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Prepared by: USINDOPACOM J06/OSJA

Last Updated: 4 Nov 2022

USINDOPACOM J06/SJA TACAID SERIES 

TOPIC: FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION OPERATIONS (FONOPS) - PEACEFUL, 

PRINCIPLED UPHOLDING INT’L LAW (COUNTERING PRC FLAWED NARRATIVES)

BLUF • Freedom of navigation is guaranteed to all nations under int’l law and essential to global security and economic 

interests and a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

i

• Freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), in conjunction w/ diplomacy, challenge excessive maritime claims

that are inconsistent w/ int’l law and impinge on rights, freedoms, and uses of the sea preserved to all nations.

ii

• FONOPs are principles-based exercises of freedoms of navigation and overflight recognized under int’l law.iii They 

uphold int’l law and the rules-based int’l order. 

• The PRC attempts to discredit FONOPs through false narratives that FONOPs are destabilizing or provocative. To 

the contrary, the PRC’s sweeping, expansive maritime claims threaten to erode the rules-based int’l order. For 

example, “nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea. The 

People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening 

freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.”iv

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU • Freedom of navigation is essential to security/economic interests, including global mobility of forces in peacetime

and contingency/crisis. It is a global interest, allowing goods, people, and ideas to flow freely. 

• FONOPs are an important element of the U.S. freedom of navigation program to challenge excessive maritime 

claims and preserve navigation, overflight, and other rights/freedoms guaranteed to all nations under int’l law.

• You can support FONOPs, and overcome misperceptions and flawed PRC narratives about them, by understanding 

their importance in upholding int’l law and freedom of navigation and that they are peaceful and principle-based. 

DETAILED DISCUSSION • Freedom of navigation, overflight, and other lawful uses of the seas are guaranteed to all nations under int’l law:

o Law of the sea, reflected in UNCLOS, is the primary body of int’l law guaranteeing freedom of navigation.v

o Law of the sea helps protect common interests of the int’l community as a whole, not just the U.S.vi

• The U.S. has vital national interests in preserving freedom of navigation:

o Freedom of navigation is essential to global security and economic interests, and to a Free and Open IndoPacific. It allows goods, ideas, and people to flow freely across the open seas (and skies) and enables 

global mobility of our forces during peacetime and conflict/crisis. vii 

o Many like-minded allies and partners share this interest in freedom of navigation.viii 

• Excessive maritime claims:

ix

o Are contrary to int’l law.

o Impinge on freedom of navigation and other lawful uses of the sea/airspace guaranteed to all nations.

o Risk undermining/eroding the rules-based int’l order if left unchallenged.

o Come in many forms. Examples include but are not limited to: unrecognized historic waters claims; 

improperly drawn baselines; territorial sea claims greater than 12-nm; and impermissible restrictions on 

innocent passage, high-seas freedoms of navigation/overflight, and other rights/freedoms. 

• For over 40 years, the U.S. has carried out a FON program to protect freedom of the seas and challenge excessive 

maritime claims. This program has two primary components:

x

 

o Diplomacy (i.e., consultations/representations) 

o Operational assertions (i.e., FONOPs)
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• FONOPs are:xi

o Peaceful exercises of rights/freedoms of navigation and overflight recognized under int’l law.

o Principle-based, administered with regard to the excessive nature of maritime claims rather than 

identity of coastal nations asserting those claims; in other words, the U.S. does not “FON countries,” but

an array of excessive maritime claims specifically. As a result, U.S. forces challenge excessive claims 

asserted not only by potential adversaries and competitors, but also by allies, partners, and other nations.

• The U.S. maintains transparency in its FON program, including by publishing analysis of excessive maritime 

claims,

xii the purpose of the FON program and FONOPs,xiii and annual FON reports.xiv

• The PRC seeks to propagate false/flawed narratives that FONOPs are provocative, destabilizing, “muscleflexing,” “trespassing,” or “not conducive to regional peace and stability.”xv To the contrary, the PRC’s excessive 

maritime claims and attempts to enforce them are destabilizing, coercive, and threaten the rules-based order:

o The PRC makes sweeping and expansive excessive maritime claims.

xvi Examples include but are not 

limited to: unlawful restrictions on the right of innocent passage enjoyed by all states; unlawful 

restrictions on high-seas freedom of navigation/overflight in its EEZ; excessive claims of maritime 

jurisdiction; unlawful maritime closure areas; an ambiguous and legally baseless “dash-line” claim over 

wide swaths of the South China Sea; claiming maritime entitlements around features not entitled to 

them; invalid claims to historic rights; and others. 

o The PRC uses its expansive maritime claims to coerce/intimidate others and attempt to unilaterally 

erode and reform the int’l rules based order in its favor.xvii

o The PRC continues to unlawfully interfere with the maritime rights of others. For example, in 2016, an 

Arbitration Tribunal constituted under UNCLOS determined in a unanimous and binding award that the 

PRC had behaved unlawfully, including unlawfully interfering w/ Philippines’ resource rights in 

Philippines’ EEZ.xviii The Tribunal repudiated the PRC’s legal arguments and legally baseless claims. The 

PRC flouts and refuses to abide by that binding award (calling it scrap/waste paper).xix

o The PRC attempts to impede lawful FONOPs and makes false claims that it “expels” vessels conducting 

FONOPs. These are yet more examples of the PRC’s attempt to intimidate and impede freedom of 

navigation guaranteed to all nations, and they underscore the importance of FONOPs.

COUNTER-LAWFARE APPROACH • Freedom of navigation, overflight, and other lawful uses of the sea are guaranteed to all nations under int’l law.

• Freedom of navigation is essential to global security and economic interests and a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. 

FON enables the free flow of people, ideas, and goods across the open seas and skies and global mobility of U.S. 

forces in peacetime and conflict/crisis.

• Excessive maritime claims are contrary to int’l law and impinge on navigational freedoms guaranteed to all 

nations. If left unchallenged, those excessive claims risk ripening into customary int’l law.

• It is important to challenge excessive maritime claims, through FONOPs and diplomacy, in order to exercise and

preserve freedom of navigation and uphold the rules-based international order. 

• The PRC’s narrative that FONOPs are provocative and destabilizing is false/flawed. 

• FONOPs are conducted responsibly and in accordance with int’l law. FONOPs are peaceful exercises of rights and 

are principle-based, focusing on excessive maritime claims and not any particular country. FONOPs are conducted 

against a wide array of excessive maritime claims, including those of competitors, potential adversaries, allies, 

partners, and others. The U.S. is transparent in its FON program, including by publishing analyses of excessive 

maritime claims, the purpose of the FON program and FONOPs, and annual FON reports. 

• To the contrary, the PRC’s sweeping, expansive excessive maritime claims threaten the rules-based int’l order. 

The PRC uses its excessive maritime claims to intimidate/coerce. The PRC continues to unlawfully interfere with 

other states’ maritime rights. The PRC’s excessive maritime claims underscore the importance of FONOPs. 
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WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT FONOPS?

U.S. Navy JAG Corps Maritime Claims Reference Manual

https://www.jag.navy.mil/organization/code_10_mcrm.htm

U.S. Department of State, Office of Ocean and Polar 

Affairs, Limits in the Sea Series

https://www.state.gov/limits-in-the-seas/

DoD Annual Freedom of Navigation Reports

https://policy.defense.gov/OUSDP-Offices/FON/

DoD FON Programs Fact Sheet

https://policy.defense.gov/Portals/11/DoD FON Program Summary 

16.pdf?ver=2017-03-03-141350-380
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i U.S. Dep’t of Defense, Freedom of Navigation Program Fact Sheet, Feb. 28, 2017 [hereafter DoD FON Program Fact Sheet], https://policy.defense.gov/Portals/11/

DoD%20FON%20Program%20Summary%2016.pdf?ver=2017-03-03-141350-380.

ii Id. 

iii U.S. State Dep’t, Limits in the Sea (LIS) No. 112, Mar. 1992, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/LIS-112.pdf.

iv SECSTATE Blinken, Fifth Anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal Ruling on the South China Sea, Jul. 11, 2021 [hereafter Fifth Anniversary Statement]

https://www.state.gov/fifth-anniversary-of-the-arbitral-tribunal-ruling-on-the-south-china-sea/.

v U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

vi Yoshifumi Tanaka, The International law of the Sea (3rd ed. 2019), pp. 4-5.

vii SECSTATE Blinken, Speech: A Free and Open Indo-Pacific, Dec. 14, 2021, https://www.state.gov/a-free-and-open-indo-pacific/; DON FON Program Fact Sheet. 

viii See, e.g., Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Free and Open Indo Pacific Basic Thinking Material, https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/page25e_000278.html (including 

freedom of navigation in three pillars of a free and open Indo-Pacific); Lee Jaehyon, South Korea and the South China Sea: A Domestic and International Balancing Act, 

Asia. Policy J., Jan. 2016 (noting South Korea supports freedom of navigation); Reuters, Australia to Continue to Support Freedom of Navigation in South China Sea, PM 

Says, Jul. 15, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-china-southchinasea-pm/australia-to-continue-to-support-freedomof-navigation-in-south-china-seapm-says-idUSKCN24H0D5; Rhyannon Bartlett-Imadegawa, UK's Asia Minister: Freedom of Navigation 'Incredibly Important', Mar. 18, 2021, 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/UK-s-Asia-minister-Freedom-of-navigation-incredibly-important.

ix See U.S. DoS LIS No. 112. 

x DoD FON Program Fact Sheet. 

xi Statement on U.S. Oceans Policy, Mar. 10, 1983.

xii See, e.g., U.S. Navy MCRM; U.S. DoS Limits in the Sea (LIS) series at https://www.state.gov/limits-in-the-seas/.

xiii See, e.g., DoD FON Program Fact Sheet; 1983 U.S. Oceans Policy Statement.

xiv DoD annual FON reports are published online at https://policy.defense.gov/ousdp-offices/fon/.

xv See, e.g., Aaron Connelly, US Manoeuvres in the South China Sea are not Provocative, Jun. 8, 2017, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/us-manoeuvres

-south-china-sea-are-not-provocative.

xvi See, e.g., U.S. DoS LIS No. 150; SECSTATE Blinken, Fifth Anniversary Statement; U.S. Navy MCRM.

xvii Blinken, Fifth Anniversary Statement.

xviii See South China Sea Arbitration (Philippines v. PRC) Award, Jul. 12, 2016, https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/7/.

xix See PRC MFA Statement, Jul. 12, 2021, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/202107/t20210712_9170783.html; Camila

Domonoske, Chinese Official on Tribunal Ruling: 'It's Nothing But A Scrap Of Paper', Jul. 13, 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/13/

485814417/chinese-official-on-tribunal-ruling-its-nothing-but-a-scrap-of-paper.