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U.S.-China Maritime Confidence Building Paradigms, Precedents, 

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David Griffiths 

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CHINA MARITIME STUDIES INSTITUTE 

U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE 

Newport, Rhode Island

U.S.-China Maritime 

Confidence Building

www.usnwc.edu/Research---Gaming/China-Maritime-Studies-Institute.aspx

Paradigms, Precedents, and Prospects

David Griffiths
Naval War College

Newport, Rhode Island 

Center for Naval Warfare Studies 

China Maritime Study No. 6 

July 2010

President, Naval War College

Rear Admiral James P. Wisecup, U.S. Navy

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Amb. Mary Ann Peters

Dean of Naval Warfare Studies

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Director of China Maritime Studies Institute

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The views expressed in this paper are those of the author alone and not those of the 

U.S. Navy or any other agency of the U.S. government. 

The kind of security problems states will face in the twenty-first 

century are more likely to be about managing cooperation than 

triumphing through conflict. 

 Phillip Bobbitt

Planned Track or Drift into Danger?

Peril on the Sea

As two great powers that will influence much of the immediate future of our small 

and vulnerable planet, China and the United States are in a marriage of sorts—

“united for the purpose of living together,” in the words of the Oxford English Dictionary.

1

 Like it or not, the two societies depend on each other. Environmental degradation, 

social unrest, economic problems, or pandemic outbreak in one must inevitably affect 

the other. Both must be active contributors to a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable, global 

community. Both governments emphasize their commitment to a positive and constructive mutual engagement. 

At sea, however, that engagement is not always trouble free. Confrontation happens—

and when it does, events do not always unfold in the way that policy makers might 

have intended or preferred. Like a married couple, both sides prefer to downplay to the 

outside world the extent and nature of quarrels. But despite this public posture, those in 

command of naval and maritime air forces understand only too well the potential risks 

of damage, injury, and even death at the tactical level. More worrying is the inherent risk 

of unintended consequences and the potential for an uncontrolled strategic-political 

spiral of unwanted escalation. It is bad policy and in no one’s interest to perpetuate a 

relationship in which an innocent mistake at sea can trigger an unwanted political crisis.

The maritime relationship between China and the United States is a vital element in 

their relationship and a strategic concern for other states. Their tactical-level interaction 

at sea is too complex to be governed solely by legal arrangements and political postures. 

It is too important to be conducted on-scene by best guesses about each other’s intentions, especially when things get exciting and the testosterone and adrenaline start 

U.S.-China Maritime Confidence Building 

Paradigms, Precedents, and Prospects
2 china maritime studies

flowing. And when things do go wrong, the resulting political fallout can be too serious 

to be addressed by rhetoric and dogmatic adherence to rigid positions. Interactions at 

sea are inherently fluid and must be managed mutually, responsibly, and predictably. 

At the moment, the maritime relationship between China and the United States is not 

working as effectively as it should—or must. The business of government is to manage 

events and minimize risk, so no political leadership should be satisfied with a situation 

in which an honest misjudgment or accident at sea can result in an unwanted international political problem at an inopportune time. 

Existing Arrangements

In 1998, the two governments concluded an agreement between their defense departments “establishing a consultation mechanism to strengthen military maritime safety,” 

a document colloquially known as the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement 

(MMCA).2

 But three years later, in good flying weather on a pleasant April day in 2001, 

what should have been a routine Chinese interception of an American reconnaissance 

aircraft went tragically wrong. A Chinese F-8 interceptor and a U.S. Navy EP-3 electronic 

surveillance aircraft collided over the South China Sea. The American aircraft made an 

emergency landing at the Lingshui air base in Hainan, resulting in considerable diplomatic and intelligence embarrassment. Tragically, the Chinese aircraft crashed, and the 

pilot was killed. In this case at least, the MMCA appears to have made no contribution 

to incident prevention, resolution, or “strengthening military maritime safety.” 

It is highly unlikely that the young pilots of these two aircraft had taken off that morning 

intending to cause a problem for their respective political leaders. It is equally unlikely 

that either government had intended to lose aircraft and people or to create a deliberate 

diplomatic furor. An accident just happened, as accidents do from time to time in the 

complex and demanding environment of modern maritime operations.

Situation Management

If there are no robust arrangements in place to manage such episodes, unintended 

consequences can bring nations to the brink of an unwanted crisis, sometimes to the 

detriment of otherwise carefully crafted political plans and policies. The challenge, 

therefore, is to establish effective situation-management mechanisms to ensure that 

risk is either avoided or managed safely. Even if a government deliberately chooses to 

provoke an incident as an act of national policy, it is still essential that events unfold 

as intended, send clear signals to the other party (or parties), and be managed through 

effective communication mechanisms to bring the situation to the desired—or at least a 

satisfactory—conclusion. There is no point in sending a diplomatic message if it is likely 

to be misunderstood, misinterpreted, or manipulated to advantage by the recipient.
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 3

The Requirement

Since the EP-3/F-8 event, incidents have continued to occur between Chinese and 

American ships and aircraft. So far no one else has died or been injured, but experience 

suggests that it is only a matter of time. Meanwhile, political fallout continues to occur, 

whether or not either government actually intends to provoke the other. In March 2009, 

for example, a running confrontation occurred between the U.S. Naval Ship Impeccable

(T-AGOS 23) and a number of Chinese vessels—some government craft and some 

apparently private fishing boats. The Chinese reaction included illumination of Impeccable’s bridge at night, low-level overflights by a Chinese military aircraft, and close 

maneuvers by civilian-manned trawlers that appear to have been acting under official 

direction. Fortunately, no serious damage occurred, and the only weapons used were 

grappling hooks, searchlights, and fire hoses. Nonetheless, allowing such unstable situations to evolve rather than managing them cooperatively is imprudent and dangerous.3

One month after the Impeccable affair and eight years to the day after the EP-3/F-8 incident, the presidents of the United States and China affirmed that they “share a commitment to military-to-military relations and will work for their continued improvement 

and development.” The importance of the maritime aspect of that initiative was underlined by a visit by the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations to China for the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the navy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.4

 This is a very 

good time to take a critical look at prevailing paradigms, at lessons learned elsewhere, 

and at prospects for a transformative approach to military-to-military relationships at sea.

Paradigms and Policy: Paradigm Traps

A paradigm is a framework with which we interpret events or circumstances;5 it is a filter 

through which we view reality. For almost two thousand years, for example, the prevailing paradigm of astronomical science, at least in the Western world, was that planets 

rotate in concentric circles around a stationary earth in a stately dance of cycles and epicycles. Even when it became clear that this explanation was inadequate, the professional 

astronomical community persisted in struggling to develop increasingly complex “laws” 

of science that would reconcile an increasingly cumbersome accepted framework with 

reality. Finally, in 1543, the Polish astronomer Mikołaj Kopernik (Copernicus) published 

De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres), in which 

he argued that all the planets, including the earth, rotate around the sun, with the earth 

spinning on its axis daily and the moon circling around it. Adoption of this elegantly 

simple and revolutionary explanation of reality is a vivid example of what the historian 

of science Thomas Kuhn dubbed a “paradigm shift.”6
4 china maritime studies

Winning acceptance for paradigm shifts often means struggling against inertia and 

sometimes fierce opposition. In theoretical science there is no pressure to do that quickly. In applied disciplines, however, delay in adopting the paradigm that best explains 

reality can be dangerous. In medicine, for example, clinging to an incorrect assumption 

can cost the life of an individual. In national and international security, clinging to inappropriate paradigms can result in conflict that can, in turn, cost the lives of thousands. 

Just as scientific paradigms determine the way researchers approach their work, so too 

social and political paradigms underlie national security thinking. They are the unspoken and often unconscious assumptions on which strategies and plans are based. But as 

any military planner knows, assumptions must be treated as fact for practical planning 

purposes and thus need to be identified explicitly and reviewed constantly. An incorrect 

assumption may invalidate the entire plan. Consequently, those responsible for security 

need to question their own paradigms periodically to ensure that they do not—like preCopernican astronomers—squander time and effort on ever more elaborate attempts to 

squeeze reality into a conceptual straitjacket. 

When a lot of time and effort, not to mention tax dollars and sometimes blood, have 

been invested into a strategy or plan that no longer fits the circumstances, it is not easy 

to discard the fundamental assumptions on which it is based. In 2002, biologist Duncan Davidson coined a term for this conceptual paralysis in science—“paradigm trap.”7

Paradigm traps can occur in the world of security and strategy too, a point that historian Barbara Tuchman popularized eloquently in her 1984 book The March of Folly.

8

Before developing ways of enhancing the Chinese-U.S. maritime military relationship, 

therefore, it would be prudent to give thought to possible paradigm traps that may be 

inhibiting creative thinking.

Example 1: The Threat of a Rising Sea Power?

There is nothing new in the perception by a dominant state that the rise of a new naval 

power must necessarily result in rivalry and even conflict. More than two thousand years 

ago, the Greek historian (and naval commander) Thucydides reflected on the maritime 

origins of the Peloponnesian War. “What made war inevitable,” he said, “was the growth 

of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”9

 In modern times, the 

dramatic growth of the Imperial German Navy after 1898, driven by Tirpitz’s ambition 

to create a navy “equally strong as England’s,” triggered a naval arms race that contributed substantially to worldwide war in 1914. That tipping point was to determine much 

of the confrontational course of international relations throughout the remainder of the 

twentieth century and still affects us in the twenty-first.10 More recently, beginning in 

the 1960s, the expansion of the Soviet Navy from a coastal-defense force to a blue-water 

fleet, coupled with political rhetoric about challenging the prevailing international order, 
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 5

was a clear threat to the United States and its allies. Consequently it is not difficult to 

understand a paradigm within the United States and elsewhere today that perceives a 

traditional threat posed by the evolution of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) 

from a coastal-defense adjunct of the army to a world-class navy with global reach.

From a Chinese perspective, however, the Middle Kingdom is simply resuming its rightful historical place in the world, a status that had been disrupted temporarily by its unhappy relationship with Western maritime powers throughout much of the nineteenth 

and twentieth centuries. Contemporary Chinese deployments into the Indian Ocean 

evoke comparisons to the golden age of fifteenth-century Chinese seafaring, when Zheng 

He’s great fleets reached the African coast on diplomatic and trading missions, an effort 

that contrasted starkly with the “European concept of a militant, crusading colonialism 

beyond the necessity of creating a favourable climate for east-west trade.”11 Today, Africa 

is again an arena where comparisons are made between the commercial versus military 

imperatives of Chinese and Euro-Americans, respectively. Chinese engagement is not 

only manifested in investment but also in a large number of businesspeople and workers living and working across the continent. There are reportedly now more Chinese 

residents in Nigeria than there were British at the peak of the colonial era. In contrast, 

unfairly or not, to many foreign observers the flagship of American engagement appears 

to be a military command—U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), headquartered comfortably in Germany. A typical American interpretation is that this joint command sends 

“a positive message to Africa that Washington views the African continent as being of 

great strategic interest and should facilitate further American aid, security assistance and 

business involvement in Africa.”12 Elsewhere, however, others worry that this apparent 

military focus suggests that “if it comes to a battle for the world’s diminishing resources, 

the U.S. may fall back on its military might. So wary China is building a substantial 

ocean-going navy.”13 Although China’s long blue-water history has been generally more 

about commerce and diplomacy than war fighting (except during Mongol rule), reassuring words that this will remain true in the twenty-first century are of little comfort unless they are consistent with deeds. Nonetheless, it not difficult to understand a Chinese 

paradigm that equates great-power status to a substantial naval force characterized by 

benign intent but global reach.

One of the great pitfalls in applying traditional paradigms to current situations is that 

our world has changed so dramatically in the space of one human lifetime. From the 

days of Athens and Sparta until the mid-twentieth century, interstate rivalries did not 

have to take into account such factors as democratized Internet communication, globalized economics, exploding populations, a potentially imploding environment, and the 

capability for nuclear, chemical, or biological catastrophe. There are certainly lessons 

to be learned from the relatively recent Soviet-U.S. superpower experience, but today’s 
6 china maritime studies

Chinese-U.S. situation is fundamentally different. The former happened under the 

shadow of nuclear “mutually assured destruction” (with its appropriate acronym, MAD). 

Still, many observers today would argue that the difference is not truly fundamental, 

that commercial and financial interdependence suggests a paradigm in which China and 

America now live with the economic equivalent of MAD.14

If studying the past to derive lessons for the present is an invaluable tool for policy makers, however, it is also fraught with risk. The United States and China are not just two 

more great powers in the traditional mold. Human nature may not have changed much 

throughout recorded history, but the circumstances of the twenty-first century are inherently different from those of earlier times. It is all too tempting to explore the past with 

a bias toward examples that confirm prevailing orthodoxies. Perhaps one of the more 

enduring lessons of the human saga is in fact that truly significant leaps in progress are 

made by the innovators, not the emulators.

Example 2: A Clash of Civilizations?

A “clash of civilizations” paradigm is often used to bolster arguments that intercultural 

conflict is inevitable—for example, between China and the West. This, unfortunately, 

is an inaccurate, if popular, reading of the thesis. In his influential 1996 book The Clash 

of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel Huntington suggested a new 

“framework, a paradigm, for viewing global politics.”15 The post–Cold War world, he 

argued, consists of seven or eight major civilizations that would be “the ultimate human 

tribes, and the clash of civilizations is tribal conflict on a global scale.”16 The problem 

with the popularity of this paradigm is that—as so often happens with influential 

books—the title has lodged in public consciousness but the subtleties of its content have 

not. Huntington set out to propose a useful hypothesis, not to predict the inevitable. 

Indeed, the title of his original article in Foreign Affairs, upon which the book was based, 

ended with a question mark—punctuation that has since been, in his own words, “generally ignored.”17 In fact, Huntington argued that the most important step in mitigating 

and reducing clashes of civilizations is to cultivate the commonalities and strengthen 

“Civilization in the singular.”18 In this he shares the worldviews of other innovative 

thinkers ranging from Marshall McLuhan and his “global village” to Buckminster Fuller 

and his “spaceship earth.” Accordingly, Huntington’s advice is not to prepare for an inevitable clash across civilizational fault lines but to nurture a sense of global citizenship 

at the upper end of the loyalty spectrum that runs from family, through community, to 

state or province, to country or nation. The real clash of civilizations, he concludes, is 

between Civilization (with a capital C) and barbarism.19 The “civilizational paradigm” is 

a useful concept and explains much, but the idea that civilizational fault lines must necessarily be a source of conflict rather than an opportunity for progress is a paradigm trap. 
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 7

The relentless growth of population and technology has made all civilizations increasingly interdependent. Natural and medical disasters respect no human boundaries. 

Citizens of the “global village” are increasingly mobile. Sufficiently clever and motivated 

dysfunctional people now have a reasonable chance of obtaining weapons of mass destruction that destroy indiscriminately. In such a world, cultivation of at least a minimal 

sense of global citizenship is becoming an imperative for global security. 

The United States and China have much in common when so much of the security 

agenda is driven by a relatively small percentage of bigoted, humorless, misogynistic, 

religion-abusing, criminal zealots. Businesspeople enjoying a drink in Shanghai, young 

women having their nails manicured in trendy Beijing salons, and poor peasant farmers 

in central China are all allies of their American counterparts in Los Angeles, Washington, 

and Mississippi, notwithstanding inevitable disagreements between their governments. 

That warrants mutual engagement, not withdrawal behind tribal or civilizational shields 

and barriers. 

The unfortunate reality is that the United States and China are likely to continue to have 

substantial government-to-government disputes for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, 

the twenty-first century is too complicated to afford the luxury of clinging to outdated 

security paradigms. It is in the national interest for governments to enable those who are 

entrusted with armed force to find common ground for understanding each other. Only 

then can they manage their maritime interactions professionally, safely, and responsibly. 

There are all kinds of theories to explain the impersonal social or historical forces that 

drive nations into armed confrontation. And yet, as Dr. John Stoessinger concludes from 

the eight case studies in his book Why Nations Go to War, “it was people who actually 

precipitated wars” (his italics).20 Despite what history books usually suggest, leaders 

rarely take that irrevocable step solely as a result of fact-based, dispassionate strategic 

calculation. More often, Stoessinger suggests, “the most important single precipitating 

factor in the outbreak of war is misperception.”21 Hence, security is not about inexorable 

and impersonal civilizational forces. It is about the actions of people—individually, 

in groups, and in government. Misperception about those actors and their actions is a 

mutual enemy of both the United States and China.

Example 3: Security through Superiority?

Security is a fundamental requirement for a normal life, as citizens from Gaza, Baghdad, 

or flooded New Orleans would attest. It is, as Joseph Nye has said, “like oxygen—you 

tend not to notice it until you begin to lose it, but once that occurs there is nothing else 

that you will think about.”22 All too often the prevailing security paradigm is expressed 

solely in terms of armed control—of defenses and barriers, of surveillance and weapons 

systems. The problem with the chimerical goal of guaranteed control over events is that 
8 china maritime studies

it depends on the certainty of prevailing over adversaries. But even that may not result 

in real and enduring security. Even if it were achievable, more control by one necessarily means less control by the other, and that zero-sum thinking becomes a never-ending 

circle. It was not total military victory in 1945 that transformed Germany and Japan into 

prosperous democracies or laid the groundwork for the European Union. Rather, victory 

created the conditions under which long-term engagement and partnership ultimately 

transformed relationships from enmity to harmonious and peaceful friendship. Unless 

a state genuinely aspires to domination and armed hegemony, a strategy of focusing 

exclusively on armed superiority to control events is a paradigm trap. 

“Security” should not be confused with “defense.” Although the words are often used 

interchangeably, defense is only one element of the security equation. “Defense” is 

defined by most dictionaries as protection or resistance against attack, which is precisely 

what armed capability aims to achieve. “Security,” on the other hand, is what military 

campaign planners would call the “desired end state.” Most dictionaries—in the English 

language, at least—define “security” not in terms of control but by using the word “confidence.” To be secure is to have confidence that one will wake up safely in the morning, 

go about one’s business in peace, and raise one’s family in prosperity and happiness. At 

sea, it means confidence that legitimate trade will flow predictably and unhindered, that 

the sea remains, in Mahan’s famous phrase, a “great common” and not an avenue for 

attack. Maritime security means that the ocean’s resources, on which we all depend, are 

used responsibly and safely and that the life-support system that it represents remains 

functional. 

Of course, armed force is an important and irreplaceable element in security, because 

it is the ultimate guarantor against threats by perverse human beings. As Winston 

Churchill once said, “Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match 

for armed and resolute wickedness.” Nonetheless, military capability is only one element in the formula and not the entire answer. Even in an adversarial relationship there 

should be some degree of mutual confidence that each side is a civilized, honorable, and 

rational actor. 

Helen Keller once wrote, “Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor 

do the children of men as a whole experience it.” A true and lasting secure relationship is 

characterized by openness, engagement, and trust. Confidence should, therefore, be the 

core concern of any relationship, especially between representatives of armed forces that 

interact routinely at the tactical level when implementing national security policy.
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 9

Confidence-Building Paradigms

Naval Armament and Arms Control

Salvador de Madariaga famously pointed out that “nations don’t distrust each other 

because they are armed; they are armed because they distrust each other.”23 As long as 

China is resuming its place as one of the world’s major political, economic, and cultural 

powers, it is not going to forgo the development of a world-class, oceangoing navy. As 

long as the United States has the capability to project power into China’s home waters 

and is committed to defend allies who may come into conflict with China, there will be a 

Chinese imperative to aim for some form of materiel and operational parity.

Significant bilateral arms control is not a realistic policy option. In any case, history does 

not suggest much hope that such efforts would be likely to succeed. The disastrous result 

of the naval arms races that preceded the First World War inspired a flurry of naval 

disarmament initiatives during the pause in fighting between the armistice in 1918 and 

resumption of war in 1939. The Washington Conference of 1921–22 is the best-known 

example, but there were others. The prospects of success were as limited then as they are 

now, and for similar reasons. One is that of asymmetric interests. Different nations have 

differing maritime priorities arising from their unique geographies, economies, histories, and political alignments. These differences make it difficult to reach agreement on 

mutually acceptable bilateral naval limitations. Another is that navies are not just warfighting organizations. They also have diplomatic and constabulary roles in peacetime, 

as well as war. In times of peace, warships are de facto mobile embassies, representing a 

people’s technology, skills, and values abroad. They also have national sovereignty roles, 

such as fisheries or law enforcement, that have few parallels in the other services. As 

instruments of foreign policy, naval forces can maneuver to send diplomatic signals in 

a way that armies and air forces cannot; there is a significant difference between a task 

force of warships cruising beyond the twelve-mile territorial limit and a division of tanks 

advancing to a point twelve miles from a land border. 

When disputes occur, warships are more than just blunt instruments with which governments can project or threaten use of force. International law and custom expects naval 

forces to be commanded and controlled by qualified and disciplined individuals, potential contributors to positive, creative crisis management. For these reasons, maritime 

confidence building has generally been far more productive than structural naval arms 

control; not least because mariners of all nations share a common seagoing culture, one 

that helps to foster mutual understanding and facilitate dialogue.
10 china maritime studies

Confidence Building: The Maritime Heritage

Most literature on confidence building assumes that the idea began in the mid-1970s, 

with the introduction of the term “confidence-building measure” (CBM) during Cold 

War arms-control negotiations, in a continental European context. In fact, its history not 

only stretches back well before the advent of nuclear weapons but also has a significant 

maritime component. Formal and tacit agreements for the conduct of vessels at sea have 

been a norm on the world’s oceans from time immemorial. 

Commercial and Navigation Measures. Mariners, whether naval or civilian, have a long 

tradition of mutual understanding in ways that have few parallels ashore. Maritime 

commerce has traditionally sought a stable and secure environment in which to pursue 

commercial rivalries, while warships have long interacted in times of peace and have 

acted as instruments of national policy in roles other than combat. Modern commercial 

marine law has a lineage traceable to a code created on the island of Rhodes three thousand years ago, just as well developed Indo-Pacific maritime trade had evolved its own 

body of customs of behavior on the other side of the globe.24 The earliest known source 

for modern maritime law is the familiar twelfth-century Rules of Oléron, but there were 

also earlier commercial sea laws in ancient Greece, in seventh- and eighth-century Byzantium, and in the eleventh- and twelfth-century Italian city-states of Trani, Pisa, and 

Amalfi.25 Mariners worldwide have been complying since 1846 with collision-prevention 

procedures that originated with what were known as the Trinity House (of Montreal) 

rules. These evolved into rules jointly adopted by Britain and France in 1863 and by 

1864 had been adopted by over thirty countries, including the United States and Germany. Today, the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea are binding on 

any vessel anywhere on the global ocean. Upon this foundation, a vast body of regulation 

and law of the sea has evolved, to the extent that the 1982 United Nations Convention 

on the Law of the Sea has been described as a “constitution for the ocean.” This body of 

law is universally acknowledged, because that acknowledgment is mutually beneficial. 

It also provides a variety of technical forums in which all states can participate, whether 

hostile to each other or not. These face-to-face interactions between individual maritime 

professionals are, in themselves, an ongoing contribution to mutual understanding and 

mutual confidence.

Naval Measures. Even before the distinction between naval and merchant services 

became as sharp as it is today, agreements to promote confidence were established. In the 

year 1297, for example, King Edward I of England and Guy, count of Flanders, entered 

into an agreement “as to the Behaviour at Sea of English and Flemish Ships,” requiring vessels to fly flags showing the coats of arms of their respective sovereigns, to avoid 

confusion, and agreeing to cooperate in law enforcement efforts at sea. 
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 11

One of the earliest examples of a maritime military confidence-building measure in the 

modern sense was part of an arms-limitation agreement made in 1817. Surprisingly, it 

is still in force today. The arms-control aspect has long since become irrelevant, but the 

confidence-building aspect remains. The War of 1812 had resulted in a proliferation of 

warships on the Great Lakes, which straddle the national boundaries of Canada and the 

United States in the heart of North America. After the war, the 1817 Rush-Bagot Agreement sought to assure mutual security by limiting the number of these warships. The 

exchange of notes constituting the agreement was preceded, in August 1816, by a mutually announced freeze on naval construction and an exchange of lists of naval forces 

maintained by each side. Today, this would be described as a constraint and information-exchange CBM. The letter of this agreement has long since grown obsolete, after 

more than 190 years, but the spirit of transparency continues to be respected. Obviously 

the provision limiting both sides to vessels “not exceeding one hundred tons burthen 

and armed with one eighteen-pound cannon” was long ago exceeded, but the principle 

of dialogue has not been.26 Although Canada and the United States are now close allies 

and friends, the agreement was invoked by Canada when in the early 1960s the United 

States considered deploying ship- or submarine-launched ballistic missiles on the Great 

Lakes.27 More recently, it was the basis of bilateral dialogue in 2006, when the U.S. Coast 

Guard announced that it would mount machine guns on its cutters.28

Treaties that contain what would now be called CBMs were created in Latin America in 

the early and middle twentieth century. The 1902 Pactos de Mayo (May Agreements) 

between Argentina and Chile contained elements that would today be described as 

information-exchange CBMs. In the 1920s the Pactos de Mayo served as a model for 

similar treaties in Europe.29 Similarly, the 1923 General Treaty of Peace and Amity established a system of confidence-building information exchange in Central America.30

The long history of modern arms control, from the 1899 Hague Conference to the present, has shown that attempting to limit armaments without also nurturing mutual confidence becomes more a matter of bargaining for advantage than a means of reducing 

economically burdensome and potentially destabilizing armed rivalry. Fifty years before 

“confidence building” became a recognized concept, an American president, Warren 

Harding, said in his invitation to the Washington Conference, “It is, however, quite clear 

that there can be no final assurance of peace of the world in the absence of the desire 

for peace, and the prospect of reduced armaments is not a hopeful one unless this desire 

finds expression in a practical effort to remove the causes of misunderstanding and to 

seek ground for agreement as to principles and their application.”31 Harding’s “practical 

effort to remove the causes of misunderstanding” remains as good a working definition 

as any of what today would be called confidence building.
12 china maritime studies

Creating “Measures” or Transforming a Relationship?

In assessing any security relationship, even between the best of friends, the prudent 

analyst must consider two factors—capabilities and intentions. Arms control deals with 

the quantifiable technical issue of capabilities. Confidence building addresses the more 

difficult and subjective matter of intentions.

James Macintosh is a Canadian academic who, after many years of analyzing and 

categorizing confidence-building measures, has concluded that a focus on producing 

“measures” is misleading and can be counterproductive. It is the process that is really 

important. Too often, political leaders commit themselves to creating CBMs and then, 

if negotiations do not result in “measures,” are left to announce failure. Macintosh has 

argued for a “transformation view” of confidence building, as a matter undertaken by 

policy makers “with the minimum, explicit intention of improving at least some aspects 

of a suspicious and traditionally antagonistic security relationship.”32 Thus, effective 

confidence building should be focused not necessarily on producing a “measure” but 

rather on the dynamic process of transforming a security relationship from a flawed 

present to a more stable and less risky future.

It should be noted that successful relationships do not even need to rely on formal 

documentation. Mutual understanding and open channels of communication may suffice. As Ken Booth has said about arms control, “A formal treaty is to arms control what 

marriage is to love: it dramatizes, formalizes, constrains and solidifies a relationship, but 

is by no means necessary for its realization.”33

A Case Study in Transformative Confidence Building

Collisions and Consequences

Incidents such as the 2001 EP-3/F-8 collision or 2009 Impeccable encounter may appear 

relatively minor to the uninitiated, but similar events in different circumstances can have 

disastrous consequences. An incident that occurred four decades ago illustrates just how 

serious that risk can be. 

In 1967, Soviet and American warships were operating in close proximity to each other 

in the Sea of Japan when, on two consecutive days, collisions occurred. What is significant about these incidents is not so much that they happened—they only caused dents 

and damaged guardrails—but rather what resulted at the political level. Although the 

ships were acting in accordance with national policy direction, the collisions themselves 

were probably accidental. Like China’s navy today, the Soviet Navy in 1967 was expanding rapidly from a coastal extension of the army to an oceangoing fleet worthy of a great 

power. In the Soviet case, many young commanding officers were relatively inexperienced, especially in the challenging business of maneuvering ships at close quarters, 
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 13

when momentary misjudgment and the laws of physics can combine to draw moving hulls together very quickly. Whether or not these collisions were an accident, they 

became a volatile political issue. In Washington, the House Republican leader (and later 

president), Gerald Ford, stated that future guidance to American commanding officers 

should include the possible use of weapons. Not unreasonably, the commander of the 

Soviet Navy, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, responded, “It is not hard to imagine what might 

happen if warships were to begin shooting at each other when they collide.”34

Catalyst for Confidence

The Sea of Japan incident had not been the first such episode, nor was it the last, but it 

did prompt a process of finding a better way to manage interaction at sea.35 Ultimately, 

the Soviet Union and United States engaged in a remarkably unconventional and 

creative process of mutual problem solving. The result was an innovative agreement, 

signed in 1972, that proved to be not only an excellent incident-management tool but 

also a catalyst for further practical cooperation.36 In addition, it served as an inspiration 

(if not always a specific model) for a wide variety of maritime safety agreements around 

the world (some of which are described in the appendix).37 The many lessons offered 

by these agreements can be (and are) the subject of entire seminars and workshops. For 

purposes of this discussion, however, the important point is that the prospect of a minor 

accident escalating into an act of war between nuclear powers was something that worried knowledgeable authorities then, just as it should worry decision makers in China 

and the United States now. Again—it is bad policy and in no one’s interest to perpetuate 

a relationship in which an innocent mistake at sea can trigger an unwanted political 

crisis.

From Confrontation to Comanagement

An excellent example of how the 1972 Soviet-U.S. arrangement allowed both governments to manage conflicting political objectives occurred in the Black Sea in 1988. Two 

U.S. warships, conducting what was known as a “Freedom of Navigation” operation, 

transited through the territorial sea of the Soviet Union off the Crimean Peninsula, 

claiming “innocent passage.” The Soviet government saw this as a deliberate “military 

provocation”; two Soviet warships intercepted and deliberately bumped into the U.S. 

ships. Little damage was done, and the predictable public statements were made by both 

governments. Nonetheless, four months later the annual consultation between navies 

took place, and there admirals from both sides were able to discuss the incident with 

remarkable “openness and frankness.” As a result, they were able to make recommendations to their respective governments that resulted one year later in a political agreement 

that in turn resolved the issue in a manner acceptable to both.38
14 china maritime studies

There are several important lessons to be learned from the Black Sea incident, particularly when it is contrasted to the futile 2009 Chinese-U.S. experience with USNS 

Impeccable.

• The actions in 1988 on both sides were deliberate and conducted at the direction of 

the highest levels in both governments. 

• The diplomatic messages that naval forces were ordered to send were mutually understood, because they had been communicated clearly. 

• Commanding officers on both sides were able to carry out the intents of their respective governments correctly and safely, because they could communicate with each 

other directly as the situation unfolded.

• Afterward, admirals from both navies, in the presence of advisers from the respective 

foreign ministries, were able to discuss what happened and share professional military background information that was otherwise unobtainable through diplomatic 

channels.

• The postincident consultation facilitated government-to-government resolution of 

the diplomatic issue that had prompted the event in the first place.

Unlike the Chinese-U.S. MMCA arrangement, the Soviet-U.S. maritime safety agreement made a positive difference in transforming a relationship at sea from confrontation 

to comanagement.39 One of the most important features was that it made no attempt 

to resolve strategic and political problems. Rather, it focused on safe management of 

maritime operations whenever the respective maritime forces were implementing government policy—especially when those operations were necessarily confrontational. It 

enabled commanders on both sides to communicate intentions, resolve ambiguity, and 

clarify misunderstandings on the scene. Equally important, it enabled senior officers to 

consult frankly and openly after such events, allowing them to understand the issues in 

detail and to make appropriate recommendations to their respective governments. This 

experience and others like it around the world offer a variety of precedents and prospects for innovative and tailor-made methods (or “sailor-made,” as one commentator 

puts it) of preventing, or at least mitigating the effects of, confrontational encounters at 

sea.40

Adjusting Course

Desired End State

During an unlikely standoff in which Canadian and Spanish warships found themselves 

confronting each other over a fisheries dispute in 1994–95, and despite fiery political and 

media rhetoric on both sides, “a Canadian Admiral and his Spanish counterpart were 
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 15

almost constantly in contact reviewing the situation and it was extremely unlikely that 

the two forces would have ever traded fire over the issue.”41 In fact, both admirals and the 

commanding officers of both ships knew each other personally, through NATO interaction. This does not imply that anything was done contrary to government direction—on 

the contrary, it meant that both navies were able to implement the intended policies 

of their respective governments responsibly, safely, and without misunderstanding or 

mishap. Whatever political leaderships may be thinking, it is vital that their military subordinates share a professional relationship of mutual respect and understanding so that 

unintended consequences of military actions do not damage the national interest.

In the jargon of social science, those of all nationalities who go to sea can be described 

as an “epistemic community”—that is, a transnational group of specialists who share 

a common professional culture that transcends national or racial background. This 

is a particularly potent advantage of navy-to-navy relationships. The history of maritime confidence building is full of anecdotes about naval officers achieving levels of 

understanding almost unimaginable to diplomats, even to soldiers. After one very 

sensitive consultation following a serious incident between American and Soviet ships, 

for example, a State Department adviser to the subsequent navy-to-navy consultation 

reported that he was “utterly amazed at the frankness, professionalism, and objectivity 

of the exchanges during the sessions, in contrast to the normal diplomatic intercourse 

between the two countries.”42 That single comment encapsulates nicely the difference between proven navy-to-navy models and more traditional, politically oriented approaches 

like the MMCA. The seagoing culture of professional mariners and naval aviators is an 

invaluable asset to national governments, because it allows practical and technical matters of safety and predictability to be addressed without political posturing. This asset 

needs to be enabled, not impeded. 

In order to fulfill the mandate expressed by the two presidents in 2009 to improve and 

develop military-to-military relations, the U.S. and Chinese navies would do well to 

draw on this broad range of worldwide maritime confidence-building experience to 

create a joint strategy for achieving two goals. The first and fundamental goal would be 

to achieve better mutual understanding. The second, and more crucial for safety and security, would be to establish practical and robust mechanisms for relationship management at sea.

Mutual Understanding 

Even when military professionals arrive in the same room and are ready to discuss issues 

frankly, openly, and honestly, there is still the challenge of language limitations.43 This 

is not just a matter of having good interpreters. Some ideas simply cannot be translated precisely from one language to another; experience has shown that when this is 
16 china maritime studies

not recognized and addressed, much confusion can follow. In English, for example, the 

word “security” has a different sense from “safety.” This distinction can be important: 

in a track-two Middle East forum some years ago, discussion of security issues had to 

be avoided because they were too sensitive to be allowed within the authorized “political space” (as Dr. Peter Jones has called it), but the specifically humanitarian business of 

safety, such as marine search and rescue, was perfectly acceptable.44 In Chinese, the same 

word is customarily used to translate both concepts, the characters suggesting a more 

harmonious and less militant tone for “security” than in the common usage of Western 

militaries. That word, an quan, consists of two characters: an (meaning “peace”), the 

character for which combines the characters for “woman” and “roof,” and quan (meaning “complete” or “perfect”), which combines the characters for “joined” and “work.” 

While an American may hear in the word “security” a robust sense of strong defense 

mechanisms, his or her Chinese counterpart might picture a more harmonious, homelike environment in which defenses should be unnecessary. It is important to make 

the effort to explore these often subtle differences, because some can have operational 

implications. Again in a Middle East experience, difficulties once arose over use of the 

word “surveillance,” which in English describes a legitimate, overt activity but in Arabic 

translation carries the nefarious connotation of covert spying. 

We need to understand each other’s cultural paradigms if we are to communicate effectively. This is a sensitive issue that needs to be approached with caution, because 

differences can be overplayed as well as underestimated. Nonetheless, credible studies in cultural psychology have suggested significant differences between typical Asian 

and Western thought processes. Richard Nisbett, for example, has made a strong case 

that Western modes of thought, with their ancient Greek philosophical roots, tend to 

be linear, categorical, and analytical, while Asian approaches tend to be more cyclical, 

contextual, and holistic; that Westerners focus on contracts, while Asians value relationships; and that Westerners stress abstract reason, while Asians stress interpersonal 

reasonableness.45 If this is true, the implications for military-to-military dialogue need 

to be explored and understood. On the other hand, arguments for a unique “Asian Way” 

that is fundamentally different from Western thinking can be exaggerated and even 

exploited for political purposes. Our cultural modes of thought may be different, but we 

are all human. As the last British governor of Hong Kong has argued, “Decency is decent 

everywhere; honesty is true; courage is brave; wickedness is evil; the same ambitions, 

hopes and fears crowd around and result from similar experiences in every society.”46

Understanding our differences and celebrating our common humanity is key to building 

resilient relationships that will be sustainable in stormy times as well as sunny periods.
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 17

A Case Study in Culture and Language

The midair collision off Hainan in April 2001 marked the beginning of a tense period of 

what Peter Hays Gries and Kaiping Peng call “apology diplomacy,” which finally resulted 

in a peculiar letter from the U.S. ambassador saying that the president and secretary of 

state were “sorry” for the loss of the pilot and that the EP-3 had entered Chinese airspace 

and landed without verbal clearance. The president and secretary of state then made it 

abundantly clear publicly that this letter did not imply any acknowledgment of American fault. Meanwhile, the incident had generated a political storm in both countries, 

leading—in the United States, for example—to debates over issues ranging from the 

scale of future arms sales to Taiwan to support for China’s accession to the World Trade 

Organization.47

Reviewing what both sides said about the incident illustrates the misperception challenge well.48 The United States was conducting what any Western nation would recognize as overt surveillance but in Chinese eyes was perfidious spying. To Americans it was 

obvious that the aircraft was in legal airspace, since international law does not prohibit 

military flights over an exclusive economic zone (EEZ), but Chinese held that the United 

States was hypocritically violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the law in that it has an 

air defense identification zone off its own coast extending well beyond its own EEZ. 

The United States objected strenuously to China’s claim of the right to examine the 

crippled EP-3 in Hainan, while Chinese noted that when a Soviet defector flew a MiG-25 

into Japan in 1976, technicians from the U.S. Air Force Foreign Technology Division 

dismantled the aircraft and returned it in packing crates.49 The almost universal focus in 

the United States was on the issue of air-to-air interceptions and previously recorded experience with this particular Chinese pilot, who this time had made a fatal mistake that 

had resulted in an American crew being held hostage for the sake of a hollow, face-saving 

apology. Chinese discourse was more contextual, seeing this incident as just one of many 

aspects of a long U.S. pattern of intelligence gathering and intimidation in the air and 

on the sea, stretching back to humiliating gunboat diplomacy in the nineteenth century. 

The American discourse was full of commentary on the perfidy and hegemonic ambitions of China. Chinese discourse was full of commentary on the perfidy and hegemonic 

ambitions of the United States. In fact, as Gries and Peng have argued, both sides were 

making equally valid arguments within their own cultural contexts but also exhibiting 

many cultural similarities. The important lesson, they point out, is that “a Sino-American 

relationship devoid of mutual trust becomes a volatile powder keg. Once ‘they’ cease to 

be human, the psychological foundation for violence is laid.”50
18 china maritime studies

Robust Practical Mechanisms

Although the MMCA contains nothing that would have helped once the EP-3/F-8 situation began to develop, the incident could have been avoided through good airmanship 

and adherence to existing procedures. There is, after all, lot of global experience with airto-air interceptions and even an international manual governing the interception of civil 

aircraft, the principles of which would presumably be equally applicable to a military 

transport or reconnaissance aircraft.51 Nonetheless, had a robust situation management 

arrangement been in place, a more precise and positive tool would have been available 

to prevent the incident or, if that had failed, to contribute to crisis resolution in the short 

term and improved “military maritime safety” in the longer term. 

What difference might it have made if, instead of the MMCA, China and the United 

States had already created an arrangement that drew on some of the innovative elements 

that the United States found so successful and others emulated during and after the Cold 

War?

• The pilots did not communicate other than by hand signals from the Chinese pilot, 

the meaning of which were unclear to American crew. An agreement that had included provision for real-time communication would have provided working radio 

frequencies, call signs, and codes to bridge the language barrier and express intentions 

or concerns.

• Neither operational headquarters ashore was able to relay real-time incident-resolution 

messages through national authorities to the other nation. With a more practical arrangement in place, at very least there could have been urgent communication using 

established channels.

• After the incident was over, there was no forum for, or tradition of, candid consultation in which the facts of the case could be laid on the table so that both sides could 

establish, privately and without political posturing, what had happened and how to 

prevent it from happening again. With a more robust and cooperative arrangement, 

an annual or specially convened consultation could have done just that. 

It is interesting to note that the unconvincing accusations against the American pilot—

it seems clear that the immediate cause of collision was pilot error on the part of the 

interceptor—all appear to have originated from China’s civilian diplomatic community 

rather than from the defense establishment, suggesting political posturing rather than 

factual analysis.52 It would seem that the military professionals would have had no 

problem going behind closed doors and taking a mutual approach to incident and risk 

management.
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 19

Getting from Here to There

The military is an instrument of the state, custodian of the national armory, and steward 

of some of the government’s most sensitive security concerns. Furthermore, in most 

advanced societies, it is firmly subordinate to civilian leadership. Consequently, any 

suggestion of an independent role can (and should) be viewed with justifiable suspicion 

in political and diplomatic circles. Before any substantive navy-to-navy dialogue can 

take place, therefore, the respective political authorities must not only grant permission 

but also become confident that the interaction will be a substantial asset to the national 

security interest. Fortunately, that is not a difficult case to make, since unintended incidents between armed forces are clearly not in anyone’s national interest. The business of 

government is to manage events and minimize risk; no political leader wants a situation 

where an honest misjudgment by a junior officer at sea may create a counterproductive 

international political problem at an inopportune moment. The challenge, therefore, is 

for political leaders to understand the unique nature and advantages of frank and open 

mutual problem solving and then to define the “political space” within which naval professionals are free to deal with technical matters candidly and honestly. A fundamental 

lesson from more than thirty-five years of worldwide experience in developing maritime 

situation management mechanisms is that political posturing has no place inside a professional incident-management forum.

Experience suggests that the current MMCA is inadequate for effective incident management at sea. The process of refining or replacing it would be an excellent starting point 

for transforming the overall naval military-to-military relationship. Giving careful 

thought to prevailing paradigms, learning relevant lessons from worldwide experience in 

maritime situation management, and revisiting the issue in a spirit of mutual problem 

solving could do much to enhance mutual confidence and security. 

Transforming the Maritime Military-to-Military Relationship 

The commanders and crews of the Chinese and American ships and aircraft that interact 

and sometimes confront each other at sea are decent, honest, and professional people, 

but tactical-level accidents and mishaps can happen to the best of them. Such events 

should not plunge political leaders into unexpected state-to-state confrontation for lack 

of a robust and effective situation-management mechanism. 

The Human Element

In international relations, the human element is fundamentally important, and mutual 

misunderstanding is one of the greatest risks. Reducing misperception is a core function 

of state-to-state confidence building, and that is something with which sailors have had 

centuries of experience. The best example of a modern confidence-building measure is 
20 china maritime studies

the concept of navy-to-navy agreements for prevention of incidents at sea—an innovative, resilient, adaptable, and proven mechanism that has been adopted and adapted to a 

wide variety of circumstances (summarized in the appendix). Successful examples have 

transformed relationships from uncertainty and suspicion to understanding and clarity. 

The shared professional culture of the international naval community offers a powerful opportunity to improve security relationships between nations. For this to happen, 

however, there are three stages to consider. 

• Political leadership must understand that navy-to-navy interaction is in its own best 

interest, not a security threat, and then grant its military experts sufficient “political 

space” to conduct their professional, technical business free of political posturing. 

• The military professionals must develop a common understanding of their differing 

languages and cultures so that communication is clear and mutual understanding is 

achieved. 

• This process should, and can, lead to a fundamental transformation of the relationship—not necessarily of political policies but certainly of how professional armed 

forces implement those policies to achieve the political intent. Both governments 

should be confident that they can order their respective maritime forces to implement 

national policy with the assurance that any interaction at sea, whether cooperative or 

confrontational, will be conducted in a consistently safe, professional, and predictable 

manner.

Practical Steps

The Military Maritime Consultative Agreement between the United States and China 

was a good start on confidence building but is, in its present form, an inadequate measure for managing events. It does not contain relationship-transforming elements that 

could make it far more relevant and useful. After twelve years, numerous incidents, and 

one death, it is time to reevaluate it in the light of other experience worldwide so that it 

better serves the interests of both parties. With the right “political space” and a commitment to better mutual understanding, the two great nations can transform their security 

relationship at sea for the better. 

It is in the interest of the governments of both China and the United States to comanage 

interaction between their military forces at sea in a manner that is safe and minimizes 

the chances of unintended political consequences. This is particularly important at times 

when policies and positions differ, such as the dispute over the operations of USNS Impeccable off Hainan. In contrast, the Black Sea incident twenty-one years earlier showed 

that it is possible for nations to use naval forces to send political signals to each other 

in a professional, safe, and controlled manner. Not only that, but it is also possible to 
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 21

enable such negative confrontations to be transformed into positive results. Experience 

elsewhere has shown that for this to become possible, the governments of China and the 

United States would do well to pursue two parallel paths toward a transformed relationship.

• Improve mutual understanding to make each side’s military professionals more aware 

of the other’s interests, motives, and concerns. 

• Delegate sufficient and appropriate authority to specified military officials to enable 

them to establish professional, robust, resilient, and simple government-to-government 

mechanisms for communication, cooperation, and consultation at all levels, from the 

tactical to the strategic.

Mutual understanding can be advanced both by academic expert workshops and by 

appropriate technical and professional navy-to-navy exchanges. The China Maritime 

Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College is already creating nonpolitical academic 

opportunities, and it is to be hoped that more such initiatives will be pursued by both 

countries. 

Professional maritime safety comanagement can only be achieved if governments delegate appropriate authority to maritime professionals so that they can deal directly with 

their counterparts on technical matters. Experience has shown that this works best when 

delegations are led by naval officers, with diplomats serving as advisers to a military 

head. Military-to-military frankness, professionalism, and objectivity are ideals toward 

which the governments of China and the United States would do well to strive.

Conclusion

Wishful thinking will not reduce policy differences between two great powers such as 

China and the United States. It is likely that legitimate disagreements will occasionally 

be expressed at sea by warships and maritime air forces used as instruments of national 

policy. Discussions over legalities are important, but, just as in marriage, though the law 

may help to define limits to behavior, it is not the only element necessary for a stable and 

constructive relationship. The ultimate aim of legal argument is to come to an arrangement that both can accept. Meanwhile, however, operations are going on at sea continuously, and even as these words are being read an accident or misunderstanding may be 

happening at the tactical level that will have serious, even disastrous consequences. It 

should be a political imperative to comanage these interactions safely and in a manner 

that the respective governments desire, not leaving them to chance and improvisation. 

A difficult situation that develops at sea is no time to cease communication in order to 

signal displeasure. On the contrary, it is the very time when communication becomes 

most vitally important; otherwise both parties risk losing control over events and having to deal with unwanted consequences. The existing Military Maritime Consultative 
22 china maritime studies

Agreement is a good start, but even if it had included provisions for real-time communication, it would not have helped much in subsequent real-world incidents—and “if it 

does not work in adversity then it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.”53 

Two great naval powers like China and the United States need to create a much more 

comprehensive, robust, and effective military maritime safety-comanagement arrangement that will continue to work no matter how tense any future situation might become. 

A wide range of positive experience and good examples is available from around the 

world. There is nothing to lose and much to gain from drawing on that experience now, 

before a simple misunderstanding, mistake, or accident creates a problem that neither 

government intends or wants. 
Appendix: Maritime Incident Management Arrangements Worldwide

Arguably one of the most successful of all confidence-building measures (CBMs) has 

been the 1972 agreement for prevention of incidents at sea (INCSEA) between the 

United States and the then Soviet Union. It is one of the most enduring and resilient of 

CBMs, still in force today after more than thirty-five years. Furthermore, the nature of 

this bilateral agreement is so demonstrably successful that it has been adopted, adapted, 

and made the inspiration for a wide variety of bilateral and multilateral arrangements 

(of varying effectiveness) worldwide. 

The author and his colleague Dr. Peter Jones, of the University of Ottawa, have been 

involved with a number of the examples described here and have been researching the 

issues and conducting seminars and consultations worldwide for more than a decade, 

including in Shanghai, China, in October 2007. By far the best description of the original 

U.S.-USSR agreement and some of the subsequent variations is David F. Winkler’s 

Preventing Incidents at Sea: The History of the INCSEA Concept (Halifax, N.S.: Dalhousie 

University, Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, 2008). It is a reprint of his earlier U.S. Naval Institute book entitled Cold War at Sea: High Seas Confrontation between the United 

States and the Soviet Union, with the addition of a new preface by the author and an 

afterword by Griffiths and Jones describing some of the post–Cold War derivatives.

The list below outlines some of the variations on the theme that have been created 

around the world. Not all resulted in formally signed agreements, but most at least 

increased mutual understanding and helped to reduce misperceptions.

• USSR/Russia and Others. The original 1972 United States–Soviet Union INCSEA 

prototype was adapted by eleven other nations to establish navy-to-navy dialogue 

with the Soviet Union and later Russia. Significantly, some of these, such as those 

with Japan and South Korea, were negotiated and signed after the Cold War was over 

(1993 and 1994, respectively). There were a number of reasons for this. In part it was 

because negotiations were already under way. Also, continuing political uncertainty 

made establishing navy-to-navy links a prudent step. In almost all cases, however, in 

addition to the immediate advantage of improved safety, it was the attractiveness of 

having mandatory annual consultations that provided a nonpolitical avenue to enhance mutual understanding. As mutual confidence increased and incidents declined, 

the concept of “staff talks” developed, adding informal discussions on matters of 

mutual interest to the formal consultations. This demonstrates how the value of the 

concept is much more subtle and useful than mere conflict prevention. The rationale 
24 china maritime studies

and process are described by one of the senior negotiators in Yoji Koda, “The Emerging Republic of Korea Navy: A Japanese Perspective,” Naval War College Review 63, no. 

2 (Spring 2010), pp. 13–34, available at www.usnwc.edu/press. 

• Poland/West Germany. An agreement similar in wording to the INCSEA model was 

also concluded between Poland and West Germany as the Cold War was ending in 

1990.

• Greece and Turkey. The U.S.-USSR agreement was inspiration for a 1983 memorandum of understanding and subsequent Guidelines for the Prevention of Accidents 

and Incidents on the High Seas and International Airspace between Greece and 

Turkey. Although lacking the real-time tactical communications and annual consultation provisions of the prototype, this arrangement did illustrate the virtue of creative 

thinking in addressing specific mutual problems, by agreement to be particularly 

diligent about incident avoidance during the peak tourist season. 

• Middle East. INCSEA was one of two elements in the maritime dimension of the 

Middle East Peace Process in 1993–95, the other being cooperative search and rescue. 

Although the operational experts were able to achieve a mutually acceptable draft 

agreement, the political process collapsed before it could be submitted for politicallevel consideration. Nonetheless, the effort was not wasted, because the process had 

brought former combatants together in a three-year process of joint problem solving 

that did much to improve mutual understanding, as well as to lay foundations for 

some discreet cooperation at sea that continued long after the political environment 

had again become confrontational. The process is described by Dr. Peter Jones, “Maritime Confidence Building in Regions of Tension,” in Maritime Confidence-Building 

Measures in the Middle East, ed. Jill R. Junnola, Report 21 (Washington, D.C.: Henry 

L. Stimson Center, May 1996), pp. 57–73.

• Middle East and North Africa. Even though the peace process ended in the mid1990s, momentum was maintained in maritime confidence-building dialogue 

through a Maritime Safety Colloquium for Middle East and North African naval 

and coast guard officers, plus others with maritime safety mandates. This process 

was managed by the Canadian Coast Guard, with the U.S. Coast Guard as an active 

partner, demonstrating the methodologies and benefits of mutual cooperation in 

maritime safety. Until the process lost momentum for bureaucratic reasons after 

2004, it succeeded in establishing a network of alumni from almost all Arab states, 

including Iraq, and from Israel. The story is described by Dalia Dassa Kaye in Talking 

to the Enemy: Track Two Diplomacy in the Middle East and South Asia (Santa Monica, 

Calif.: RAND, 2007), pp. 45–46.
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 25

• UN and CSCE Multilateral Proposals. In 1989, Sweden submitted a working paper 

to the UN Disarmament Commission proposing a multilateral agreement for the 

prevention of incidents at sea. Nothing came of it for a number of reasons, mostly 

related to the difficulties inherent in a multilateral arrangement’s unsuitability for 

dealing with sensitive bilateral issues. Russia made a similar proposal to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1990, but that too went 

nowhere, for similar reasons.

• Western Pacific. The Western Pacific Naval Symposium produced a multilateral Code 

for Unalerted Encounters at Sea (CUES) in 2000. It incorporates elements of the 

original INCSEA wording but goes far beyond the classic simplicity of a straightforward incident-avoidance mechanism by adding tactical maneuvering and signaling 

instructions, reproducing elements of NATO procedures that were declassified after 

the Cold War to encourage cooperative multinational maritime operations among 

like-minded states. The effectiveness of this hybrid approach remains to be analyzed 

in the public domain.

• Malaysia and Indonesia. Because of the same limitations on multilateral arrangements that the Swedish proposal encountered, Malaysia and Indonesia found it 

necessary to supplement the multilateral CUES process with the parallel development 

of their own bilateral MALINDO (Malaysia-Indonesia) Prevention of Incidents at 

Sea Cooperative Guidelines. This was signed by the respective naval commanders in 

Jakarta in 2001. More complex than the classic INCSEA model but much simpler and 

more focused than CUES, this arrangement is an interesting example of a carefully 

staffed and functional adaptation of the INCSEA concept to address very different 

specific circumstances.

• India and Pakistan. In 1999 the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan signed a 

memorandum of understanding in Lahore to “conclude an agreement on prevention 

of incidents at sea in order to ensure safety of navigation by naval vessels, and aircraft 

belonging to the two sides.” While little happened on the official front, academic studies by retired senior officers from both countries (some of whom were former chiefs 

of naval staff) enabled officials on both sides to better understand the principles, 

practice, and international experience in detail. (See Dalhousie University, Centre 

for Foreign Policy Studies, “Confidence and Cooperation in South Asian Waters,” 

available at centreforforeignpolicystudies.dal.ca/events/marsec_CCSAW.php.) Official 

negotiations were reportedly ongoing before the 2008 attack on Mumbai by Pakistani 

extremists interrupted official dialogue. 

• China and the United States. The 1998 Agreement between the Department of 

Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of National Defense of the 
26 china maritime studies

People’s Republic of China on Establishing a Consultation Mechanism to Strengthen 

Military Maritime Safety—or Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA)—

was much more diplomatic in nature and tone than the classic INCSEA model, 

minimizing the role of operational experts and containing no provision for real-time 

tactical communication, as was to be tragically highlighted by the 2001 midair collision off Hainan. While annual meetings are useful to discuss incidents, they are not 

much help when events are unfolding rapidly on, over, or under the sea.

• Dangerous Military Activities Agreements. In addition to these naval-oriented arrangements, the INCSEA experience also inspired several examples of broader bilateral dialogue involving all branches of the armed forces, called “dangerous military 

activities agreements” (DMAAs). This demonstrates how—as is often the case in 

confidence building—maritime initiatives offer opportunities to create new precedents in an arena that is governed by long tradition and established law of the sea and 

is therefore often less sensitive than along land boundaries.

Notes

1. Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles (New York: 

Anchor Books, 2003), p. 338.

2. “Agreement between the Department of Defense 

of the United States of America and the Ministry 

of National Defense of the People’s Republic of 

China on Establishing a Consultation Mechanism to Strengthen Military Maritime Safety,” 

available at www.fas.org/nuke/control/sea/text/

us-china98.htm.

3. A good selection of articles discussing the incident appeared in China Security 5, no. 14 (Spring 

2009), entitled “Understanding the Impeccable

Incident”: Eric A. McVadon, “The Reckless and 

the Resolute: Confrontation in the South China 

Sea”; Ji Guoxing, “The Legality of the ‘Impeccable 

Incident’”; and Mark Valencia, “The Impeccable 

Incident: Truth and Consequences.” The issue 

is available at www.chinasecurity.us/index 

.php?option=com_csissues&secid=13&catid=69 

&task=category&Itemid=8.

4. White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 

“Statement on Bilateral Meeting with President 

Hu of China,” 1 April 2009, available online at 

www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ 

Statement-On-Bilateral-Meeting-With 

-President-Hu-Of-China/.

5. This section is drawn from an unpublished paper 

by the author entitled “Paradigm Traps: Reflections on Maritime Security Strategies,” presented 

to the International Symposium on Maritime 

Security in the South China Sea, Haikou, Hainan, 

China, 8–9 December 2005.

6. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific 

Revolution, 3rd ed. (1962; repr., Chicago: Univ. of 

Chicago Press, 1996). 

7. D. Davidson, “The Mouse Atlas: An Ontology 

for Mapping Gene Function Data to the Mouse 

Embryo” (presentation, Standards and Ontologies for Functional Genomics [SOFG], Hinxton, 

Cambridge, 17–20 November 2002). 

8. Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From 

Troy to Vietnam (New York: Ballantine Books, 

1984). 

9. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, ed. M. I. 

Finley, trans. Rex Warner (Harmondsworth, 

U.K.: Penguin Books, 1954), p. 49.

10. Philip Bobbitt (see note 1) has described the 

seventy-seven-year period that began in 1914, 

paused briefly after the 1918 armistice, reignited 

in 1939, and continued through hot and cold 

wars until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 

last decade of the twentieth century as the “Long 

War.” 

11. Louise Levanthes, When China Ruled the Seas

(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), p. 146.

12. Clifford Shelton, “The Energy Component of 

China’s Africa Strategy,” in China’s Energy Strategy: The Impact of Beijing’s Maritime Policies, ed. 

Gabriel B. Collins et al. (Annapolis, Md.: Naval 

Institute Press, 2008), p. 198.

13. Richard Dowden, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary 

Miracles (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009), p. 486.
u.s.-china maritime confidence building 27

14. The point is made in ibid., p. 486, and more recently in the state-run China Daily (John Kemp, 

“China’s Role in Dollar Debate Suggests a Fundamental Shift,” 13 July 2009, available at www 

.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009sed/2009-07/13/

content_8468819.htm). The author wishes to 

thank Prof. Thomas Fingar for pointing out that 

the term “mutually assured economic destruction” (MAED) is occasionally used.

15. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations 

and the Remaking of World Order (1996; repr. 

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), p. 13.

16. Ibid., p. 207. 

17. Ibid., p. 13. The article was “The Clash of Civilizations?” in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993), pp. 

22–49.

18. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, p. 320.

19. Ibid., p. 321.

20. John G. Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, 8th 

ed. (Boston: St. Martins, 2001), p. xv. 

21. Ibid., p. 255.

22. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The Case for Deep Engagement,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995), p. 96.

23. Much of this section is drawn from the author’s 

article “Maritime Security, Terrorism and the 

‘New Economy,’” in Ocean Yearbook 19, ed. Aldo 

Chircop and Moira McConnell (Chicago: Univ. 

of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 283–98. Quotation 

from Salvador de Madariaga, Morning without 

Noon (Farnborough, Hampshire, U.K.: Saxon 

House, 1974), p. 48.

24. To explore the history further see Edgar Gold, 

Maritime Transport: The Evolution of International Marine Policy and Shipping Law (Lexington, 

Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1981); and Li Qingxin, Maritime Silk Road, trans. William W. Wang (Beijing: 

China Intercontinental, 2006). 

25. A. Saheb-Ettaba, “Maritime Legal Issues,” in 

Proceedings, Maritime Safety Colloquium 2002, 

October 27–31, 2002 in Doha, Qatar, ed. David N. 

Griffiths (Ottawa: Canadian Coast Guard, 2002). 

26. “Text of the Rush-Bagot Agreement, 1817,” in 

Gilbert Norman Tucker, The Naval Service of 

Canada (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1952), app. I.

27. Barry O’Neill, “Rush-Bagot and the Upkeep of 

Arms Treaties,” Arms Control Today 21, no. 7 

(September 1991), p. 22.

28. Reported by the Canadian Broadcasting 

Corporation at www.cbc.ca/story/canada/ 

national/2006/03/15/coastguard-060315.html.

29. Both are mentioned briefly in James Macintosh, 

Confidence (and Security) Building Measures in 

the Arms Control Process: A Canadian Perspective,

Arms Control and Disarmament Studies, no. 1 

(Ottawa: Dept. of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1985), pp. 17–18. See also Cdr. 

Pedro L. de la Fuente, “Confidence-Building 

Measures in the Southern Cone: A Model for 

Regional Stability,” Naval War College Review 50, 

no. 1 (Winter 1997), p. 50.

30. Macintosh has identified land-oriented examples 

in Europe that go back even earlier. For a 

comprehensive survey of examples preceding 

the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 see Macintosh, 

Confidence (and Security) Building Measures in 

the Arms Control Process, pp. 16–25.

31. Quoted in Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Held at Washington, November 12, 1921 to 

February 6, 1922: Report of the Canadian Delegate

(Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1922).

32. James Macintosh, Confidence Building in the 

Arms Control Process: A Transformation View,

Arms Control and Disarmament Studies, no. 2 

(Ottawa: Dept. of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Non-Proliferation, Arms Control 

and Disarmament Division, 1996), p. 63.

33. Ken Booth, “Disarmament and Strategy,” in 

Contemporary Strategy: Problems, Theories and 

Policies, ed. John Baylis et al. (1975; repr., London: Croom Helm, 1981), p. 107.

34. The full story is described in David F. Winkler, 

Preventing Incidents at Sea: The History of the 

INCSEA Concept (Halifax, N.S.: Dalhousie University, Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, 2008), 

pp. 64–67.

35. The term “catalyst for confidence” is taken from 

David N. Griffiths, Catalyst for Confidence: 25 

Years of INCSEA (Ottawa: Naval Officers 

Association of Canada, 1998), available at 

www.noac-national.ca/article/griffiths/incsea 

_bydavidngriffiths.html.

36. “Agreement between the Government of the 

United States of America and the Government 

of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the 

Prevention of Incidents on and over the High 

Seas,” available at www.state.gov/t/isn/4791.htm. 

It was subsequently updated by a 1973 protocol 

to the agreement and a 1998 exchange of diplomatic notes. 

37. For developments worldwide since the prototype 

agreement was created in 1972 see Winkler’s 

epilogue to Preventing Incidents at Sea and the 

afterword by David Griffiths and Peter Jones.

38. The incident is described by Winkler in Preventing Incidents at Sea, pp. 188–91. The formal title 

of the resulting agreement was Joint Statement 

by the United States of America and the Union 

of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Uniform 
28 china maritime studies

Interpretation of Rules of International Law 

Governing Innocent Passage, informally the 

“Jackson Hole Agreement” (after the name of 

the place at which it was signed on 23 September 

1989).

39. For examples see chaps. 7–9 of Winkler, Preventing Incidents at Sea.

40. For “sailor-made,” Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov, 

“‘Sailor-Made’ Confidence-Building Measures,” 

in Maritime Security: The Building of Confidence,

ed. Jozef Goldblat (New York: United Nations 

Institute for Disarmament Research, 1992).

41. Laura J. Higgins, Canadian Naval Operations 

in the 1990s: Selected Case Studies, Maritime 

Security Occasional Paper 12 (Halifax, N.S.: 

Dalhousie University, Centre for Foreign Policy 

Studies, 2002). 

42. Quoted in Winkler, Preventing Incidents at Sea, p. 

179.

43. This section is an adaptation of the author’s 

paper “Challenges in the Development of 

Military-to-Military Relationships” (presented to 

the China Maritime Studies Institute Conference 

on Defining a Maritime Security Partnership 

with China, Naval War College, Newport, R.I., 

5–6 December 2007).

44. The forum was the Maritime Safety (MarSaf) 

Colloquium, described by Dalia Dassa Kaye in 

Talking to the Enemy: Track Two Diplomacy in the 

Middle East and South Asia (Santa Monica, Calif.: 

RAND, 2007) pp. 45–46.

45. Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought

(2003; repr., London: Nicholas Brealey, 2005). 

Also see Gregory Kulacki, “Lost in Translation,” 

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 62, no. 3 (May/

June 2006), pp. 34–39. 

46. Chris Patten, East and West (Toronto: McClelland 

and Stewart, 1998), p. 140.

47. The events are described in China-U.S. Aircraft 

Collision Incident of April 2001: Assessments and 

Policy Implications, CRS Report for Congress 

RL30946 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional 

Research Service, updated 10 October 2001), 

available at www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30946 

.pdf. The cross-cultural aspects are discussed 

in Peter Hays Gries and Kaiping Peng, “Culture 

Clash? Apologies East and West,” Journal of Contemporary China 11, no. 30 (2002), pp. 173–78.

48. For a Chinese perspective, see for example Ji 

Gioxing, Rough Waters in the South China Sea: 

Navigation Issue Confidence-Building Measures,

AsiaPacific Issues, no. 53 (Honolulu, Hawaii: 

East-West Center, August 2001). The U.S. 

perspective is well summarized in the CRS 

report China-U.S. Aircraft Collision Incident of 

April 2001. Gries and Peng discuss the cultural 

similarities and differences between the two. 

49. John E. Jessup, An Encyclopedic Dictionary of 

Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996

(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1998), p. 357.

50. Gries and Peng, “Culture Clash?” p. 178.

51. Manual Concerning Interception of Civil Aircraft,

ICAO Document 9433, 2d ed. (Montreal: International Civil Aviation Organization, 1990). The 

CRS report China-U.S. Aircraft Collision Incident 

of April 2001 suggests (p. 18) that the Chinese 

pilot should have followed the International 

Flight Information Manual, which has details 

on “international interception procedures” and 

“intercept pattern for identification of transport 

aircraft.” However, notwithstanding the word 

“international” in the title, that is a U.S. publication, issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, not an international body.

52. It is also interesting to note that six years later the 

website of the Chinese embassy in Washington 

still had a section dedicated to the incident 

(www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zjsj/default 

.htm).

53. A comment made about the Soviet-U.S. arrangement quoted in Winkler, Preventing Incidents at 

Sea, p. 178.
Abbreviations and Definitions

A AFRICOM U.S. Africa Command

C CBM confidence-building measure

CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

CUES Code for Unalerted Encounters at Sea

D DMAA dangerous military activities agreement

E EEZ exclusive economic zone

I INCSEA incidents at sea

M MAD mutually assured destruction

MALINDO Malaysia-Indonesia

MMCA Military Maritime Consultative Agreement

N NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

P PLAN People’s Liberation Army Navy
About the Author

David Griffiths is an independent consulting analyst who specializes in international 

aspects of confidence, cooperation, and capacity building, with a particular focus on 

maritime and coastal zone issues. A former Canadian naval officer, he spent fifteen of 

his thirty-one years in uniform at sea in ships and submarines, and the remainder in 

staff appointments that included personnel policy, project management, operational 

planning, and doctrine development, for which he received a Maritime Commander’s 

Commendation in 1996. In 1992–93 he was seconded to the European Community 

Monitoring Mission in the Balkans, where he became head of the Coordination Centre, responsible for operations in Eastern Herzegovina, Montenegro, and the southern 

Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Between 1993 and 1996 his duties included service as a 

naval adviser to the Middle East Peace Process. 

Mr. Griffiths left the navy in 1996 to establish an independent consultancy that conducts varied projects in Canada and internationally. He is a resident research fellow 

at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University and a senior research 

fellow at the International Centre for Emergency Management Studies at Cape Breton 

University (Canada), the National Centre of Maritime Policy Research at Bahria 

University (Karachi, Pakistan), and the International Ocean Institute (Canada). He 

also serves on the boards of directors of the Emergency Management Association of 

Atlantic Canada and of the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust, which preserves the last 

surviving Second World War corvette. Mr. Griffiths is a graduate of the Canadian 

Forces Command and Staff College and holds a master’s degree in marine management from Dalhousie University.