CNO’s Global War Game Comes to a Close

The CNO’s Navy Global War Game came to a close on Friday, 12 Sept with a final plenary session attended by over 80 game participants from across the Department of Defense, as well as Australia, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.

The game was led by RADM Peter Gumataotao, the Commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic and RDML Jeffrey Harley, the prospective Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans and Strategy (OPNAV N3/N5B).

Global ’14, the Navy’s Title 10 war game, was hosted by the Naval War College and was the third in a series of major Service Chief-sponsored war games to address future concepts and capabilities in the context of the Services’ Title 10 responsibilities to organize, train, and equip their forces.

“Global’14 provided an outstanding venue to put evolutionary C2 [Command and Control] attributes to the test in a complex and dynamic Anti-Access / Area-Denial (A2/AD) environment,” said Rear Adm. Gumataotao, the Blue Task Force Commander for the game. “The Global Game was not designed to produce a winner or loser, as the scenario was intensely biased against Blue forces and was a forcing function for cross-domain collaboration.”

This year’s effort contributed to the continued development of a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) covering the C2 of cross-domain operations and cross-domain collaboration, utilizing forces that have access in one physical domain to influence access and outcomes in other domains.

The Blue Maritime Component Commander in the game, the Royal Navy’s Captain Andrew Reed from the United Kingdom’s Maritime Warfare Centre, stated: “We have explored new ways of working to deal with complex modern issues using the excellent facilities of the Naval War College. Developing concepts in a partnership of Allies allows us to share ideas and perspectives that will shape how we work together in the future.”

The CONOPS identifies four new C2 attributes that may prove beneficial: an Information Component Commander, a Sustainment Component Commander, a Combined Joint Task Unit, and a Cross-Domain Operations Coordination Element. Global ’14 focused on examining how these new attributes could enable commanders to more effectively perform their responsibilities to plan, direct, monitor and assess operations, particularly in a communications degraded or denied environment.

Rear Adm. Harley shared: “Global’14 gave us an extraordinary opportunity to flex operational access concepts in a complex A2/AD scenario. It enabled us to explore a number of C2 and warfighting concepts in a cross-domain way which will make us an even more capable joint and coalition force.”

The Naval War College War Gaming Dept will analyze the results of the game and produce a report detailing their findings which will be available later this fall.