Notes to the New CNO Series

By Nicholas A. Kristof

In his remarks at his assumption of office ceremony, Admiral Caudle stated that, “Great power competition is sharpening, threats and capabilities are proliferating, technological disruption is accelerating, the maritime domain is increasingly contested and the margin for error is shrinking. To prevail in this environment, we must build and sustain a Navy that is resilient, agile, globally present, and credible in combat.”

To accomplish this, the Navy must ruthlessly pursue two seemingly disparate capabilities – technical interoperability and the capability to operate in contested communications environments. The need for interoperability in naval operations has never been more critical. However, these operations will increasingly be forced to occur in contested communication environments, where data access and connectivity cannot be guaranteed. Balancing these two imperatives—interoperability and resilience in contested conditions—will be vital to successful maritime operations.

Interoperability enables coalition and joint forces to share information, coordinate actions, and execute missions with speed and precision. In a security environment where no single nation can address threats alone, it allows navies from different countries to communicate and share situational awareness and use common data standards and communication protocols. It also allows forces to integrate sensors and weapons systems for combined lethality and efficiency. Naval operations today—conducted with NATO partners, regional partnerships, or ad-hoc coalitions—depend on interoperability for command and control, intelligence sharing, and battle management.

Despite advances in networking and communications, contested conditions remain a harsh reality. Adversaries will employ electronic warfare, cyberattacks, and other anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategies to disrupt communications and links. Operating effectively in these conditions requires resilient systems that degrade gracefully, continue core functions autonomously, and then reconstitute automatically. It also requires bandwidth efficient communications protocols that send only the minimum number of bits required to accomplish the mission. Forces also need data prioritization and edge processing, enabling platforms to process and act on information locally when disconnected from the network.

Systems that possess these capabilities exist today. But these principles have not served as first-order design considerations for many systems, and the Navy acquisition enterprise is not well-organized to test novel solutions from industry.

The challenge is to design and field systems that support improved interoperability yet can still remain effective in communications-degraded environments. This demands modular, open architectures that allow systems to plug and play across nations while still functioning independently when disconnected. It also requires distributed C2 models to ensure that no single point of failure can collapse operational effectiveness. Zero-trust cybersecurity frameworks will help maintain data integrity even when network control is lost.

Despite “interoperability” being a buzzword for years, the Navy and Marine Corps team, and the wider Joint force, has been extremely slow to improve. Stovepiped acquisitions, lip service instead of ruthless prioritization, and institutional inertia all stand in the way of much needed change. Worse still, recent acquisitions have focused on bandwidth-heavy, compute-intensive, headquarters-focused systems that are doomed to fail in contested communication environments and leave commanders blind and unable to communicate with their forces. In some of these cases, Navy leadership has been won over by fancy and buzzworthy pitches for capabilities that do not actually operate as marketed.

Admiral Caudle must provide forceful and clear direction to the naval acquisition enterprise that he ultimately oversees. That enterprise must prioritize systems that maximize interoperability when conditions permit, and the ability to operate alone and unafraid when necessary.

Nicholas A. Kristof is a 1996 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a retired submarine officer. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of any organization with which he is affiliated.

Featured Image: EAST CHINA SEA (Feb. 2, 2022) Operations Specialist 2nd Class Adrian Godinez, left, from Athens, Alabama, and Operations Specialist 3rd Class Dorian Soto, from Houston, Texas, stand watch on the Anti-Surface/Subsurface Tactical Air Control (ASTAC) console in the Combat Information Center as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) conducts routine underway operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Benjamin A. Lewis)

Notes to the New CNO Series

By Jason Lancaster

Despite U.S. and allied development aid contributions dwarfing PRC contributions in the South Pacific, the PRC has made significant regional gains in influence. PRC competition means the region can no longer be treated as a geostrategic backwater. Its 14 countries are small but their economic exclusion zones cover 20 percent of the earth’s surface, and their locations are strategic geography in the Pacific.

The U.S. Navy has sporadically engaged in sports diplomacy with USNA rugby teams and visiting ships. It should make sports diplomacy more systematic and enduring. The U.S. Navy should invest in regular rugby matches in the South Pacific as part of global competition with the PRC.

The region craves attention that the U.S. has seldom given. No U.S. president has ever visited a Pacific Island country. President Clinton hosted the last Pacific Island Leader, while PRC President Xi Jinping has visited Papua New Guinea and Fiji, and hosted many leaders one-on-one in Beijing. A regular sports diplomacy routine can provide a gateway for key leader engagements by creating high-profile events that earn the broader attention of the South Pacific population. Australia signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea providing $600 million Australian dollars for a National Rugby League (NRL) Expansion team in Port Moresby in 2028. Shortly after the agreement, Papua New Guinea signed defense agreements with Australia, suggesting a confluence of interests and engagements.

Sports diplomacy is a method of building relationships and fostering understanding. Many people in the South Pacific love rugby and it provides an opportunity for the U.S. Navy to engage with Pacific Island communities. U.S. Naval Academy Rugby Teams conducted a Pacific Rugby Diplomacy tour in 2024 and played multiple games in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. There was no news of a tour in 2025, but there is a valuable opportunity to compete with the PRC for Pacific Island youths. The U.S. could host Pacific Island teams in the U.S., such as for the Australian NRL’s annual Las Vegas Rugby weekend.

U.S. sailors of Pacific Island descent could travel to watch games in the countries of their descent from the stands. This allows U.S. Navy sailors to better engage with locals in the stands. This helps put faces to nations and mesh lifestyles and philosophies. The Royal New Zealand Navy sends sailors of Pacific Island descent to visit those islands for military memorial days like ANZAC Day.

President Trump has demonstrated interest in athletic events, especially the U.S. hosting of Olympic and World Cup events over the next few years. Navy rugby matches with Pacific Island teams are an excellent way to provide the administration with exciting and high-profile opportunities to engage with leaders in countries vital to U.S. interests. The PRC can build stadiums, but does not field competitive rugby teams, while the U.S. Navy does. The Navy can use sports diplomacy to demonstrate presence and benefit U.S. regional interests.

Commander Jason Lancaster is a Surface Warfare Officer. He has served at sea in destroyers, amphibious ships, and a destroyer squadron. Ashore he has served as an instructor at the Surface Warfare Officers School, on the N5 at Commander, Naval Forces Korea, and in OPNAV N5, and is the Operations Officer for the Joint Staff J-7 Joint Deployment Training Center. He holds Masters’ degrees from the National War College and the University of Tulsa and completed his undergraduate work at Mary Washington College.

Featured Image: U.S. Naval Academy rugby players compete against Samoan players during the USNA Rugby Diplomacy Pacific Islands Tour in Samoa. (Photos by U.S. Embassy in Samoa)

Notes to the New CNO Series

By James Kraska

The U.S. Navy must rebuild its capacity to shape and influence international maritime law. Since the first Code of Naval Warfare was published at the U.S. Naval War College in 1900 through the negotiations of the Law of the Sea Convention in the 1970s, the U.S. Navy was a thought leader in establishing and upholding the global rules of the game, producing influential scholarship, participating in international meetings alongside the Department of State, and engaging with counterparts around the world. In 1979, the United States launched the Freedom of Navigation program to ensure unimpeded global access to the world’s oceans.

These efforts have diminished greatly as both the aptitude or expertise of naval officers to articulate a vision for the legal order of the oceans and the bandwidth of the Navy to influence maritime law have declined in recent decades. The number of experts has dwindled from formerly dozens throughout the Navy and the U.S. government to a handful today. The reasons for this shortfall are manifold: U.S. hubris in thinking that the rules-based order of the oceans it shaped during the Cold War will continue as a matter of its own logic, failure to recognize and respond effectively to opposing views of maritime law from European states, developing countries and China, and since the Clinton Administration, deference to competing priorities like protection of the marine environment and climate change at the expense of naval and operational equities.

The consequences of ignoring naval and defense interests in maritime law are grave, as the rules for operating at sea during peacetime and armed conflict are shaped by other nations, officials, and scholars with different priorities. The Chief of Naval Operations has an opportunity to revitalize the Navy’s expertise and influence in international maritime law. First, mandate the law of the sea and the law of naval warfare are added to the core curriculum of the U.S. Naval War College, the Navy’s “home of thought.” In decades past, U.S. and international students received one week of instruction in all areas of international law, now it is three hours. Actively teaching maritime law throughout the force must be a priority.

Second, engage purposefully in the legal preparation of the battlespace by engaging in the numerous bilateral and multilateral negotiations on maritime law to ensure new rules do not restrain naval commanders in peace and war. The International Committee of the Red Cross, for example, which is heavily subsidized by the United States, is working to restrict the use of autonomous warships during armed conflict, the very same platforms envisioned for the future force.

Third, rebuild maritime law expertise and train the force in the law of the sea and the law of naval warfare. Much of our collective experience in international law is from the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not operations at sea. We should refocus on the laws that apply throughout the global commons – sea, air, and space – that surround our Homeland and connects us to allies in Asia and Europe.

James Kraska is Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Maritime Law and Department Chair of the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and Visiting Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School, where he teaches a popular course on the International Law of the Sea. Professor Kraska served more than 20 years as a U.S. Navy officer and judge advocate, as a legal adviser with U.S. Seventh Fleet and U.S. Pacific Command task forces and in the Pentagon, where he was Director of International Negotiations Division and Oceans Law and Policy Adviser on the Joint Staff. His forthcoming book, Marine Technology, Ocean Governance, and the Law of the Sea (with Khanssa Lagdami), is being published by Cambridge University Press. He is co-author (with “Pete” Pedrozo) of Disruptive Technology and the Law of Naval Warfare‘ (Oxford University Press).

Featured Image: A cargo ship transiting San Francisco bay (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)