U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B Ospreys perform deck-landing maneuvers aboard a Royal Australian Navy Canberra-class landing helicopter dock during RIMPAC 2022. (Photo by Royal Australian Navy Petty Officer Christopher Szumlanski)
By Dr. Jan P. Ganschow
[K]now the enemy and know yourself [and your allies];
in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.1
Rim of the Pacific 2022 (RIMPAC22), the world’s largest international maritime exercise, concluded on 4 August 2022. It included over a month of realistic combined operations training in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.2 Spanning thirty-seven exercise days, RIMPAC22 was divided into harbor, force integration, and tactical phases. Twenty-six nations,3 thirty-eight surface ships, three submarines, nine national land forces, more than thirty unmanned systems, approximately 170 aircraft and more than 25,000 personnel (with approximately thirty U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps judge advocates and approximately 10 multinational legal advisors) participated in the twenty-eighth edition of the biennial RIMPAC.4
In line with RIMPAC22’s theme of “Capable Adaptive Partners,” the forces exercised a wide range of capabilities to display the inherent flexibility of maritime forces and to help promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.5 RIMPAC22 included “gunnery, missile, anti-submarine and air defense exercises, as well as amphibious, counter-piracy, mine clearance, explosive ordnance disposal, diving and salvage operations . . . [and] space and cyber operations,”6 all of which provided a plethora of operational law challenges at the tactical and operational levels.
To prepare for the anticipated legal challenges at RIMPAC22, the U.S. Third Fleet Judge Advocate, Commander Jessica Pyle, organized a two-day international legal symposium, which served to synchronize and educate legal participants. The National Security Law Attorney of the 25th Infantry Division and U.S. Army Hawaii, Captain Shane Bagwell, attended the symposium.
In addition, as a result of the varied operations at RIMPAC22, the multinational legal community synchronized daily throughout the exercise to interpret and apply relevant legal regimes (peacetime domestic and international law, and domestic and international laws of armed conflict). Having an observer from the Center for Law and Military Operations (CLAMO) present during the exercise served to inform CLAMO’s efforts, particularly in light of future multinational legal interoperability challenges within multi-domain operations.
The exercise brought to light the importance of joint, multi-domain operations—especially in the primarily maritime Indo-Pacific theater—and the coordinated efforts that are necessary for such operations to occur.7 Overall, RIMPAC22 led to a wide array of legal lessons learned and strengthened working relations with U.S. allies and partners. As this article’s introductory quotation of Sun Tzu’s age-old adage implies, in a coalition warfare scenario, this knowledge and enhanced interoperability could prove decisive to the outcome of war. TAL
Dr. Ganschow is the Action Officer for Multinational Operations and Interoperability with the Center for Law and Military Operations at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Notes
1. Sun Tzu, The Art of War 84 (Samuel B. Griffith trans., Oxford Univ. Press 1971) (n.d.).
2. Commander, U.S. Third Fleet Public Affairs, RIMPAC 2022 Concludes, America’s Navy (Aug. 5, 2022), https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/ Article/3118649/rimpac-2022-concludes.
3. This year’s exercise included units and personnel from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, the United Kingdom and the United States. Id.
4. Id.
5. Edward Lundquist, RIMPAC Naval Exercise Brings Together ‘Capable Adaptive Partners’ from 28 Nations, MarineLink (Aug. 5, 2022), https://www.marinelink. com/news/rimpac-naval-exercise-brings-together-498546.
6. U.S. Navy, Rim of the Pacific 2022 Officially Begins, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (June 30, 2022) https://www. pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3081151/rim-of-the-pacific-2022-officially-begins.
7. A detailed discussion of the topics covered is provided in the National Security Law Quarterly article on RIMPAC22.