CMSI’s 20th Anniversary! China Maritime Studies Institute Established Two Decades Ago within Naval War College

Yesterday, as a new fiscal year began, the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) marked twenty years since its establishment within the Naval War College (NWC) in Newport, Rhode Island.

I was honored to help initiate, and be a part of, the original ‘China Maritime Studies Group’ that approached NWC’s Provost in fall 2004 with the idea of creating CMSI. We pitched our proposal to Dr. Jim Giblin, who was an unusually influential and energetic stakeholder at the College in those days. Following the NWC President’s approval, Provost Giblin established CMSI within the Center for Naval Warfare Studies’ Strategic Research Department (SRD) on 1 October 2004. (NWC leadership later merged SRD with the Warfare, Analysis, and Research Department to create the present Strategic and Operational Research Department (SORD), CMSI’s home today).

CMSI’s founding principles included a unique focus on PRC military maritime issues—across the waterfront, far beyond naval affairs alone. We insisted that scholarship can and should be relevant to the U.S. Navy and U.S. government. We saw ours as a collegial calling, with great emphasis on teamwork and “scaling up” scholarship through intensive collaboration among professionals with diverse areas of expertise, from language and area studies to technology and military operations. We believed that rigorously analyzing pedigreed Chinese-language open sources could offer unique insights, particularly through surveying PRC thinking and discerning inner layers indirectly, as well as through probing frontier intangibles. Such inductive methodologies could yield a “better feel” for decision-makers who never have all the information they desire in certain areas, and “paint a picture” of the context and key dynamics in ways that were otherwise unavailable to the U.S. government—even with its access the largest, most sophisticated national and allied technical collection systems that the world has ever known. At our best, we have been analytical Wayne Gretzkys “skating to where the puck is going to be ” by offering answers to questions that the U.S. Navy or U.S. government (as a whole) didn’t yet know to ask. This we have striven to do by constantly seeking inputs from key principals regarding relevant research topics and (re)racking and stacking our Priorities and Plans accordingly. We do so in particularly close consultation with a trinity of leading stakeholders: the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV), the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and the Fleet. Finally, we have always sought to be productive and engaging members of the civilian China studies community, in part by taking advantage of Newport’s close proximity to some of the world’s leading academic institutions.

Provost Giblin required further development from us in the form of an extensive formal proposal, including a CMSI Charter, all of which he repeatedly “pencil-whipped” with his trademark dark blue sharpie marker in frequent meetings with us. I received many memos, written with that same marker, consisting of “Andrew, PSM [Please see me]. Jim.” I can never forget pulling an all-nighter to complete the systematic filing of photocopied Chinese-language articles by category in two massive filing cabinets. (These I retain in my current office, which used to belong to early SRD Chair and CMSI supporter Dr. Jonathan Pollack .) Provost Giblin came into my office early the next morning, pulled open a drawer, rifled through the contents, and declared, “Good! Now I’ll work to get you your POM funding.” He reached out to OPNAV accordingly and CMSI was soon on track to receive the needed bureaucratic and financial support. Working with key colleagues, I helped draft the above-core issue paper for NWC’s Program Objective Memorandum (POM) 08 submission that secured the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)’s personal approval to inaugurate CMSI formally and sufficient funding to hire four additional faculty members during FY 2008.

On 1 October 2006, CMSI was formally and publicly launched in accordance with POM08 decisions by the CNO. In April 2008, Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) Robert Gates invoked CMSI as a model for the Minerva Research Initiative . By December 2008, CMSI had held four influential conferences, with edited volumes ?following for each. These included CMSI’s leadoff cornerstone event, “China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force ” (26–27 October 2005). That, in turn, yielded CMSI’s first edited volume, published by Naval Institute Press. I spent a long weekend in my office reading every word of the galleys aloud, a process that would prove impracticable for future volumes. Among CMSI’s early publications, Chinese Mine Warfare ?pioneered the?validation ?of?open-source ?methodology, and remains a formative study in the field.

In the early years, we additionally received substantial funding from Andrew Marshall, the legendary longtime director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment . His generous support paid for some of our publication and database subscriptions and allowed me to shift after ten months from being a contracted Chinese Translator and Technical Analyst through Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to being a U.S. government Research Fellow in SRD (which then hosted CMSI). I will never forget my periodic briefings to Mr. Marshall, during which he would remain silent for long minutes, then suddenly offer a pointed insight in oracular terms. (He would subsequently offer characteristically pithy blurbs for two CMSI volumes: Chinese Naval Shipbuilding ?and?China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations , the latter just months before his death at 97 in 2019.) I competed successfully for an assistant professor position on the NWC faculty and became its youngest member in March 2006, six months before the beginning of the new fiscal year, when CMSI was officially established with its own dedicated funding line in the U.S. Navy POM.

Other key CMSI supporters included Naval Undersea Warfare Center engineer and program manager Kyrill “Ky” Korolekno , who was instrumental in encouraging CMSI’s establishment and in helping to bring our early research on PRC undersea warfare development to the attention of U.S. Navy leaders and affiliated experts—including at the National Defense Industry Association (NDIA)’s annual “Clambake” gathering in New London, Connecticut. A committed and active participant in CMSI’s early conferences, Ky would constantly grab me by the arm and say, “Now Andy, there’s someone here you really need to meet….”

As the Department of Defense’s first service-specific China Center, CMSI inspired the creation of other analytical organizations, which my colleagues and I have advised and supported. These include a panoply of centers at NWC itself, such as the Russia Maritime Studies Institute (RMSI) ; as well as elsewhere within the armed services, such as the U.S. Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) ?and the U.S. Army’s China Landpower Studies Center (CLSC) . All contain valued colleagues, and the Department of Defense’s China Centers now collaborate and meet regularly to share best practices and advance the field together.

I have been honored to play a role in supporting CMSI’s founding Director Dr. Lyle Goldstein and each subsequent permanent and acting Director. From 2021–23, during a period of successive acting directors, I served as CMSI’s Research Director . Today CMSI is thriving under?Director Christopher H. Sharman, U.S. Navy (Ret.) . He and CMSI’s other faculty members , as well as CMSI’s affiliates and other contributors, are producing cutting-edge scholarship boresighted on China’s military maritime development as part of CMSI’s longstanding missions to research, write, advise, educate, and engage . Click here to hear Chris and me discuss CMSI’s history and way forward in a podcast hosted in person by CLSC at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

CMSI’s product lines from research and writing now include Edited Conference Volumes , China Maritime Studies (“Red Books) , China Maritime Reports , CMSI Notes , and CMSI Translations ; as well as a quarterly CMSI News bulletin. Among these, our flagship event and output is our conference, with papers and a resulting edited volume, now held biannually to fire for best effect. In April 2023 we revisited the priority topic of Chinese undersea warfare , coming full circle since our first CMSI conference in 2005 on that very subject. The sobering comparison revealed Beijing’s nearly-two-decades progress in sharp relief.

In the realm of advising, CMSI continues to inform both U.S. Navy and U.S. government stakeholders (current leaders) and Naval War College and U.S. Navy students (future leaders), as well as their foreign counterparts. Through teaching and education more broadly, we provide curricular instruction, inputs, and guidance to NWC and other schools of Professional Military Education (PME), particularly in support of SECDEF’s guidance for instruction regarding China. We contribute directly to and support PME at NWC, with a particular focus on instructing rising U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Joint Flag and General Officers through NWC’s College of Maritime Operational Warfare (CMOW). We provide flag officer tailored education, both on campus in Newport and around the world. We also furnish substantial support to the Joint Military Operations Department and all areas of the NWC curriculum. Finally, we use our research and writing as a basis for highly-substantive, targeted engagement with the U.S. Navy, the Intragency, and allies and partners.

On 1 October 2026, we will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of CMSI’s formal public launch in accordance with the CNO’s decision. Stay tuned, and be sure to check out our website frequently in the meantime: www.usnwc.edu/cmsi !

Chronological list of CMSI’s edited conference volumes:

• Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, William S. Murray, and Andrew R. Wilson , eds.,?China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force (Annapolis, MD:?Naval Institute Press , 2007).
• Gabriel B. Collins, Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and William S. Murray , eds.,?China’s Energy Strategy: The Impact on Beijing’s Maritime Policies (Annapolis, MD:?Naval Institute Press , 2008).
• Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and Carnes Lord, eds.,?China Goes to Sea: Maritime Transformation in Comparative Historical Perspective (Annapolis, MD:?Naval Institute Press , July 2009;?paperback 15 June 2021 ).
• Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and Nan Li, eds.,?China, the United States, and 21st Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership (Annapolis, MD:?Naval Institute Press , 2010).
• Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein ,,?Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011 ).
• Andrew S. Erickson, ed.,?Chinese Naval Shipbuilding: An Ambitious and Uncertain Course (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2016;?paperback 15 February 2023 ).
• Andrew S. Erickson and Ryan D. Martinson, eds.,?China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations (Annapolis, MD:?Naval Institute Press , 2019;?paperback 15 January 2023 ).
• Andrew S. Erickson, Conor M. Kennedy, and Ryan D. Martinson, eds.,?Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion(Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, forthcoming 2024).
• Andrew S. Erickson and Ryan D. Martinson, eds.,?Chinese Undersea Warfare: Narrowing the Gaps?(Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, forthcoming).

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