessel Swift, then operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE.) Even an unarmed drone can make a large hole in a ship as evidenced by the 2013 accidental collision of a 270lb target drone and the cruiser USS Chancellorsville during a tracking exercise. Moskva may still have been filled with flammable paneling in her officer’s quarters and had poorly maintained damage control gear as one of the author’s NATO colleagues reported after a 2007 visit to the ship. But most warships today other than large aircraft carriers qualify as eggshells armed with hammers.

May 14, 2017 – HSV-2 Swift in the port of Suez Egypt, after being struck by an anti-ship missile in the Red Sea. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons/Smudge2075)

Sheffield and Moskva: A Common Fate?

The Sheffield, like Moskva, was not immediately sunk by her cruise missile hit, but instead lingered for several days until she sank in rough seas whilst being towed toward South Georgia island for emergency repairs. Moskva too appears to have initially survived but sank later, and it does not take too much change in weather to sink a heavily damaged warship.

The continuing lesson to be learned from cruise missile warfare is what legendary naval tactics professor Wayne Hughes taught his students for nearly four decades. Hughes always said, “attack effectively first.” Do not be on the receiving end of a cruise missile attack as history suggests there me be only minutes or even seconds to respond. The opposition must be denied the information that allows them to target and fire upon warships with confidence, while priority must be given to securing similar targeting information for one’s own forces to fire first.

Sheffield could not see the missile that fatally damaged her until it was too late to respond and Moskva may have suffered a similar fate. Advanced cruise missiles are now part of many nations’ weapon arsenals and continue to improve in terms of speed, maneuverability, range, and effectiveness. The lessons from both the Moskva and Sheffield cruise missile attacks are not new revelations for naval warfare, but rather the timeless reminder that those who do not prepare their ships and crews to face the most prevalent threats may suffer a tragic fate.

Dr. Steven Wills is a navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. He is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms. His research interests include the history of U.S. Navy strategy development over the Cold War and immediate, post-Cold War era, and the history of the post-World War II U.S. Navy surface fleet.

Featured Image: The Russian cruiser Moskva following an April 13, 2022 strike from Ukrainian missiles. (OSINT Technical via Twitter)

Alliances and Partners

Alliance Management Requires All Hands

Leave a comment

By Nicholas Romanow

In the Indo-Pacific and beyond, almost every speech, strategy document, and think tank report mentions “allies and partners” as a critical element of American national security. The military’s culture is organized around warfighting, a concept that may not immediately bring the criticality of allies and partners to mind. When officers in the sea services sit down to discuss big strategic issues, conversations more often center on the strengths and weaknesses of our adversaries, while any assessments of our allies come as an afterthought.

Service members are often told that their first and foremost obligation is to be “warfighters.” This mindset is certainly useful because it calls sailors to meet the highest standards of the Navy’s core values and fulfills the first objective clause of the mission of the Navy: “to win conflicts and wars.” Yet such a mentality neglects the other essential half of the mission statement: “while maintaining security and deterrence through sustained forward presence.” The Navy’s mission today—and over the near and long-term—cannot be achieved by solely focusing on fighting wars; the Navy is uniquely positioned to strengthen U.S. alliances and contribute to this essential pillar of American grand strategy.

Alliances at Sea from Mahan to NATO

The sea services’ reliance on allies is rooted in the Mahanian tradition of American strategic thought. Mahan originally argued that colonies were the most reliable resource for sustained sea power.1 Today, alliance sustained by the forward-presence of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have been beneficial for many countries besides the United States, especially the export-driven economies of East Asia, by guaranteeing the freedom of navigation that enables global commerce. The economic success of America and its allies also proves Mahan’s broader thesis that maritime dominance enables national prosperity.

U.S. maritime alliances are grounded not only in strategic theory but also in geography and history. Seas were once understood as natural buffers that insulated states from threats. But once these seas became crowded with military and civilian vessels, these buffers became vulnerabilities that increased the number of potential flashpoints for conflict. NATO—one of the longest-lasting peacetime alliances in global military history—was sustained throughout the Cold War by a geopolitical reality in Europe that resembles today’s maritime domain. As demonstrated in the opening stages of World War II, a threat to the Netherlands or Austria quickly became a threat to Belgium, France, and Poland soon after. The maritime domain does not lend itself to being claimed and defended by individual nations like plots of land. Like Europe’s Cold War experience, it is impossible to contain conflict within the “bounds” of any one area in the seas. Moreover, because the high seas belong to no nation in particular, it is also a domain where strong states can readily coerce weaker ones, as highlighted by China’s actions in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

NATO was not only effective because it deterred military aggression; it also deterred political coercion and malign influence. As historian Timothy Sayle argues in his authoritative history of NATO, the alliance endured because it limited the Soviets’ ability to intimidate smaller European nations.2 With the horrors of WWII in recent memory, allies feared that weaker European states would rather capitulate to Soviet demands—as Finland did in the years after the war—rather than risk provoking another continental war. NATO was therefore a military organization that produced political effects and granted its members diplomatic resolve on top of collective security.

The Economic/Security Divergence and Other Challenges

Both of these functions performed by NATO in the Cold War are needed in today’s alliance architecture in the Indo-Pacific. The maritime nature of the Indo-Pacific theater facilitates the same potential for threat spillover as the central European plains did in the 20th Century. Additionally, China’s attempts to coerce other countries in the region necessitate a coalition that can resist both economic and military pressures. However, in today’s Indo-Pacific, a recognized need for alliances in the maritime domain does not necessarily translate into a perfectly unified front. Three recurring themes can be traced in the past and present of alliance management in the Indo-Pacific: (1) differences in priorities between the United States and its allies, (2) persistent concerns over free-riding, entrapment, and abandonment, and (3) historical, cultural, and geographic diversity as well as continuing animosity among U.S.-aligned actors.

A decisive factor in any conflict between the United States and China or Russia is whether U.S. allies will offer military support. Especially when considering a potential conflict involving China—an economic juggernaut and a key trading partner for many U.S. allies—analysts have traditionally been skeptical on whether Washington can rely on its allies.3 This is where the Navy has a key role in both deterring conflict and shaping the battlefield for potential conflict.

A persistent but closing gap exists in the threat perceptions of the United States and our allies. American policymakers and observers often see China through a security lens and view its behaviors domestically and internationally as a threat to American interests and the international liberal order. U.S. allies and partners, however, have long seen China through an economic lens as a market and business partner. As Secretary Blinked acknowledged in a 2021 speech, fear being forced “into a “us or them” choice with China,” which might jeopardize key commercial activity.4 This perspective, however, is increasingly becoming more perilous as China leverages the economic dependency of other nations to coerce and co-opt. For example, China heavily sanctioned Australia in response to the Australian parliament taking action to rid its political system of malign Chinese influence.5

The Australian case also hints at a graver future where unchecked Chinese sea power will ultimately erase the economic benefits of smooth relations with China. In a different world with a preponderant and emboldened People’s Liberation Army Navy, Beijing could have not only struck Sino-Australian trade but all Australian trade by controlling shipping lanes to and from Australia. For instance, Chinese naval personnel could theoretically board and seize merchant vessels bound to Australia in a similar fashion to how U.S. and allied navies enforce sanctions against North Korea.

While this economic-security priorities gap has been closing recently, most notably demonstrated by the landmark Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) submarine technology sharing agreement, not all Indo-Pacific nations are equally prepared to draw the ire of China. The economic-security disconnect only aggravates American fears of being abandoned by allies during a conflict and allied fears of being entrapped in a conflict between the United States and China. From the perspective of multiple American administrations, allies have been too content to free-ride off the U.S.-enforced security order. Such sentiments result in calls to reduce American commitments to its security umbrella, which further degrades relations with allies. Through time, allies oscillate between fearing the United States will start a war that implicates its allies and fearing that the United States will leave its partners to its own defenses. This makes reassuring allies an ongoing balancing act.

The consequences of failing to reconcile allies’ economic priorities with security realities are most apparent in the conflict unfolding in Ukraine. Western Europe’s longtime reliance on Russian energy bred a general reluctance to take meaningful steps to deter Russian aggression toward former Soviet states, especially Ukraine. Changing a border by force for the first time since WWII through the 2014 annexation of Ukraine did little to change Europeans’ military calculus; incorporating Ukraine into the NATO security umbrella was still well beyond the imaginable.

Allied sea power might seem peripheral to the land invasion of Ukraine. However, the Black Sea plays a determinative role in Ukraine’s security; as much as 70% of Ukrainian trade travels by sea.6 Since 2014, NATO allies have shifted the bulk of the burden of patrolling the Black Sea to the United States.7 The failure to deter aggression in Ukraine has already led to a worldwide petroleum shortage, and it might also lead to other supply chain frustrations, especially in food and grain. The tragedy in Ukraine unveils the folly of prioritizing short-term economic concerns over long-term strategic problems.

Lastly, despite significant recent progress in forging an Indo-Pacific consensus, U.S. allies and partners differ widely in their contributions to collective security. A security mechanism that requires unanimity like NATO would be especially difficult with members that vary from tiny, authoritarian Singapore to the world’s most populous democracy, India. No common language or shared historical memory binds the region together, and the only common denominator among many Asian countries is the experience of war and occupation. For example, misgivings between Japan and South Korea dating back to WWII continue to stymie meaningful security cooperation and just a few years ago nearly derailed the intelligence-sharing agreement among the United States, South Korea, and Japan.8 Over the decades, the United States has painstakingly toiled to maintain its Indo-Pacific allies’ focus on the primary strategic issue—in this case, Chinese aggression—and prevent bilateral issues from flaring up and inhibiting slow but steady progress in strengthening cooperation. India’s recent reluctance to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine is demonstrative of how difficult it is to keep a coalition on the same page despite the many other laudable accomplishments of the Quad.

Honor, Courage, and (Allied) Commitments

The leadership of the Navy and the other sea services recognize and are seizing the opportunity to contribute to U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere. Because maritime security encompasses both the economic and military components of national power, the Navy is uniquely positioned to bridge the economic-security divergence between the United States and its allies. The sea services possess the institutional experience and policy tools to empower allies and partners and forge a tighter coalition to protect maritime security in the Indo-Pacific.

The AUKUS submarine deal is a prime example of one tool the sea services can leverage to enhance alliances: cutting-edge technology. AUKUS is only the most recent case of Naval technology being distributed to allies. The Navy’s hallmark weapons system, Aegis, is also utilized by Japan, Canada, Norway, South Korea, Spain, and Australia.[i] Such deals to utilize American technology facilitate long-term partnerships because these allies will need to cooperate with the United States in order to maintain, train, and upgrade these systems. They also improve the capabilities of a multi-national coalition. By operating with the same technology, an allied fleet can become much more interoperable, and therefore more lethal. The sea services should continue to share key technologies with partners, especially in areas where China is developing an asymmetric advantage, such as in cyber and space. The Quad’s recent initiative to provide a commercial satellite-based maritime domain awareness program to Indo-Pacific nations is one example of delivering technology to allies and partners.[ii]

Lastly, flexible operational models demonstrate the utility of combining capabilities of multiple allied navies. One model is the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), which comprises ships from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Because this force is made up of 10 nations, compared to the 27 or 30 that make up the European Union or NATO respectively, it can deploy to a crisis much faster than these larger organizations. And the 10-nation JEF can still operate within NATO or EU auspices if requested.11 Moreover, navies in a multinational fleet that regularly conduct exercises and maritime security operations will become more familiar with their partners and have opportunities to work through cultural barriers and idiosyncrasies before scrambling in a large-scale crisis. Annual exercises such as the Pacific Vanguard (PACVAN, consisting of the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Australia)12 and Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC, consisting of dozens of navies from multiple regions, including Europe and South America)13 allow opportunities for Indo-Pacific navies—especially for mutually-suspicious nations such as Japan and South Korea—to develop operational familiarity with each other.

Warfighters? Diplomats? Both? 

My fellow recently-commissioned officers might recall the fresh experience of Officer Candidate School and its emphasis on “delivering warfighters to the fleet”14 and be surprised by the diplomatic endeavors of the Sea Services. Junior officers need not be assigned to an attaché billet at an embassy to contribute to American diplomacy. A singular focus on warfighting simplifies our daily lives as Naval professionals, but it also overlooks half of the mission we are mandated to execute. Moreover, a greater focus on “maintaining security and deterrence” need not come at the expense of warfighting capability. Rather, improving our interoperability with allies in service of forging closer partnerships will only make the United States more formidable if conflict cannot be deterred. If the Navy leaves the upkeep of alliances to the State Department, we would then have to spend precious time during the opening stages of a crisis getting on the same page as our allies. This would ultimately dull our readiness, and therefore our lethality.

And for those outside the Department of Defense, the Navy’s prominent role in diplomacy might seem to reach beyond the Navy’s core purpose and affirm criticisms that U.S. foreign policy is over-militarized. Therefore, close coordination with other agencies, especially among the sea services and with the State Department, is vital to efforts in Naval diplomacy. The Navy does not duplicate the activities of the diplomatic corps, rather adds value to American foreign relations. Seizing the initiative to strengthen maritime partnerships enables the Navy to practice what the State Department and political leadership are constantly preaching.

The terms “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” are often used to describe the kind of efforts needed to overcome the China challenge. This should not only mean using a diverse set of our instruments of power to achieve our goals; it should mean using the tools at our disposal creatively and in ways that might not be obvious. Using American naval power to advance diplomatic objectives is one such way that the United States can strengthen its alliances and respond to the complex maritime threat posed by China. For a tricky task like building a broad, tight-knit maritime coalition, the United States needs all hands on deck.

Ensign Nicholas Romanow, U.S. Navy, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently assigned to Fort Meade, Maryland, and working toward his qualification as a cryptologic warfare officer. He was previously an undergraduate fellow at the Clements Center for National Security. 

The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other military or government agency.

References

1. Alfred Thayer Mahan, Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1660-1783), (Digireads.com Publishing, 2013), 80.

2. Timothy Andrews Sayle, Enduring Alliance, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019), 11.

3. Nicholas R. Nappi, “But Will They Fight China?” Proceedings 144, no. 5 (May 2018), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018/may/will-they-fight-china.

4. Antony Blinken, “Reaffirming and Reimagining America’s Alliances,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, March 25, 2021, https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2550673/reaffirming-and-reimagining-americas-alliances/.

5. Natasha Kassam, “Great expectations: The unraveling of the Australia-China relationship,” The Brookings Institution, July 20, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/great-expectations-the-unraveling-of-the-australia-china-relationship/.

6. Brendan Murray, “Ukraine’s Ports Brace for More Economic Hardship in Russia Conflict,” Bloomberg, January 27, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-01-27/supply-chain-latest-ukraine-s-ports-brace-for-more-economic-hardship.

7. Alison Bath, US Navy and NATO presence in the Black Sea has fallen since Russia took part of Ukraine, figures show,” Stars and Stripes, January 28, 2022, https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-01-28/sporadic-nato-patrols-in-black-sea-leaving-void-for-Russians-4443921.html.

8. Takua Matsuda and Jaehan Park, “Geopolitics Redux: Explaining The Japan-Korea Dispute And Its Implications For Great Power Competition,” War on the Rocks, November 7, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/geopolitics-redux-explaining-the-japan-korea-dispute-and-its-implications-for-great-power-competition/.

9. Lockeed Martin, Aegis Combat System, accessed November 30, 2021, https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/aegis-combat-system.html.

10. Zack Cooper and Gregory Polling, “The Quad Goes to Sea,” War on the Rocks, May 24, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/the-quad-goes-to-sea/.

11. Sean Monaghan, “The Joint Expeditionary Force: Toward a Stronger and More Capable European Defense?,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 12, 2021, https://www.csis.org/analysis/joint-expeditionary-force-toward-stronger-and-more-capable-european-defense.

12. Petty Officer First Class Gregory Juday, “U.S., Allied Forces conduct Exercise Pacific Vanguard 2021 off Coast of Australia,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, July 9, 2021, https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2689702/us-allied-forces-conduct-exercise-pacific-vanguard-2021-off-coast-of-australia/.

13. Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet Public Affairs, “U.S. Navy Announces 28th RIMPAC Exercise,” U.S. Navy, May 31, 2022, https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3048569/us-navy-announces-28th-rimpac-exercise/.

14. PO1 Luke J McCall, Delivering Warfighters to the Fleet, Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, September 29, 202, https://www.dvidshub.net/video/815735/delivering-warfighters-fleet.

Featured Image: Royal Australian Navy, Republic of Korea Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and United States Navy warships sail in formation during the Pacific Vanguard 2020 exercise. (Credit: Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.