Prize law could help contain future conflicts, experts say

FORUM Staff

Military planners and scholars are often tasked with contemplating the unthinkable: conflict between major nuclear powers escalating into a global catastrophe. They also are tasked to devise ways to maximize chances for the success of the United States and its Allies and Partners.

A denial theory of victory is the best way to maximize the likelihood the U.S. can control escalation of such a conflict and secure a win, according to the 2024 Rand Corp. study, “U.S. Military Theories of Victory for a War with the People’s Republic of China.”

In recent years, U.S. strategists have been evaluating the concept known as prize law as a key means to implement such a denial strategy, especially for securing critical waterways in the South China Sea or near Taiwan.

Denial focuses on eroding an adversary’s power-projection capabilities to convince its leaders they are unlikely to achieve their goals and that any additional fighting will not change the eventual outcome, Rand reported.

Under prize law, which is recognized under domestic and international law, military forces can conduct board-and-search operations and seize a belligerent’s vessels and cargo. An authorized prize court, usually a domestic court under the jurisdiction of the capturing state, then adjudicates the “prize,” James Kraska and his coauthors explained in a 2023 edition of the Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare.

If the court determines the capture is legal, the state may take ownership and convert to its own use any captured vessel, aircraft or cargo, wrote Kraska, an international maritime law professor and chairman of the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College.

“Prize law could afford the means to commandeer Chinese-affiliated merchant shipping during a conflict. Since prize law-enabled operations can be conducted almost anywhere in the world, the U.S. military’s global power projection capabilities could move operations outside China’s A2/AD [anti-access/area denial] zone,” U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Ryan Ratcliffe, an electronic warfare officer and joint terminal attack controller assigned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, wrote in the U.S. Naval Institute’s monthly journal Proceedings in September 2024.

In a conflict, prize law-enabled operations could help balance operational effectiveness with escalation risks.

“Seizing Chinese-affiliated vessels imposes costs that, over time, would outweigh the benefits of continued fighting,” Ratcliffe wrote. At the same time, undermining the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] maritime trade would weaken its warmaking ability, making continued fighting less likely.

“By using its global power projection capability to coerce China into capitulating below the nuclear threshold, the United States could retain its strength and restore free and open trade under the rules-based international order. In so doing, it would guarantee security and prosperity, both domestically and globally, long after the war ends,” Ratcliffe wrote.

Prize law can be effective as a component of denial theories of victory if the U.S. and its Allies and Partners expand their capabilities and update the processes, rules and regulations for prize courts to undertake large-scale seizure operations, analysts contend.

“Much work needs to be done to identify the ideal force structures, positioning, and temporal aspects of prize law-enabled operations,” Ratcliffe noted. “But, with an understanding of the overarching process, the United States could begin constructing a framework now as an option for use in a potential war with China.”