Latin America

Serious About Building Maritime Capacity in the High Latitudes? Look South

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By Aaron Delano-Johnson and Myles McCarthy

Introduction 

Sporting the distinctive racing stripe worn by many of the globe’s coast guards, the world’s newest polar-capable research vessel left the protected waters of the Gerlache Strait behind as it prepared to cross the Southern Ocean after completing its maiden voyage to Antarctica earlier this year. This cutting-edge vessel was not from a NATO country, Russia, or China, but Colombia, as it set sail from its homeport of Cartagena joining the ranks of South American countries operating ice-capable vessels and research stations on the seventh continent. As the United States and its allies struggle to project surface presence in the high latitudes, the ARC Simon Bolivar (PO-151) joins Chilean icebreaker CNS Almirante Viel (AGB-46) as the second domestically built polar-capable vessel to be commissioned in South America in the last 12 months. If the United States is serious about building capacity to operate at-sea in the high latitudes, it is time to look south. 

The challenge of building high latitude maritime capacity 

The National Strategy for the Arctic Region calls to expand the “U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker fleet to support persistent presence in the U.S. Arctic and additional presence as needed in the European Arctic.” Likewise, United States Policy on the Antarctic Region also identifies the need to expand the United States polar icebreaker fleet to maintain an active and influential presence in the region to support United States interests across the Antarctic Treaty System. 

The struggles to meet either goal are well-documented with critiques of the U.S. Coast Guard’s current icebreaker fleet, Polar Security Cutter program, and the broader state of United States shipbuilding continually in the news. What is not addressed in this debate about icebreaker capacity at-sea is that once the United States polar icebreaker fleet is recapitalized through new construction, or commercially procured stop-gap options, who will operate and maintain these ships in the harshest of environments?

Partnerships with traditional Arctic allies are a natural fit to build knowledge, skills and abilities of high latitude operations, but with a dearth of opportunities onboard both United States and NATO vessels operating in the polar regions, where else should the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy turn to learn from those with these skills and platforms? Look south.

South America’s Efforts in Antarctica

Stories of the Arctic and Antarctic studied in the United States tend to focus on the achievements of polar explorers from Shackleton to Amundsen, Soviet nuclear icebreakers, the indigenous peoples of the Arctic or perhaps the U.S. Antarctic Program’s work at McMurdo Station. Few are aware of the high-latitude capacity possessed by nations across South America, the same countries who are the closest partners of the United States in countering transnational organized crime, operating in the joint naval domain, and addressing illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing at sea.

Amongst them are upwards of 30 research stations, to include year-round presence at 12, a variety of aircraft launching from Chile and Argentina to support operations on Antarctica, and numerous icebreakers or polar research vessels by their navies or respective maritime services.

In a flurry of activity over recent years, the domestic construction or commercial procurement across South America’s polar fleet includes: Argentina will double its heavy icebreaker fleet with the construction of a second Polar Class 4 vessel set for the late 2020s to sail alongside ARA Almirante Irízar (Q-5), the Peruvian Navy commissioned the BAP Carrasco (BOP-171) Polar Class 7 oceanographic and research vessel (2017), the Colombian General Maritime Directorate’s (DIMAR) ARC Simon Bolivar (PO-151) Lloyd’s Register Ice Class 1C FS (2023), the Chilean CNS Almirante Viel (AGB-46) Polar Class 5 was commissioned in July, while the Brazilian Navy awaits delivery of its next-generation, and domestically built icebreaker, dubbed the Antarctic Support Ship expected to be launched in 2025. Finally, Uruguay procured the R/V Mount Whitney, an ice-strengthened research vessel re-flagged in September as the Oyarvide (ROU-22), to reinvigorate support for scientific investigation and logistics for its Antarctic operations.

Polar expertise can also be found ashore. The School of Marine Sciences of the Argentine Navy hosts the International Maritime Organization (IMO) certified courses of Basic and Advance Navigation in Polar Waters while their Chilean Navy counterparts at the Maritime Training and Instruction Center offer a similar Basic and Advanced Polar Water Operations Course. Both courses are requirements for senior officers serving on their nations’ respective Polar Icebreakers, and each routinely welcomes international students, principally from Europe. 

While the United States’ ongoing attempt to recapitalize the ice breaking fleet languishes with delays, it is clear that United States Allies, partners, and adversaries continue, with greater frequency, to put ships into the ice.

Icy Operations: How U.S. Forces Are Engaging the Polar South

Collaborating with South American partners allows the United States to take advantage of a simple fact of geography: when summer precludes cold weather training in the Northern Hemisphere, opportunities abound south of the equator.

Who has looked south to expand opportunities for gaining proficiency in extreme conditions? The U.S. Army’s storied 10th Mountain Division, the 1st Marine Division, U.S. Special Operations Command South, and U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School have all attend the Chilean Mountain Warfare School while U.S. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center instructors have trained alongside the Argentinian Marines in Ushuaia practicing cold weather tactics and exchanging experiences. Likewise, troops from the Argentinian Mountain Warfare School and Chilean Marines have trained with their U.S. Army counterparts at the Northern Warfare Training Center and the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. In addition to ongoing activities in Chile, recent key leader engagements with Argentina have advanced discussions on additional cold weather operations subject matter exchanges. 

The U.S. Coast Guard of course does have partnerships and conducts international engagements across the region from exercises to Security Cooperation. But for as much success as USCGC James’ had during its recent port visits along the east coast of South America as the ship conducted illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing operations in the South Atlantic, efforts by the U.S. to bolster polar cooperation in the region have been much more limited.

Most recently, while returning from their annual mission to re-supply McMurdo Station during the 2023 Antarctic season, USCGC Polar Star deviated from their normal trans-Pacific route to visit Punta Arenas and Valparaiso, Chile. These were the first visits to Chile by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in over seven years and the first to Punta Arenas since 1987, and though the ship enjoyed a warm reception by their Chilean hosts including bilateral engagements, no repeat visit to the continent was made during the ship’s 2024 deployment. 

How to Build High Latitude Bench Strength at Sea

What would polar partnerships in South America offer to the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy? To begin, the need for added bench strength of operators with high latitude experience is real. Currently the U.S. Coast Guard’s high latitude efforts focus on preparing the heavy icebreaker USCGC Polar Star and medium icebreaker USCGC Healy for annual missions to Antarctica and the U.S. Arctic respectively. Healy and Polar Star represent the only two platforms in the United States’ combined fleet capable of training ice pilots, the essential qualification for operating ships in ice. On average, each qualifies just four to five new ice pilots a year, and given the rate of attrition in the U.S. Coast Guard’s Cutterman community, this leaves a very small candidate pool from which to fill current command cadre needs. And projected forward, this trajectory will leave the service critically short of the crews necessary for the nation’s envisioned future icebreaking fleet of Polar Security Cutters.

Since 2018 the U.S Coast Guard has looked to the Afloat Ice Breaking Training Program to help fill these gaps. However, the program is imperfect, and proposals to expand it are stymied by a critical factor: in an average year the United States only has one ship breaking international ice at a time, limiting space for trainees. So why not look to the rapidly expanding South American polar fleet for assistance? Precedent already exists for personnel exchanges in the region. Currently, the U.S. Navy has Surface Warfare Officers participating in two year exchange programs in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Chile, with some calling to expand the program even wider. 

And personnel exchanges should work in both directions, as the U.S. Coast Guard can offer invitations to join icebreaking deployments to officers from South American countries in the same way these opportunities are currently extended to their NATO, Australian, and New Zealand counterparts. Similarly, the U.S. Navy’s Second Fleet recently concluded Operation Nanook, a Canadian led multinational exercise that while focused on the Arctic and NATO partnerships would certainly offer many lessons learned to South American nations with Antarctic interests. Put another way, polar officers need to know more than just the mechanics of how to operate a ship in ice, they need to understand the interests, ideology, and capabilities of all partner nations in the rapidly evolving high-latitudes. 

Potential opportunities to build bench strength are not just limited to expanding the Icebreaking Training Program. Junior officers aboard Healy and Polar Star could take advantage of their ships’ lengthy annual maintenance periods to seek temporary duty opportunities either aboard a ship or even by attending the aforementioned polar navigation courses in Argentina or Chile.

Finally, it takes herculean efforts in logistics to keep the aging U.S. icebreakers on mission. Forging mission support partnerships is often an afterthought that operational commanders scramble to expedite in times of crises. Establishing strategic logistics relationships with partner maritime services that can facilitate spare parts deliveries, conduct at highly capable shipyards across South America, and streamlined agreements for diplomatic clearances should all be a priority for engagement in the region. 

Conclusion

Afloat operations in the polar regions are fraught with risk. The United States needs to come to the region with not just capable ships, but with strong international partnerships and well-trained crews. With an icebreaking fleet that has historically relied upon on-the-job training to qualify the next generation of polar explorers, the U.S. Coast Guard’s “red hull” community currently struggles to support that model due to a lack of assets and opportunities with traditional partners. But polar force projection is of growing national significance, and the United States needs to look at the White Continent with a wide aperture lens. Logistics, memorandums of understanding, alliances, and certainly world-class ships and crews will all be essential in achieving future high latitude goals.

Aaron Delano-Johnson is an active duty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. A ship captain and international affairs officer, he has served across Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Myles McCarthy is an active duty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and an Olmsted Foundation Scholar completing a master’s degree at La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. A ship captain, he hopes to return to sea upon completion of his studies.

The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or the U.S. government.

Featured Image: ARC ship “Simón Bolívar” conducts Antarctic operations. (Colombian Navy Photo)

Capability Analysis

Breaking the Naval Impasse on the U.S. Icebreaker Program

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This article originally featured on the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here.

By Max Schreiber

America’s military vessels brave contested waters, hurricanes, tropical storms, and other chaos—so why is the presence of U.S. Navy ships in the Arctic so limited? The Arctic, after all, is no longer just vast icebergs floating around like sentinels of death, surrounded by silence more oppressive than its cold—it is now a major geopolitical prize in the Great Power Competition between the United States, China, and Russia. 

The Arctic has relevance to every facet of this struggle. Energy? The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that one-eighth of the world’s untapped oil reserves and one-third of its natural gas reserves lie in the Arctic. Trade? The Arctic’s three trade routes—the Northwest Passage (above Canada), the Northern Sea Route (above Russia), and the Central Arctic Route (between Iceland and the Bering Strait, through the North Pole)—will soon subsume a substantial share of shipping, by some accounts five percent of global maritime traffic in 2030 and with no sign of slowing down. Political-military risk? The Russian Navy’s elite Northern Fleet recently expanded its area-of-responsibility specifically to secure the Northern Sea Route, and China proclaimed itself a “near Arctic” state as it begins to establish a “Polar Silk Road” of influence and commerce in the region (“near” does a lot of work there). In fact, China and Russia are cooperating in the Arctic, as evidenced by their joint naval patrol near the U.S. Aleutian Islands in 2023.

The Great Powers in the Arctic

The Great Power Competition in the Arctic will be won with icebreakers—highly specialized naval vessels capable of slicing directly through polar ice that would crush traditional ships and withstanding “storms that can ice over superstructures until ships become so top-heavy they capsize.” Currently, complete exploration, shipping, and patrol of the Arctic is impossible without them. Yet, there is a stark imbalance among the Great Powers in their icebreaking capabilities. China, located 800 miles away from the Arctic at its closest point, operates two existing icebreakers (with a third on the way) and is developing nuclear-powered technology for these vessels. Russia has a fleet of forty-six icebreakers, including three nuclear-powered ships for extended Arctic patrols, and has recently launched a new “class of combat icebreakers with high-speed guns and launchers for anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles.” Both Russia and China have centralized their icebreaker programs under their navies, underscoring their view of these ships as military assets.

In contrast, America’s icebreaker program is in disarray. The U.S. government has only two operational icebreakers—the decades-old Polar Star and the Healy—and neither of them are capable of year-round operations. Plans to build a new fleet of six to nine icebreakers, through the Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program, are faltering. This joint venture between the Navy and Coast Guard is vastly over budget and behind schedule, already exceeding procurement cost by 39 percent, with the first delivery expected in 2029—four years late. Unlike Russia and China, the U.S. has no serious plan to equip its developing icebreakers with nuclear power. Moreover, while the Navy has some involvement in procurement and construction of the icebreakers, the Coast Guard alone is responsible for their operations. This is important because the Navy is the U.S. military’s forward-deployed, combat-oriented force, while the Coast Guard is structured primarily for homeland defense. This organizational divide means that the purpose, posture, and operational reach of America’s icebreakers are dangerously mismatched with those of its primary adversaries in the Arctic.

The Need for a U.S. Navy Icebreaker Program

Accordingly, the U.S. Congress and the President must enact legislation requiring the Navy to build and operate its own combat-oriented icebreaker program to secure our national interests in the Arctic. The Navy is unlikely to take on this role voluntarily. In 2023, the former Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, underscored this reluctance when he deflected questions about icebreaker procurement to the Coast Guard, making it clear that he did not view the program as the Navy’s responsibility. Currently, the Coast Guard is the only branch of the U.S. military legally tasked with “develop[ing], establish[ing], maintain[ing], and operat[ing] icebreaking facilities.” Without a mandate, the Navy has shown no intention to expand its footprint into the icebreaking business. Notably, Gilday’s 2022 Navigation Plan, which outlines the Navy’s strategic goals through 2045, does not even acknowledge the Arctic as a major global maritime shipping route, nor does it identify potential geographic choke points in the region. In 2020, then-Secretary of the Navy, Kenneth Braithwaite, acknowledged the importance of icebreakers in front of Congress, but stated that “it is not a mission that is central to the United States Navy” and is one it “rel[ies] on the Coast Guard to provide.” However, leaving this critical program solely with the Coast Guard—a service with less than 10 percent the Navy’s size and budget—neglects U.S. strategic interests in the Arctic.

U.S. presence in the Arctic requires a robust naval combat capability which the Coast Guard cannot provide alone. In his 2001 commentary on the differences between the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, Professor Colin Gray of the Naval War College identified three unique characteristics of the Navy, all of which are implicated by the icebreaker program. 

First, the Navy “takes its tune … from control (even command) of the high seas.” This means the first duty of “the premier navy, is to control sea lines of communication—to allow or deny access to the sea, thence across it, and finally to the land, where humankind lives.” However, without an active icebreaker presence in the Arctic, the Navy is voluntarily denying itself full access to the Arctic leaving gaps for its adversaries—namely Russia and China, to aggressively expand and militarize their icebreaker presence. 

Second, the Navy’s commitment to “boldly go … where great navies have feared to sail” is undermined by its repudiation of icebreaking operations. Failing to establish a surface presence in the Arctic with icebreakers could yield an “asymmetric [] equalizer” for adversaries, a risk that becomes more imminent as polar ice melts and access to the Arctic increases. 

Third, and most importantly, “the navy of a superpower that aspires to protect commerce and international order globally has no responsible choice other than to pursue excellence virtually wherever military science takes it, however serendipitously.” Russia and China are actively moving the Great Power Competition to the Arctic: Russia is arming its icebreakers with anti-ship weapons and cruise missiles, both nations are regularly patrolling the Arctic seas with icebreakers, and heavily investing in nuclear technology for these vessels. While icebreakers are certainly necessary for the Coast Guard’s missions—including search and rescue, navigation, environmental protection, interdiction, and ice operations—Russia and China have embraced icebreakers as dual-use assets that squarely address the Navy’s purpose. Moreover, the Navy and Air Force’s existing submarine and aircraft presence in the Arctic is inadequate for the Great Power Competition. Submarines and aircraft alone cannot “clear a path for critical shipping, respond to oil spills, or conduct maritime safety and security boardings in the U.S. Arctic”—let alone accomplish more strategic goals of sea control and power projection in the region.

Separately from the mission, Congress and the President should also require an independent Navy icebreaker program due to the Coast Guard’s ongoing struggles in procuring and constructing the vessels. This summer, the United States recently signed the ICE Pact with Finland and Canada to build seventy to ninety new icebreakers over the next decade. While this agreement will help expand America’s icebreaker fleet, it relies on Finland—which can build a polar-class vessel in two years at just 25 percent of the cost of in America—to handle construction. This outsourcing is, frankly, an embarrassment. The poor outcomes in the PSC program may stem in part from its joint structure: since the Coast Guard operates the icebreakers, the PSC program lacks the Navy’s full commitment. The Navy hasn’t fully leveraged its size, money, expertise and influence to drive efficiency or accelerate progress of the program, while the Coast Guard remains constrained by the Navy’s budget authority. Furthermore, each service can deflect blame onto the other in congressional oversight hearings, complicating accountability for the program’s setbacks.

In some ways, the PSC Program inverts the issues between space operators and Air Force leadership that precipitated the United States Space Force. There, space operators’ lack of independence in the DAF—which is traditionally led by pilots—meant space operations and acquisition were deprioritized. With icebreakers however, the lack of substantial direct involvement by the Navy—especially in operations—may be depriving the military of considerable influence that could expedite and improve the development of these critical vessels.

Conclusion

The Arctic is poised to become a critical arena in the Great Power Competition. Thus, to ensure the U.S. is strategically postured in this region, incoming-President Donald J. Trump should work with Congress to enact legislation mandating that the Navy build its own combat-oriented icebreaker fleet—which, upon completion, can sustain a U.S. surface warfare presence in the Arctic.

Max Schreiber is an active-duty intelligence officer with the 76 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Squadron (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) and public interest attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. His academic interests include executive power in foreign affairs and the use of diplomacy and pre-conflict military power to achieve national objectives; he has published on these topics in journals such as The Journal of Advanced Military Studies, Aether (the Air Force’s official strategy journal), and The Towson Journal of International Affairs. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Duke University (electronic and computer engineering).

Featured Image: The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star operates near two seals off the shore of Antarctica, Jan. 16, 2017. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer David Mosley)

Announcements

CIMSEC’s 2024 Holiday Reading List

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By the CIMSEC Team

Happy holidays shipmates! The CIMSEC team has once again put our heads together for what is our fifth annual Holiday Reading List. Below you will find a selection of books we have read and enjoyed over the past year and some that we plan on enjoying in the future, and that we think you might enjoy, too. (Jared even snuck in some other nautical gift ideas.) And of course, we have noted when authors have appeared in CIMSEC or on the Sea Control Podcast. Whether you need to find a book for that special navalist in your life, or if you need something to read on the beach with your toes in the sand or curled up by the fire – we have got you covered. Enjoy, and happy holidays from the CIMSEC team to all our readers and listeners!

If you want even more recommendations, you can find our previous holiday reading list editions from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 here!

Claude Berube
Senior Editor

Into the Deep: A Memoir from the Man Who Found the Titanic by Dr. Robert Ballard

Retired Navy Commander Ballard has earned the moniker of “hero” to many for his incredible career of curiosity and discovery which he recounts in this memoir. While his experiences with Titanic and others made him famous, his questions, hypotheses, and methods of how he found each of the ships are as important as his reinterpretation of history with ancient Mediterranean trade routes as well as reinforcing the ancient flood stories of Noah and Gilgamesh in the Black Sea. He continues to expand humanity’s understanding of the sea floor which anyone can watch on live feeds from his ship E/V Nautilus.

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

Keeping with the theme of exploration, this new treatment of Cook’s life and final voyage dispels common myths and explains his final days.

Path to Power, Means of Ascent, and Master of the Senate by Robert Caro

I’ve only recently gotten around to the first three books on Lyndon Johnson in the proposed five book series in what may well be the best and most comprehensive biographical treatment of any president. The CIMSEC audience, especially officers, may wonder why these recommendations, but there are many historical lessons from the New Deal to the Great Society. Those eventually assigned to the Office of Legislative Affairs may also find it of interest. Of course, there’s also Caro’s treatment of LBJ’s time as a Navy officer during the Second World War. The Audible versions are excellent for those with limited time and a long commute.

Collin Fox
Senior Editor

Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie

All the Factors of Victory: Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves and the Origins of Carrier Air Power by Thomas Wildenberg

Books like Massie’s and Wildenberg’s illustrate how revolutionary changes in naval technology catalyzed the world wars and transformed war at sea twice over in less than 30 years. A Ticonderoga-class cruiser with equally antique SM-2 Standard missiles remains tactically relevant today despite their 1970’s-era designs, but the thought of a ship designed in 1866 fighting in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 or a weapon from 1892 influencing the Battle of Midway in 1942 is laughable. That scale and pace of change will come again. The best way to create and prepare for it is cultivating a deeper historical understanding with engaging books like these.

Andrew Frame
Sea Control Associate Producer

The Pacific War Trilogy is a three-volume history of the Second World War in the Pacific, written by esteemed author and military historian Ian Toll. These are books measured by the quality of storytelling, attention to detail, and raw word count. Toll joins narrative historians like Nathaniel Philbrick, David McCulloch, and James Bradley in giving us the story as a story, making learning as easy as reading. You can listen to Jared interview Toll about his Pacific Trilogy and his book Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy on Sea Control 229. 

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 is the first volume in the Pacific War trilogy. The book is a narrative history of the opening phase of the Pacific War, which took place in the eastern Pacific between the Allies and the Empire of Japan.

The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944 is the second volume, narrating the middle phase in the central and southern Pacific.

Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944–1945 is the third and final volume taking place in the western Pacific as the conflict was brought to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Brian Kerg
Sea Control Co-Host

Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion, edited by Andrew S. Erickson, Conor M. Kennedy, Ryan D. Martinson.

This is the most current and comprehensive study of the operational considerations at play regarding a potential cross-strait attack by the People’s Republic of China against Taiwan. Without a successful amphibious assault, any Chinese invasion of Taiwan will fail – it is the critical piece of the military threat. Naval planners across the Indo-Pacific are laser focused on this exact contingency. This will be essential reading for anyone working on this scenario. Look for a Sea Control episode featuring Andrew Erickson coming soon.

Revolutionary Taiwan by Catherine Lila Chou and Mark Harrison

“Revolutionary Taiwan” is a top-notch exploration of Taiwan’s history across centuries. Too often, observers initiate the heart of cross-strait tensions starting at 1949, when the Kuo Ming Tang fled across the strait to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War. But the history of this island nation, and the root of today’s political tensions and cross-strait relations with China are far deeper and more complex than that, involving centuries-long struggles against colonization by those Taiwanese who lived on the island prior to the arrival of the Kuo Ming Tong, and their quest for democracy afterwards.

If your work is related to Taiwan or its security, and you want to ensure your analysis is sound regarding where Taiwan is and where it is going – this book is essential.

Walker Mills
Sea Control Co-Host and Senior Editor

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

Sides is a masterful storyteller, and he does his best to chronicle Cook’s whole voyage, and not only the gory ending. He is able to capture subtle changes in Cook’s personality and leadership that likely impacted the voyage. Another testament to this book is that I am not the one to have it on my list. As someone who recently relocated to Hawaii, this book was one of the best I read this year. Jared interviewed Hampton Sides on Sea Control 527.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

I’m late to the party on this one. The Wager was a #1 New York Times Bestseller last year, and if you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy (or gift it to the special navalist in your life). Grann is at his best and the story is fascinating. It also pairs well with The Wide Wide Sea, and the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In the new year I’m planning on keeping my Age of Sail kick going with The Billy Ruffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon. You can listen to Jared interview Grann on Sea Control 440.

The Pacific’s New Navies: An Ocean, it’s Wars and the Making of US Sea Power by Thomas M. Jamison

Dr. Jamison is a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and this book (release date 15 January 2025) is based on his PhD dissertation about exchanges in technology and tactics across the Pacific in the 19th Century. I had the pleasure of interviewing him about his thesis on Sea Control 379 and it was fascinating.

Fat Leonard: How One Man Bribed, Bilked and Seduced the U.S. Navy by Craig Whitlock

If you have served in the US Navy, you have heard of ‘Fat Leonard,’ scandal (court cases ongoing) that touched a generation of officers who served in the Pacific. I ordered Whitlock’s book as soon as it came out and I look forward to reading it.

Addison Pellerano
Sea Control Associate Producer

Red Crew: Fighting the War on Drugs with Reagan’s Coast Guard by Jim Howe 

A firsthand and action-packed account of the 1980s drug war from the executive officer of a Coast Guard surface-effects ship. It highlights the can-do attitude of the Coast Guard crews who manned the vessels and the missions they embarked on.

Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: Night Action, 13 November 1942 by James W. Grace

The book details a single engagement from the four days of the Battle of Guadalcanal. The author includes perspectives from both the US and Japanese sides and the planning that went into the battle.

Jared Samuelson
Sea Control Executive Producer ‘Emeritus’

I am submitting not a list of books, but rather items to engage the young maritime security enthusiast in your life. 

Tom Crestodina’s Working Boats. I recommended this last year, and I’ll include it any time I’m asked to provide input to a reading list. If you grew up enthralled by David Macauley’s Castle, you’ll understand why this is my first choice and, with apologies to Macauley, the illustrations are better. Ten types of working vessels are shown with illustrative cutaways and descriptions. You can find plenty of other options on Tom’s website, The Scow, and feel free to put on Sea Control 431 while you browse.

The shipping container tissue box will show any office visitor that you don’t have to be our good friend Sal Mercogliano to be serious about the importance of merchant shipping. Fair warning: every person who sees this is going to want to play with the remarkably realistic functional door. While I have a Maersk box myself, a better choice might be CMA CGM so you can start a conversation about the role western companies are playing in China’s naval expansion, as detailed in Sea Control 364. 

Most LEGO harbor sets have focused on the industrial space dedicated to the loading and offloading of cargo, but the new Seaside Harbor with Cargo Ship is more reminiscent of San Diego’s 10th Avenue Marine Terminal, where most imported bananas enter the United States from colorfully painted Dole company vessels.

Benjamin Van Horrick
Senior Editor

Odysseus & the Oar: Healing After War and Military Service by Adam Magers 

What can an ancient myth tell us about reintegrating veterans into modern society and service members preparing for the mental and moral demands of future conflict? In Odysseus and the Oar, Adam Magers couples the ancient tale with Jungian psychological interruption to offer veterans longing to return home – and mental health professionals looking to assist – a framework for their odyssey. Unlike most mental health professionals, for Magers, the work of reintegration was a personal struggle before becoming a professional pursuit. A decorated combat veteran who fought in the Battle of Sadr City, Magers floundered upon reentry to American society, mirroring Odysseus’ epic struggle to return home. Born out of Magers clinical work and close study of the myth, Odysseus and the Oar offers a compelling guide for the treatment and understanding of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), extracting insights from Odysseus’ epic journey home while preparing future combatants for the convoluted moral space they will enter should hostilities commence again.

Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh

What occurred during the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq? Against the backdrop of fluttering black flags and orange jumpsuits, Salar Abdoh’s novel Out of Mesopotamia uses the conflict to explore age-old themes. He offers an Iranian perspective informed by his time as a war correspondent, giving depth to his narrative while exploring nuances ignored by Western audiences. The novel is not just poignant and darkly funny, but it serves as a meditation on the most vexing aspects of the human experience, topics highlighted by conflict.

Marie Williams
Sea Control Co-Host and Associate Producer

The Contest for the Indian Ocean: And the Making of a New World Order by Darshana Baruah

Scholars have long studied the maritime statecraft of great powers. But in this book, Darshana Baruah studies the statecraft of middle and rising powers, including island states, in the Indian Ocean, and how each builds influence to secure its strategic interests. The result is fresh insight into maritime statecraft and its role in 21st century geopolitics, making this book a a must-read. 

American Defense Reform: Lessons from Failure and Success in Navy History by Rear Adm. Dave Oliver, USN (Ret.) and Anand Toprani

This book adds historical sensibility to the debate on Department of Defense modernization. By interrogating the Navy’s acquisition system from postwar to post-Cold War, Rear Adm. Dave Oliver and Anand Toprani show how process, personnel, and priorities got the Navy more capability for less money and offer clear lessons for when they did not. For Sea Control’s episode on American Defense Reform with Rear Adm. Dave Oliver and Anand Toprani, stay tuned in Winter 2025. For CIMSEC’s written interview with both authors, see here. 

Dmitry Filipoff
Director of Online Content

Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 by David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie

This classic work on the rise of the Imperial Japanese Navy remains a deeply enlightening look at how a new naval power upset the traditional maritime balance and rose to great power status. It offers a detailed yet comprehensive treatment of the core elements of naval power, including the IJN’s force structure planning, naval strategy, warfighting concepts, and technological progression. The aggressive underdog mentality of the IJN and its steely determination to eclipse western navies offers lessons for grasping the shifts currently underway in Asia.

Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima by Chris K. Hemler

The WWII island-hopping campaign of the U.S. in the Pacific demanded new, combined arms forms of delivering firepower ashore. While U.S. forces fought their way onto heavily defended beaches and across harrowing island terrain, a remarkable combined system of air, surface, and land-based fire support flexibly bombarded the enemy. As U.S. forces assaulted successive island strongholds and gained valuable combat experience, they steadily sharpened their approach to triphibious fire support. Chris Hemler’s Delivery Destruction is an illuminating analysis of the warfighting development of a capability and doctrine that was fundamental to the U.S. way of war in the Pacific. Read CIMSEC’s interview with Hemler on the book here. 

One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander by Admiral Sandy Woodward and Patrick Robinson

The Falklands War offers an instructive experience for modern naval commanders. In his memoir, Admiral Sandy Woodward provides a deeply personal perspective of the conflict, including combat decision-making, the plans and strategies of the British naval battlegroup, and the mental trials of a task force commander at war. The early days of the Sea Control podcast featured a significant number of episodes with Falklands War veterans sharing their stories, which can be viewed here.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.

Wargaming

Does it Matter if You Call it a Wargame? Actually, yes.

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By Phillip Pournelle

Much of what the Department of Defense calls wargaming is not actually wargaming and this abuse of nomenclature has real consequences. Wargame-like activities, if conducted properly, are necessary and valuable, but the Department needs to do a better job of differentiating between true wargames, and wargame-like activities. Understanding the types and styles of wargames and wargame-like activities, when which is appropriate, what they look like, and what they can do for you is critical. Without a proper understanding of what a wargame is, and what it is not, the Department of Defense risks wasting money, time, and talent. It has become is all too common that a group of people together having an unstructured conversation is referred to as a “wargame,” and then the sponsor claims to be better prepared for having done it. Such claims are tautological, self-serving, and do not advance organizational learning.

Over the years, the analytic and wargaming community has developed a set of tools with known standards and expectations. Leadership in the Department of Defense should familiarize themselves with them because government sponsors control the larger analytic ecosystem. Better informed customers and sponsors will be able to responsibly choose designers and events appropriate to their purpose and thus generate good strategies.

This article will briefly describe different types and styles of wargames and wargame-like activities, when they are appropriate, what they look like, and what you get out of them (and just as importantly, what you don’t get out of them). It is focused on wargaming and analysis in support of the Department of Defense, not wargaming for education or entertainment.

Wargaming and Strategy

Defense analytic wargaming’s purpose is to assist in the development of good strategy. Thus, we should first examine what good strategy looks like and how wargame-like activities and wargaming can assist in the development of strategy. Defined by Richard Rumelt a good strategy is:

“…in the end, a hypothesis about what will work… A good strategy has at a minimum, three essential components:

  • A diagnosis of the situation
  • The choice of an overall guiding policy
  • And the design of coherent action.“

Consequently, a good strategy goes beyond the minimum elements of “ends, ways, and means” described in most defense strategy textbooks. And, as many can attest to, the enemy has a vote. Accordingly, a good strategy contains a crucial element:

“In general, strategic leverage arises from a mixture of anticipation, insight into what is most pivotal or critical in a situation, and making a concerted application of effort… the most critical anticipations are about the behavior of others, especially rivals.”

When a military service, or other organization, claims they have “wargamed” a concept, it implies they have followed the best practices described in Joint Publication 5-0; a series of iterative games against thinking opponents in a cycle of research to develop a good strategy. In essence, they have subjected the concept in question to a clash of competing hypothesis (theories of victory) in a dialectic crucible and conducted follow up analysis. To have done less than this means such a label conveys a false imprimatur, but unfortunately it happens all the time.

Often concepts are not ready for wargaming because they lack the essential components of a good strategy. Conducting a wargame on a strategy like this is a waste of time, talent, and resources. Before bringing in teams to participate in wargames or wargame-like activities concepts should be assessed using Structured Analytic Techniques, Intelligence Analysis, Liberating Structures, and Red Teaming techniques to diagnose the situation and divine an effective overall guiding policy. To use an American football analogy, the new coach of a team needs to take a hard look at his playbook with coaches and coordinators over the summer to determine if the playbook will be effective against the other teams in the league before the the season starts. 

Definition Wars

While some experts do not believe the exact definition of wargaming matters, those of us who deliver wargames to sponsors in the Department of Defense and other government agencies in support of developing good strategy strongly believe that discussions over ontology and taxonomy are extremely important. Correct taxonomy ensures the right tool is employed to address the right question. Wargame sponsors need to understand the full set of tools available and when to use them because they control the larger analytic ecosystem.

There is a general consensus within the defense professional community regarding what wargame is. The Joint Staff offers a definition for the Department of Defense: “Wargames are representations of conflict or competition in a synthetic environment, in which people make decisions and respond to the consequences of those decisions.”

The Joint Staff has identified best practices for wargaming in JP 5-0. Wargaming is most effective when it involves the following elements:

1. A well-developed, valid Course of Action
2. People making decisions
3. A fair, competitive environment (i.e., the game should have no rules or procedures designed to tilt the playing field toward one side or another)
4. Adjudication
5. Consequences of actions
6. Iteration (i.e., new insights will be gained as games are iterated)

Other wargaming professional publications agree that the critical elements of a wargame are: factions in conflict or competition (live competitors), people making decisions, and revealing the consequences of those decisions. Talking vaguely about what you might do and not making choices undermines the entire point of a wargame. When wargames are properly done, they provide the participants a synthetic experience to enable an understanding of the perspective of other and thus to anticipate the actions of others, especially rivals, and the range of outcomes which can occur. Wargame-like analysis that does not meet these criteria can still be valuable, but it is important to recognize where it falls short and work toward designing a true wargame if that is the required level of analysis.

Table Top Exercises

Returning to our football analogy, having a playbook and a roster of players does not mean you are ready to play a game, and certainly not a championship. The quarterback and the receivers must know the routes which will be run. The linemen must know which play employs pass-blocking or rush-blocking, etc. Each element of the team must understand a play in order to execute it properly. The team’s walk throughs and practices are our wargame-like events and just as the coach can increase the difficulty until the team is conducting a full scrimmage, game designers can increase the complexity of wargame-like activities until the concepts and the players are ready for a clash with a professional red team.

Continuing our football team analogy, preparation begins with the players talking through the plays in the locker room on a chalkboard, which is akin to a Table Top Exercise. A table top exercise is a facilitated discussion of a scripted scenario in an informal, stress-free environment that is based on current applicable policies, plans, and procedures. A table top exercise is an informal, discussion-based session in which a team discusses their roles and responses during an emergency, walking through one or more example scenarios. The hypothetical situation is introduced, and the team members talk through what the response should be. A good table top exercise will employ maps and other visualizations to enable the participants to have a common understanding of the scenario and the actions of others in their organization. The key value of a table top exercise is to bring together participants from disparate organizations (e.g., Allies, Inter-Agency) to discuss how to coordinate whole of government(s) responses, identify who has jurisdictions, permissions, and authorities. The table top exercise is a wargame-like activity and the most common for many organizations which claim to conduct wargames.

Some table top exercises, such as those conducted by the Joint Staff J-8 Studies, Analysis and Gaming Division (SAGD), RAND corporation, and other organizations, will include the perspective of opposition forces (Red Team) represented by the intelligence community or professional emulation teams. But, the Red team in these cases is a minority member and does not have the full agency of action accorded to the collective Blue team.

Table top exercises are appropriate in a qualitative assessments of strengths and weaknesses. The key value of the table top exercise is to engage all stakeholders in a facilitated discussion to clarify inconsistencies and interpretations and determine if there are coherent policies and procedures. But, they are not appropriate to calculate outcomes as Red does not have full agency of actions nor is there an assessment of how effective any action would be, much less in the face of opposing actions and they do noy convey a full understanding of the risks and consequences of selected courses of action.

So, while a table top exercise is not a wargame, it is a valuable wargame-like activity which tests if a strategy is designed with coherent action known among its stakeholders and in some cases a perspective on the reaction of the opposition.

Rehearsal of Concept

Once our football team has talked through each of their actions in a play on the chalkboard and are now headed to the field to see if they can execute the plays, without opposition, essentially a rehearsal. A rehearsal is a session in which a staff or unit practices expected actions to improve performance during execution. Commanders use this tool to ensure staffs and subordinates understand the concept of operations and commander’s intent. A Rehearsal of Concept drill is a dry walk-through of a plan between a commander and their subordinates ensuring a shared understanding of the plan. Conducting a rehearsal of concept drill will enable a team to execute their elements of a concept within a game or exercise. Further the rehearsal of concept drill is likely to reveal elements of the concept or the execution plan which require additional refinement.

There are several variations of the rehearsal. The Sketch Map Rehearsals is a drill to help subordinate leaders visualize the commander’s intent and concept of operations. A Command Post Exercise is a training exercise that may be conducted in garrison or in the field. It’s the most common exercise used for training staffs, subordinate, and supporting leaders to successfully plan, coordinate, synchronize, and exercise command and control over operations during missions.

The rehearsal of concept drill, and its variants, will ensure the team has a coordinated plan which they can execute and assists in designing a strategy with and overall guiding policy and coherent action. As players demonstrate proficiency in the plan, experienced game designers and referees will introduce complications to see how brittle or robust the plan is in the face of friction. Like adding scrimmage players to a football team’s practice, game professionals will add murphy-isms, such as weather, washed out roads, accidents, injuries, missed communications, and other random (but not enemy induced) elements of friction. However valuable, a rehearsal of concept is still not a wargame. Like a football rehearsals, a rehearsal of concept lacks a thinking opponent ready and determined to undermine the concept and its components.

Wargaming

Our football coach has assessed his playbook, assigned players to their roles, had them walk through their part of the plays, then rehearsed the execution of the plays with greater challenges and scrimmages. Now his team is ready to play against opposition. In the same manner, the best practice is to subject a concept or strategy to Red Teaming and other analytic efforts, then conduct a table top exercise, then a rehearsal of concept before playing in a wargame against the thinking opponent. In our experience, attempting to play an immature concept or strategy with a team unfamiliar with the concept in a game leads to frustration and waste of resources, time, and talent.

Alternatively, a series of wargames is the acid test, a dialectic clash of opposing theories of victory against a thinking opponent. At the heart of this iterative process is a thinking opponent grappling with the mechanics of execution of competing plans or confounding your plan with a judo throw. William McCarty Little, who helped bring naval wargaming to the Naval War College in its early years, once argued that “the great secret of its power lies in the existence of the enemy, a live vigorous enemy in the next room waiting feverishly to take advantage of any of our mistakes, ever ready to puncture any visionary scheme, to haul us down to earth.” 

Fully exploring the consequences of the game and properly set the narrative of what occurred will require adjudication of the actions of the competing sides. Such adjudication will require implicit or explicit models or techniques to be defensible in and after the game. The adjudication techniques can be in the collective minds of the participants (Matrix Game), an expert or group of experts (Free Kriegspiel), or baked into the rules (Rigid Kriegspiel). A good game designer will select rules for a game, or elements of a game, based on our understanding of the phenomena the competition is occurring in and revise them in iterations of gaming and analysis, which should include other analytic techniques.

Rigor Versus Detail

When assessing the proper use of wargame-like events and various types and styles of wargames, do not mistake excessive detail for rigor.

Wargames are a shared experiential narrative that can have a powerful impact on participants, shaping the organizational learning of those who employ it. Therefore, it is crucial the game be founded in reality; using “valid knowledge of the environment.” If not, we risk conveying negative learning to a large group of people and sowing confusion potentially for years to come. It has been said: “The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.” Wargame designers should follow the advice of Ms. Virginia “Robbin” Beall, the former lead operations analyst on the Navy staff, when she admonishes wargames must, like the Hippocratic Oath, “do no harm” and avoid conveying improper assumptions which set in the participants’ minds. For example, in one wargame, air-to-air refueling aircraft delivered the same amount of fuel to aircraft regardless of the range of the tanker from its home base. This exaggerated the effects of air power in the wargame, the minds of the participants, and the results.

A good wargame designer will design the game to address decisions the players are expected to make at the level of the role they are playing, and avoid detail for its own sake. There is no reason why the staff of a joint operational command should be involved in details of tactical units.

Conclusion

Much of what the Department of Defense calls wargaming is not actually wargaming, and that matters. These various “not-wargaming” exercises are still valuable as long as we recognize what we are doing and consciously select the appropriate tool in the strategy development process. Using an immature concept or strategy, or forcing a team who is not familiar with it, into a proper wargame is a waste of time and talent. On the other hand, a table top exercise is insufficient to test a strategy to see if it contains the elements of a good strategy, particularly the anticipations of the actions of rivals. The Department of Defense and other agencies must expect a proper level of rigor in its series of games in a Cycle of Research. Actual wargames require: A well-developed concept of operations (theory of victory); people making decisions; a fair, competitive environment; adjudication; consequences of actions; preferably in an iterative cycle of game and analysis.

When someone says they have wargamed a concept, that should mean, they have gone through this specific process and not that they only completed a simple table top exercise, or a rehearsal of concept. The widely used table top exercise is a wargame-like event, a necessary but not sufficient step in the process of acid testing a good strategy or concept. In these dangerous times the Department cannot afford to be complacent and be satisfied with a “good conversation,” but must actually grapple with the opposition in a synthetic environment, where the organization can learn without risking it all. Failing to wargame properly in advance may mean having to learn in actual combat and risk it all.

Phillip Pournelle served in the United States Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer, planner, and Operations Analyst for 26 years. He is an analyst, strategist, wargame designer, and science fiction author working at Group W. He has a master’s degree in operations analysis from the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey.

Featured Image: U.S. Marine Corps officers assigned to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) conduct a wargaming scenario aboard Amphibious Assault Ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), Oct. 22, 2021. (USMC photo by Cpl. Yvonna Guyette)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.