Are Naval Forces on the Right Path? Leaders Run Wargame to Check

Top naval leaders attended a tabletop wargame Wednesday whose Pacific-conflict scenario was meant to help determine whether their decisions about capabilities and platforms have the Navy on the right path.

“This is a gut check, really, I think, for senior leaders on: Are we going in the right direction, not only in terms of how we're going to fight but, as I said earlier, what we're going to fight with,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said to reporters after the wargame concluded.

The classified “Global 14” wargame was held this week at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and hosted by the Navy’s U.S. Pacific Fleet. More than 475 people were involved from the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army, including senior leaders Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger, and Adm. John Aquilino, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Citing secrecy rules, Gilday and Del Toro, who was also on the press call, provided few details about the wargame and its lessons. But they did say that it showed the importance of acquiring more ships and of having sailors and Marines forward-deployed together.

“This war game, to me, proved more importantly than ever that it's not just about numbers; it's about capabilities,” Del Toro said. “It's about the numbers of platforms, ships, submarines, aircraft that we have and the lethality as well that goes along with those capabilities. And I would say that all of that was proven very much so in this wargame.”

The Navy will analyze the results of the wargame over the next weeks and months, a Navy official said Wednesday.

Del Toro said the Navy’s current technologies and platforms, and the ones planned for introduction in the next decade, gave him confidence that the naval services and the military in general “will be able to actually stand up to any adversary that we face over the course of the next few years.”