Global Maritime Partnerships Game: Game Report

During the period 3–8 October 2010, the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island hosted the Navy Title 10 Global Maritime Partnerships Game (GMPG, also Global ‗10), on a truly international scale (83 participants from 46 countries). The overarching purpose of the GMPG was to help the Navy better understand the complexity of the problems that it could face throughout the maritime environment by identifying the catalysts to instability at the national, regional and cross-regional levels and the impediments to forming effective regional and global partnerships in the maritime domain from both United States and international perspectives. This game could help the Navy better define the approaches necessary to establish maritime partnerships to address maritime security issues.
While the Navy has multiple inputs to theater security cooperation plans in the different regions, there should be a better understanding of how and why these forces and capabilities are being used, where they are being used, and what is necessary to achieve the desired end state described in the new Maritime Strategy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (CS-21).
The GMPG was structured to explore the following four specific objectives:
• Identify maritime regional and cross-regional challenges (e.g., resource scarcity, epidemics and pandemics, and regional and transnational criminality) from both international and U.S. perspectives
• Identify broad-based partnership requirements (e.g., policy, legal, technological, etc.) that will enable Maritime Domain Awareness in order to counter these challenges
• Provide an environment for participants to explore and appreciate the complexities of establishing and maintaining effective maritime partnerships through domestic and international perspectives
• Provide participants with an opportunity to familiarize themselves with a sampling of current technological research and innovations in Maritime Domain Awareness.
In order to address the mutually agreed upon objectives established by OPNAV N2/N6 and the Naval War College the following overarching research question is proffered in this game:
• Based on the catalysts to instability derived from the participants, what were the impediments and proposed collaborative solutions to forming effective partnerships at the sub-regional, regional and cross regional levels from both United States and international perspectives?