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Drones/Unmanned

An Unmanned Hellscape Needs a 21st Century Hephaestus

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By Scott Humr

Introduction

To understand the future, it is helpful to consider the past. Greek mythology can offer rich parallels to modern military technologies and concepts. Recent conceptions about the defense of Taiwan from a Chinese invasion through a “hellscape” of unmanned systems harkens to the mythical robot Talos to protect the island of Crete. Talos, a giant bronze robot, was commissioned by Zeus and built by the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing, Hephaestus. This lone Talos robot is said to have marched around Crete thrice daily and hurled boulders at invading enemy vessels.

While a single Talos was able to accomplish such mythical feats, the defense of Taiwan is envisioned to require “tens of thousands” of unmanned robotic systems. However, wishful thinking is not the bridge that will let us cross from myth to reality. Yet, “[w]ishful thinking” are the words of a retired Peoples Liberation Army Navy officer used to describe Admiral Paparo’s strategy for an “unmanned hellscape” if China were to conduct a cross straits invasion of Taiwan. While such an invasion of Taiwan and subsequent armed conflict would likely not benefit China, the fact remains that employing unmanned systems in the quantities envisioned by the United States would require its military to further develop both capacity and know-how to oversee such a complex endeavor.

If an unmanned hellscape is to move from fantasy to credible threat in the eyes of an adversary, the U.S. Navy, as part of the Joint Force, must take concrete steps to address weaknesses in its current conceptualizations of unmanned future warfare. To overcome these obstacles, the U.S. Navy can lead the way by appointing a robotics and autonomous systems czar to interface and invigorate industry, develop forward deployed naval robotics formations, and oversee a deeper investment in the forces needed to operate these systems.

Naval Robotics and Autonomous Systems Czar

The appointment of a naval robotics and autonomous systems czar or Razar [pronounced: “razor”] can provide the authority within a single individual to generate the momentum needed to overcome the challenges to making any vision of a credible robotics force a reality. However, reporting suggests that rising demand for weaponized drones could strain existing U.S. industrial base capacity. Specifically, when it comes to scale, history provides a poignant example of how a leader with a singular focus can move mountains.

With the commencement of hostilities near the end of the 1930s, U.S. leaders concluded that they needed to get the country on a wartime footing by scaling production quickly. The U.S. was able to bring about a massive change at a scale never before seen and not yet repeated up to this point. The appointment of William Knudsen as Chairman of the Office of Production Management with an eventual commission as a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army helped rapidly expand the defense industrial base by fostering both innovation and production at scale. Along with others such as Henry Kaiser and “Cast-Iron Charlie” Sorensen, Knudsen helped organize and rally the American industrial base like no other in history to achieve unprecedented levels of production needed by the Allied powers, a 20th century Hephaestus. Knudsen’s efforts were only possible because of the authority vested in him by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his own hard-won upbringing for understanding mass production like few others. Arguably, the U.S. Navy can do the same today.

While the U.S. Navy leads the Joint Force in operationalizing autonomous systems, it still needs a Razar to help lead and synchronize its efforts to ensure autonomous systems integrate with other platforms and capabilities. The Razar can lead the service’s efforts to help drive industry and cross-coordinate with the Joint Force for the development of common protocols and common control for autonomous systems technologies. Furthermore, the Razar can be the single office for Fleets and Type commands, who are responsible for readiness, training, and equipping of specific categories of naval capabilities, to interface with for the development of standards, open architecture approaches, testing, and assimilation of autonomous systems across the U.S. Navy. Without a Razar, the likelihood of a plethora of systems taking hold without a single integrator to help coordinate how these platforms will operate within current and projected naval concepts is bleak, particularly in the new age of “precise mass.”

A disjointed effort by the U.S. Navy will result in a greater number of incompatible systems, standards, and communications devices, which squanders precious time and limited resources. Rather, to succeed in this space, the U.S. Navy must appoint a Razar who is trilingual in technology, military operations, and acquisitions and has the authority, interpersonal skills, and enterprise knowledge to not only cut through bureaucratic red tape but is able to build bridges with industry. The Razar can also act as the lead sled dog of the Joint Force for helping implement Senator Roger Wicker’s Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense Act. To this end, the Razar’s efforts should become the Type command for future robotics formations.

Robotics Formations in the Fight

For the U.S. Navy to compete effectively with autonomous systems, robotics formations continuously operating forward should be its bid for success. The Ukrainian military has already demonstrated the utility of dedicated robotics force. While it can make sense to integrate some autonomous systems into existing formations, high-end capabilities will require additional technical acumen, safety considerations, and advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures developed by a dedicated core of personnel. A Razar can oversee the professional development of dedicated units that understand the complexity and nuance needed to employ autonomous systems effectively while ensuring seamless integration into other naval formations.

A dedicated robotics force will require a host of new qualifications, training standards, and readiness considerations. Large scale integration of such systems into current formations would add a tremendous amount of additional requirements on top of an already overburdened sailor’s list of current qualifications. Attempting to maintain additional qualifications for robotics or autonomous systems on top of existing requirements, will result in watered down proficiency, or worse, only a superficial understanding of autonomous systems capabilities. This projection is backed by a recent Government Accountability Office report which found “the Navy does not fill all required ship positions, and that sailors assigned to a ship are sometimes unavailable for duty (for example, temporarily assigned to another ship) or may have inadequate training or preparation for their positions.” Combined with already higher stress levels the force is experiencing, the U.S. Navy cannot afford to make its already overworked sailors do more.

Rather, cohesive units of robotics systems operators who can train and learn together are a superior proposition. When brought in early for planning naval operations, such personnel can provide unmatched expertise to support the operational commander and properly integrate into planning staffs. The Navy’s Robotics Warfare rating is a great start and their continued professionalization as a vital component to the naval service. It is also critical that robotics professionals are prepared to do without the contract support many units have become accustomed to expect in warfare.

Warfare, for the U.S., is an inherently governmental function. However, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated that a bevy of contracted support or field service representatives were necessary to employ a variety of technologies and provide in-country repair services. While the expansive forward operating bases of Iraq and Afghanistan provided a relatively safe area for contractors to operate, future battlefields in and around the First Island Chain will not provide the same level of sanctuary.

Placing robotics formations in the First Island Chain is also necessary for gathering the data necessary to train and improve machine learning algorithms for target recognition and autonomy before conflict erupts. This will allow robotics operators to improve their craft, especially in emissions control conditions where contacting distant support is not only unavailable, but dangerous. Operating forward in competition will allow robotics professionals to continuously perform operational test and evaluation, which is impractical if performed in its traditional manner. For these reasons, forward deploying dedicated robotics formations becomes an imperative to demonstrating a credible robotics force against Chinese aggression, improving autonomous systems tradecraft, while also demonstrating a strong commitment to our allies and partners.

Invest in Humans

The Razar can also act as the lead advocate for the development of robotics personnel, which are anticipated to increase. There are already reports from the war in Ukraine that make clear the necessity and importance of fielding large numbers of drone operators. These operators also provide critical oversight and expertise for employing autonomous systems capabilities to ensure both their legitimate, ethical, and effective use. Naval robotics personnel would provide the necessary legal and ethical oversight of autonomous weapon systems and assurances for helping overcome their complex employment. Because war is fundamentally a human endeavor, having human oversight over autonomous systems are key to demonstrating U.S. commitment to International Humanitarian Law and applying appropriate levels of human judgment required in Department of Defense Directive 3000.09. However, the Navy’s lowering of recruitment standards coupled with an already difficult recruiting environment may prove detrimental for inculcating the technically proficient human capital necessary to sustain such an envisioned robotics force that hellscape requires.

Key for adherence to these and other ethical principles is not only having educated, and well-trained personnel at all levels of command who understand the implications of employing autonomous systems, but professionalized units who specialize in autonomous systems. A key pillar of the Navy’s unmanned campaign framework is the investment in warfighter education. To accomplish this with personnel responsible for leading autonomous systems implementation, the U.S. Navy needs to expand its education at Carnegie Mellon University and the Naval Postgraduate School while furthering opportunities to include other schools for incorporating additional courses on the ethical employment of autonomous systems. Incorporation of more human factors and human-machine interaction training including the use of a detailed case study method will go a long way in developing greater understanding needed for autonomous systems operators and leaders alike. Accordingly, the realization of human-machine teaming with autonomous systems will only come about through a comprehensive appreciation in the development of the human side of the autonomous systems equation. To be sure, complexity does not stop there either.

Robotics and autonomous systems also operate within a system of other complex systems. When such systems are linked together in various kill webs or chains of diverse technologies, complexity increases nonlinearly. The combination and integration of different waveforms, assorted protocols, numerous encryption schemes, and variability of track formats makes complexity rise where mistakes can eventually compound. Robotics operators and their leaders need to become familiar with the myriad challenges associated with technologies within which autonomous systems are integrated. Having highly trained individuals will support easier integration of newer autonomous systems and associated technologies into operational plans. Fittingly, well-trained robotics personnel generate greater rapport for their organizations by establishing trust and confidence to commands and allies they support.

Hellscape’s Holdups?

The appointment of a Razar to oversee all robotics and autonomous systems also has drawbacks. It will centralize a number of aspects that may slow some units down for adopting and integrating autonomous systems in the short term. Moreover, an argument could be made that the U.S. Navy should let a thousand flowers bloom for robotics technologies and promote decentralized innovation. While the appointment of a Razar should not inherently slow down the development of robotics systems and their adoption by other units, a bias toward incorporation at the highest levels is still necessary. Instead, a Razar can take many of the best-of-breed innovations and systems to ensure they support naval forces in a unified way. The Razar can act as the key linkage to other Type or functional commanders in a way lower-level units may struggle to see adopted at scale. Moreover, the Razar is needed to advocate for the significant number of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy considerations to account for future programming of resources to ensure autonomous systems do not become an ephemeral capability.

Another potential drawback is not integrating them at scale within a carrier or expeditionary strike group (C/ESG). While this may be true at a certain level, it cannot be looked at as a shortcoming. Rather, through the use of liaison officers, pre-deployment workup opportunities, and envisioning such units as lethal eyes and ears of the C/ESG, forward deployed autonomous systems placement more than makes up for any apparent non-assimilation. Additionally, paired with forward deployed Marine Corps Stand-In Forces provides a more robust landward component of the Navy that will help keep the door open for the Joint Force, to include allies and partners. Predictably, the Joint Force could one day see the addition of a Combined Force Robotics Component Commander as part of a Joint Task Force in the very near future.

Conclusion

The U.S. Navy, and the Joint Force, in general, face an impending crisis for supporting the defense of Taiwan against any number of potential Chinese actions to bring Taiwan under its control. However, the ability to create a hellscape will require a U.S. Navy intimately familiar with the capabilities and limitations of numerous robotics systems. Furthermore, burdening current units with large quantities of autonomous systems is equally unlikely to result in increased lethality and effective integration but instead weaken current capabilities due to the additional training placed on already overtasked personnel. Such an approach is a recipe for disaster and disuse of robotic systems. Instead, the future is professionalized naval units specializing in human-machine integration with the ability to seamlessly incorporate them into any number of naval formations. This will, however, require the U.S. Navy to have standing forces of these teams if it is to truly benefit from these advanced systems.

Unlike Talos, today’s robotic systems require significant human oversight and additional capabilities to orchestrate a credible capability. Yet, in similar fashion to Talos, robotic systems today can suffer from a number of singular flaws. The Razar should oversee mitigations through continuous development, training, and employment that will address these shortcomings. The ichor that powered Talos in Greek mythology is analogous to the data and connectivity necessary to operate a vast network of robotics and autonomous systems to create a hellscape. A ‘Hell-Razar,’ therefore, must address these potential points of failure.

The myth of Talos provides interesting parallels to the protection of an island by a robotic force. To address this future state, the U.S. Navy can lead the way by assigning a Razar to both coordinate better integration while bolstering defense business, develop forward deployed autonomous systems formations, while also expanding and investing heavily in its robotics personnel. This is what is needed to get “more players on the field” quickly to make our adversary’s think twice while also demonstrating a credible and employable capability to the Joint Force, allies, and partners.

Scott Humr, PhD, is an active duty lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps. He currently serves as the deputy director for the Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems office under the Capabilities Development Directorate in Quantico, Virginia.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Marine Corps or the Department of Defense.

Featured Image: A Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) at a Technology Readiness Experimentation event in San Diego in March. (Photo by Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Yeager)

Maritime Law

Why Do Nations Voluntarily Limit Their Jurisdictional Reach Over Stateless Vessels?

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A version of this piece was originally featured by the U.S. Naval War College’s Stockton Center for International Law under the title, “Rudderless and Adrift: States’ Unwarranted Timidity Respecting
Stateless Vessels.”

By Andrew Norris

Despite the fact that the oceans are extensively used for contraband smuggling, including narcotics, there is not a correspondingly robust legal regime at sea for contending with this problem. Except for a very limited coastal State entitlement to ‘prevent’ customs offenses (including narcotic trafficking) in the contiguous zone, the flag State alone is entitled to exercise prescriptive, enforcement and adjudicative jurisdiction over its vessels and those aboard them for such offenses in all waters outside the sovereign waters (i.e. territorial sea and inward) of another State. UNCLOS Article 108 merely exhorts States to cooperate in combatting narcotics trafficking at sea, and treaties such as the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (hereinafter Vienna Drug Convention), the Jeddah Amendment to the Djibouti Code of Conduct, and Caribbean bilateral agreements typically just provide fidelity on how such cooperation should occur. The Right of Visit (ROV) per UNCLOS Article 110 is a useful tool, but is limited to a determination of vessel nationality only – jurisdiction over a vessel for any narcotics trafficking offenses remains the sole province of the flag State in the case of a properly flagged vessel.

Specific to the issue of law enforcement jurisdiction at sea, Article 4 of the Vienna Drug Convention requires Parties to take measures to establish jurisdiction over violations of their narcotics criminal laws occurring in their territory or on board a vessel flying their flag. It also suggests that Parties take measures (such as obtaining flag State consent) to establish jurisdiction over vessels flying the flag of another State. What Article 4 does not touch on is the ability of States to establish and exercise jurisdiction over vessels without nationality or those assimilated to vessels without nationality under international law (collectively referred to hereinafter for ease of reference as stateless vessels).

Recognizing that the inability to exert maritime law enforcement jurisdiction over stateless vessels creates a significant gap in the overall global effort to combat narcotics trafficking at sea, some nations have extended their jurisdictional reach more robustly over such vessels. For example, Article 3 (Jurisdiction) of the 1995 Council of Europe’s ‘Agreement on Illicit Traffic by Sea,’ implementing Article 17 of the Vienna Drug Convention, requires a State Party to ‘take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the relevant offences committed on board a vessel which is without nationality, or which is assimilated to a vessel without nationality under international law.’ Similarly, the U.S. fulfilled its obligations under Article 4 of the Vienna Drug Convention by expanding (and routinely exercising) its jurisdictional reach over stateless vessels in its principal maritime narcotics smuggling law, the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA).1

Unfortunately, such robust jurisdictional postures with respect to stateless vessels engaged in narcotics trafficking at sea are more the exception than the norm. It is not entirely clear whether the failure by many States to more aggressively assert jurisdiction over stateless vessels is the product of legislative lethargy (it requires affirmative action by a State to decide on, adopt, and publicize an enhanced jurisdictional posture) or a mistaken belief that a more robust posture is forbidden by or contrary to international law. As demonstrated below, this second basis is legally incorrect, and to the extent nations are failing to adopt a more robust jurisdictional posture toward stateless vessels based on it, they are voluntarily and needlessly restraining themselves to the ultimate benefit of maritime criminals.

Neither Conventional law, customary international law, nor decisions of international tribunals prevent a more robust exercise of jurisdiction over stateless vessels. The Conventional (or treaty) law of nations, as embodied in UNCLOS, does not answer the question of the extent of jurisdiction States may exercise over Stateless vessels. All it says, in Article 92(2), is that ‘[a] ship which sails under the flags of two or more States, using them according to convenience, may not claim any of the nationalities in question with respect to any other State, and may be assimilated to a ship without nationality.’ This provision is unsatisfactory in several ways. First, it only relates to one of several means by which a vessel can be considered stateless for jurisdictional purposes – it is entirely silent as to other means (e.g. true statelessness, failure to make a claim of nationality). Also, it provides no guidance at all on the ultimate issue, which is the jurisdictional consequence of a vessel being ‘assimilated to a ship without nationality.’

Equally unsatisfying in terms of establishing or defining the international law related to jurisdiction over stateless vessels is State practice. Customary international law results from a general and consistent practice of States that they follow from a sense of legal obligation. A doctrine or principle that rises to the level of customary international law is binding on States to the same extent as treaty law. Unfortunately, as comprehensively addressed in Chapter 15 of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Maritime Crime: A Manual for Criminal Justice Practitioners (3rd ed.), ‘there is no settled answer’ in State practice to the scope of jurisdiction that a boarding State may assert over a stateless vessel. According to the Manual, ‘[s]ome States may determine that they can, in effect, treat the vessel as one of the boarding State’s own nationality’ and as a consequence ‘may claim that it can assert the same jurisdiction over the suspect vessel as it could assert over a vessel of its own nationality.’ However, ‘[o]ther States may be of the view that the statelessness as such of the vessel does not suffice in order to assert jurisdiction over the vessel and the persons on board. Accordingly, they would assert jurisdiction only if there is some other jurisdictional link with the activity of the vessel or the persons concerned’ – such as, for example, an assault on a boarding officer during a ROV boarding. Which viewpoint is correct is not the point here. Rather, the mere fact that this divergence in practice exists, by definition, means there is no settled customary international law that settles the issue.

GULF OF OMAN (Dec. 24, 2023) Bags of illegal narcotics seized from a vessel are stacked on the deck of the U.S. Coast Guard Sentinel-class fast response cutter USCGC Clarence Sutphin Jr. (WPC 1147) in the Gulf of Oman. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)

The consequence of international conventional law that remains largely silent on the issue of the jurisdictional effect of vessel statelessness, and State practice falling into one of two divergent camps, is there is no definitive ‘rule of international law’ on the issue of stateless vessel jurisdiction. In such a case, the Lotus principle (deriving from Case of the S.S. “Lotus” (Fr. v. Turk.), 1927 P.C.I.J. (Ser. A) No. 10), which is a fundamental principle of international law, stands for the proposition that ‘[the absence of a definitive rule] leaves [States] a wide measure of discretion, which is only limited in certain cases by prohibitive rules. As regards other cases, every State remains free to adopt the principles which it regards as best and most suitable.’

In other words, the focus in the absence of generally accepted law is not on whether international law permits a certain action, but rather whether is prohibits such an action. In the absence of such a prohibition, ‘all that can be required of a State is that it should not overstep the limits which international law places upon its jurisdiction; within these limits, its title to exercise jurisdiction rests in its sovereignty.’

In 2024, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Marin (No.22-50154, decided on January 17, 2024) applied the Lotus principle to uphold a provision of the MDLEA that permits the U.S. to assert prescriptive, enforcement, and adjudicative jurisdiction on the basis of statelessness over ‘a vessel aboard which the master or individual in charge makes a claim of registry and for which the claimed nation of registry does not affirmatively and unequivocally assert that the vessel is of its nationality.’ According to the court, ‘[d]efendants do not identify a rule of international law requiring an oral claim to nationality be rebuttable only by a denial by the claimed flag state. In fact, such a rule could lead to the untenable result that neither the boarding state nor the claimed flag state have jurisdiction over a vessel so long as the claimed flag state does not confirm or deny nationality —undermining international law’s role of facilitating the “achievement of common aims.”’ Since, according to the Marin court, no international law prohibits the specific practice at issue, the U.S.’s exercise of jurisdiction on this basis ‘is not contrary to international law under the Lotus principle’ and does not ‘overstep the limits which international law places upon . . . jurisdiction.2

A U.S. court ruling is most certainly not determinative on the issue outside the United States. However, that ruling squarely addressed the international legality of perhaps the most aggressive of the situations in the MDLEA that permits the U.S to exercise jurisdiction over a vessel on the basis of statelessness, and determined that there was no rule of international law forbidding such an exercise in that situation. Assuming this conclusion is correct, application of the Lotus principle leads to a conclusion that the U.S. or any other nation choosing to adopt this particular approach to stateless vessel jurisdiction is free to do so as an exercise of State sovereignty.

The same conclusion would apply to any other approach not specifically prohibited by international law. In fact, it can be argued that in view of the invitation, if not mandate, on States to expand their jurisdictional reach as a central component of the global scheme to cooperatively address the scourge of narcotics trafficking at sea, the failure by States to avail themselves of mechanisms not prohibited to them by international law is a self-inflicted infirmity that weakens the global commitment to good order at sea and unnecessarily cedes legal ‘space’ at sea to would-be traffickers and other purveyors of maritime disorder.

The bottom line is that States should clarify the extent and parameters of their jurisdiction over stateless vessels in their domestic laws. In doing so, they should join the States that, according to the UNODC, ‘determine that they can, in effect, treat the vessel as one of the boarding State’s own nationality’ and as a consequence ‘may claim that it can assert the same jurisdiction over the suspect vessel as it could assert over a vessel of its own nationality.’ There is no legal bar to them doing so, and failure to do so merely weakens their own maritime law enforcement power and the overall global scheme to address disorders at sea. And finally, though the focus of this analysis is on narcotics trafficking, that is merely for illustrative purposes. There is no reason whatsoever that nations could not similarly extend their jurisdictional reach over stateless vessels for any other types of maritime crimes or disorders, subject to any other legal limitations that might exist.3

Andrew Norris, J.D., is a retired U.S. Coast Guard captain who currently works as a legal and regulatory consultant through his business, Tradewind Maritime Services Inc. In 2024, he has supported the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in their maritime capacity building programs in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Oceans East regions. He also supports U.S. Defense Support of Civilian Agencies (DSCA) capacity building programs in partner nations. He is a founder of the Maritime Security and Governance Staff Course at the U.S. Naval War College, a resident 5-month course for international officers focused on maritime activities and missions short of war. His principal area of recent focus is on fostering collaboration and system improvements by judges, prosecutors, and enforcers to better achieve a successful ‘legal finish’ in maritime law enforcement cases.

References

1 Title 46 U.S. Code Chapter 705

2 There have been some international court rulings that call into question the continued vitality of the Lotus principle in the jurisdictional context. However, those cases related to jurisdiction over universal crimes (such as war crimes or piracy), which, being international crimes, cannot by definition be the subject of differential state jurisdictional interpretations. That is not so with respect to non-universal crimes like narcotics smuggling; the 1988 Vienna Convention, for example, acknowledges the competency of States to craft criminal prohibitions and their jurisdictional reach, even as it provides guidelines on the types of criminal activities such laws should address. It is the author’s view – not to mention that of the U.S. Ninth Circuit – that the Lotus principle, rooted as it is in State sovereignty, is alive and well in the context of jurisdiction over non-universal crimes, including narcotics enforcement.

3 For example, the U.S. adopts the MDLEA’s jurisdictional scheme over stateless vessels in its principal fisheries enforcement law. See 16 U.S.C. 1802(49). This is in accord with exhortations by, e.g., the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission or the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) that nations ‘take all necessary measures, including enacting domestic legislation if appropriate, to prevent vessels without nationality from undermining conservation and management measures’ adopted to conserve and protect covered fish stocks. Conservation and Management Measure 2009-09, WCPFC.

Featured Image: Gulf of Oman (Aug. 30, 2022) Bags of illegal narcotics sit on the deck of a fishing vessel interdicted by U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutter USCGC Glen Harris (WPC 1144) in the Gulf of Oman. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)

Podcast

Sea Control 570: Brent Jurmu on Equipping the Marine Reconnaissance Battalion Now

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By Brian Kerg

Major Brent Jurmu joins Brian Kerg to discuss his article, “Equip the Mobile Reconnaissance Battalion Now.” Jurmu discusses how to adapt Marine reconnaissance platforms and units.

Download Sea Control 570: Brent Jurmu on Equipping the Marine Reconnaissance Battalion Now

Links

1. “Equip the Mobile Reconnaissance Battalion Now More than a new platform,” by Maj Brent Jurmu, Capt Brandon Klewicki, and Maj Matthew Tweedy, Marine Corps Gazette, May 2024.

Brian Kerg is co-host of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the podcast team at [email protected].
Alliances and Partners

Break China’s Grip on Shipping with the Multilateral Maritime Alliance

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By Blaine Worthington

The United States has a shipping problem and everybody knows it. From combatant commands to congress and maritime security outlets to the White House, everyone is talking about America’s lack of maritime capacity.1 America, it seems, is waking up to its maritime problem and is ready to roll up its sleeves and start solving it in the only way it knows how—mostly alone. While there have been some nods to bilateral cooperation in shipbuilding, the United States has not made a concerted effort toward a robust, multilateral counter-China maritime strategy. That needs to change. A coordinated, multinational approach is required to counter Chinese shipping dominance. The US and its allies should form a Multilateral Maritime Alliance to secure maritime trade and create critical sealift capacity to sustain expeditionary combat operations.

The crux of the problem is that the United States cannot compete with Chinese shipping or shipbuilding. The United States flagged merchant fleet currently sits at 185 ships.2 China (including Hong Kong) has a fleet of 7,838.3 In 2023, the United States built 0.1% of the world’s ships. In the same year, China built 50.7%.4 In 2024, 2.16% of the global merchant fleet was owned by US companies. China owned 19%.5 The scale of China’s shipping and shipbuilding advantage gives it tremendous economic leverage over the United States during peacetime. At the same time, this lack of domestic shipping means the United States does not have a merchant marine robust enough to support sustained expeditionary combat in the event conflict with China.6 It is understandable that the United States wants to rebuild its maritime sector. It must, and it must do it quickly.

The United States is not alone in this situation, however. Its close friend and ally Australia suffers from a similar ill. As Canberra-based maritime expert Richard Dunley has noted, “99 per cent of Australia’s trade moves by sea, supporting 45 per cent of the country’s national income. And virtually all of this travels in foreign flagged and foreign owned vessels. In 2021, 6,170 individual foreign flagged vessels called at Australian ports. By contrast, there are only four Australian flagged vessels on international trade and these are LNG carriers, exporting Australian hydrocarbons to customers in north-east Asia.”7

This situation is not lost on the Australian government either. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party made the development of a “Strategic Fleet” of privately owned and Australia-flagged merchant vessels a plank of the party platform during the 2022 election.8 In 2023, the Albanese government released a report detailing the scale of the problem and proposing many solutions similar to those now on offer in the United States, including government subsidies, cargo preference measures, and maritime workforce development efforts—largely measures aimed at bolstering domestic capacity.

BAY OF BENGAL (Oct. 17, 2021) Ships and aircraft from the U.S. Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), and U.K. Royal Navy transit in formation as part of Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Haydn N. Smith)

These efforts, like their American counterparts, will take many years, if not decades, to take effect, however. There is no switch to flip that will suddenly cause shipyards to spring up, full of trained and qualified workers, with healthy, consistent, reliable demand for ships operated by American or Australian crew while relying solely on domestic solutions. As the Davidson Window – the most likely window in which China might attempt to take military action against Taiwan – closes and the clock ticks down to 2027, there simply is not enough time to wait for the domestic industry to come online.9

If a domestic ramp-up cannot provide an immediate solution, the obvious answer is to look abroad. In the United States, this effort has focused on the shipbuilding side of the coin. In recent testimony, Congressional Research Service analyst Ronald O’Rourke typified this perspective by highlighting US allies in Japan and South Korea as obvious partners to address US shipbuilding needs.10 Australian officials seemed to have reached a similar conclusion in strongly considering the Japanese Mogami-class frigates in their upcoming procurement.11 These solutions, however, leave two problems remaining. First, all Japanese and South Korean shipyards are within China’s Weapons Engagement Zone (WEZ). This is a concern not just for the US and Australia, but also for Japan and Korea, who would need access to shipyards with some standoff from China in the event of conflict. Second, even if shipbuilding partnerships can be achieved in the medium term, the United States and Australia will still lack sufficient sealift capacity to compete with China in the immediate term.12

To solve these problems, the United States and Australia should engage with their regional partners in South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines—who have been partnering with the Koreans to develop their own shipbuilding prowess—to create a counter-China maritime bloc: the Multilateral Maritime Alliance (MMA). The MMA would achieve the following objectives:

1. Establish economic incentives to promote sea trade via vessels owned or flagged within the MMA, protecting market access for domestic shippers and breaking Chinese economic leverage over member states.

2. Formalize cooperation amongst MMA members to develop shipbuilding and shipping capacity in Australia and the United States, establishing robust and redundant allied maritime capacity outside the WEZ.

To achieve the first objective, the MMA should negotiate collective cargo preferences, port privileges, and trade incentives to immediately shift demand away from Chinese carriers. Many countries, the United States included, maintain cargo preference policies, which are designed to ensure demand for domestically flagged shipping. Under the MMA, similar preference policies would be shared amongst MMA countries. Collective preferences could include requiring that a percentage of all imports or exports be carried on MMA shipping, providing front-of-the-line privileges for MMA ships in ports of member states, and the blanket reduction or elimination of import tariffs on all goods shipped via MMA shipping. If necessary, the MMA could even resort to establishing shipping quotas to be shared by participating countries to ensure all members have an opportunity to develop and sustain their domestic industries. By coordinating cargo preferences and other incentives, the MMA immediately counters China’s maritime dominance—dominance obtained by decades of subsidies, artificially low freight rates, and unfair labor practices.13 Breaking China’s grip on maritime trade is a necessary condition for future domestic investments in shipping and shipbuilding to be globally competitive.

For the second objective, the MMA can create formal dialogue between countries to allow for the strategic planning and coordination of shipbuilding and repair capacity development. While many of these discussions are already occurring on a bilateral basis, the MMA would ensure that these existing actions are undertaken thoughtfully, do not unwittingly compete against each other, or otherwise compromise the strategic integrity of this shipbuilding or repair capacity. The MMA would effectively serve as an industrial alliance, similar to those found in the European Union. These alliances bring together academia, policymakers, and industry to coordinate policy and investment to achieve strategic ends by finding opportunities for collaboration at all levels of the value chain.14 This could build on cooperative efforts such as the production of Virginia-class submarines under AUKUS or the potential Mogami-class procurement project between Australia and Japan. MMA collaboration could generate opportunities to jointly design, procure, and build future ships in ways that allow each member state to strategically contribute to the supply chain. Additionally, the MMA could allow for the development of formal technical and workforce exchange programs that would enable US and Australian workers and management to work alongside their Korean and Japanese counterparts to develop expertise in current best practices and bring these skills back to their home countries. It would also allow for Korean, Japanese, and Philippine workers with shipbuilding experience and expertise to travel to the US or Australia to seed their nascent workforces and provide immediate access to the skilled labor necessary to ramp up shipbuilding and repair capacity beyond the WEZ.

These solutions are not intended as a replacement for efforts currently underway in the United States or Australia. These efforts to develop their respective domestic maritime sectors must continue. However, purely domestic efforts to rebuild the industry will take time that neither country can afford, and bilateral efforts fail to effectively address the scale of Chinese anti-competitive practices and the strategic vulnerability created by further concentrating capacity inside the WEZ. The MMA, however, will set conditions to allow those domestic investments to be competitive in the long term by breaking the Chinese stranglehold on the shipping industry in the short term. It also formalizes strategic cooperation among all parties to ensure that collective risks are mitigated with collective solutions.

Finally, this civil maritime coordination will lay the foundation for further cooperation between member states in the event of conflict with China, when the demand for sealift will be acute, and all parties will have a role to play in meeting that need. The time for unilateral and bilateral action has passed. The United States, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines should form the Multilateral Maritime Alliance now and break the Chinese stranglehold on maritime industries—before it is too late.

Blaine Worthington is a graduate student at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. He is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and served as Logistics Officer in the United States Marine Corps and continues to serve as a member of the Marine Corps’ Independent Ready Reserve. Opinions expressed are his own and do not represent the positions of any institution, corporation, or government.

References

1 Mallory Shelbourne, “PACFLEET CO Warns a Weak Maritime Sector Risk in Conflict with China,” USNI News (blog), February 1, 2024, https://news.usni.org/2024/02/01/pacfleet-co-paparo-warns-a-weak-u-s-maritime-sector-risk-in-conflict-with-china; “Sen. Kelly, Sen. Young, Rep. Garamendi, Rep. Kelly Introduce SHIPS for America Act to Revitalize US Shipbuilding and Commercial Maritime Industries,” Senator Mark Kelly (blog), December 19, 2024, https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sen-kelly-sen-young-rep-garamendi-rep-kelly-introduce-ships-for-america-act-to-revitalize-us-shipbuilding-and-commercial-maritime-industries/; Cmdr. Sonha Gomez, USCG, “Rebuild the Merchant Marine,” Proceedings 150, no. 10 (October 2024), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/october/rebuild-merchant-marine; Cmdr. Ander S. Heiles, USN, “Rebuild Commercial Maritime Might to Restore U.S. Sea Power,” Center for International Maritime Security, January 31, 2025, https://cimsec.org/rebuild-commercial-maritime-might-to-restore-u-s-sea-power/; Mallory Shelbourne, “Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Great Again’ Order Calls for Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Industry,” USNI News (blog), March 5, 2025, https://news.usni.org/2025/03/05/trumps-make-shipbuilding-great-again-order-calls-for-wholesale-overhaul-of-u-s-maritime-industry.

2 “Number and Size of the U.S. Flag Merchant Fleet and Its Share of the World Fleet,” Bureau of Transportation Statistics, accessed February 25, 2025, https://www.bts.gov/content/number-and-size-us-flag-merchant-fleet-and-its-share-world-fleet.

3 “Merchant Fleet by Flag of Registration and by Type of Ship, Annual” (UN Trade & Development, June 5, 2024), https://unctadstat-api.unctad.org/bulkdownload/US.MerchantFleet/US_MerchantFleet.

4 “Ships Built by Country of Building, Annual” (UN Trade & Development, June 5, 2024), https://unctadstat.unctad.org/datacentre/reportInfo/US.ShipBuilding.

5 “Merchant Fleet by Country of Beneficial Ownership” (UN Trade & Development, June 5, 2024), https://unctadstat.unctad.org/datacentre/reportInfo/US.FleetBeneficialOwners.

6 Shelbourne, “Maritime Sector Risk.”

7 Richard Dunley, “Australia Needs to Resource a Merchant Fleet,” The Interpreter, November 14, 2023, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australia-needs-resource-merchant-fleet.

8 “Labor Will Create a Strategic Fleet to Protect Our National Security and Economic Sovereignty,” Anthony Albanese, PM, January 3, 2022, https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/labor-create-strategic-fleet-protect-national-security-economic-sovereignty.

9 “CNO Remarks at America’s Future Fleet: Reinvigorating the Maritime Industrial Base,” United States Navy, accessed March 12, 2025, https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Speeches/display-speeches/Article/3986010/cno-remarks-at-americas-future-fleet-reinvigorating-the-maritime-industrial-base/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.navy.mil%2FPress-Office%2FSpeeches%2Fdisplay-speeches%2FArticle%2F3986010%2Fcno-remarks-at-americas-future-fleet-reinvigorating-the-maritime-industrial-base%2F.

10 Chris Panella, “Naval Affairs Specialist Says Pacific Allies Might Just Have Answers to US Shipbuilding Problems,” Business Insider, accessed March 13, 2025, https://www.businessinsider.com/pacific-allies-may-have-answer-to-us-navy-shipbuilding-problem-2025-3.

11 Nishank Motwani, “Strategic and Industrial Factors Favour Japan for Australia’s Frigate Project,” The Strategist (blog), February 27, 2025, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/strategic-and-industrial-factors-favour-japan-for-australias-frigate-project/.

12 Shelbourne, “Maritime Sector Risk.”

13 “Report on China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sectors for Dominance,” Section 301 Investigation (Washington, D.C.: Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, January 16, 2025), https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/USTRReportChinaTargetingMaritime.pdf.

14 “Industrial Alliances,” European Commission, accessed March 2, 2025, https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/industry/industrial-alliances_en.

Featured Image: BATH , Maine (Dec. 14, 2012) The 1,000-ton deckhouse of the destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is craned toward the deck of the ship to be integrated with the ship’s hull at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. (U.S. Navy photo)