The United States Navy just concluded the execution phase of Large-Scale Exercise 2025 (LSE 2025) on Friday, 8 August 2025. This exercise has been conducted biannually since 2021. LSE 2025 was the third iteration of the exercise. LSE 2025 extended across 22 time zones and reached an exercise audience of 22,000 personnel. The exercise included participants from U.S. Naval Forces Europe, Fleet Forces Command, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Central Command, and a response cell from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Large-Scale Exercise series was designed to allow the Chief of Naval Operations the opportunity to test advanced naval doctrine and tactics by integrating numbered fleet operations across multiple Combatant Command (COCOM) boundaries. LSE 2025 demonstrated and evaluated the Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to execute the Navy’s operational concepts of Distributed Maritime Operations as well as the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advance Base Operations while conducting Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment. Conducting naval operations globally in a stressful environment is becoming commonplace. One need only examine the U.S. Navy’s posture in the Red Sea for the last two years to understand the challenges that face the Sailors and Marines in our deployed units every day. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to operate as a combined arms team in the land, air, sea, cyber, and space domains is absolutely essential to maintain maritime dominance in the twenty-first century.
Coordination across COCOM boundaries is accomplished day-to-day by numbered Fleet Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs) that coordinate and integrate naval forces into the high-end fight. Faced with numerous threats across multiple theaters of operation, MOC-MOC coordination enables the numbered Fleets, OPNAV staff, Type Commanders (TYCOM), and System Commanders (SYSCOM), as well as Naval Reserve Forces (RESFOR), to execute the Navy’s new Global Maritime Response Plan (GMRP) to rapidly generate naval forces capable of fighting and winning in a combat environment.
Accordingly, throughout LSE 2025, the Exercise Control Group (numbering 800-strong) tested:
MOC-MOC coordination in a global contested environment.
The ability of TYCOMs and SYSCOMs to respond rapidly to the demands of the GMRP.
Execution of sustainment operations in a global contested environment.
Mobilization of RESFOR to evaluate the Fleet’s Reception, Staging and Onward Movement and Integration of our Reserve Sailors.
Inclusion of Joint, Interagency, and Allies and Partners in execution of global maritime operations in all domains of warfare.
As in the previous two iterations of the exercise, LSE 25 relied on the use of Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) training to enhance the quality of the training and increase the number of personnel in the exercise audience. The employment of LVC technology brought in more players around the globe virtually. Accordingly, it was not required that every participating unit put to sea for the conduct of the exercise. This phenomenon had many positive second and third order effects to include less wear and tear on our ships, reduced operational tempo for our Sailors, reduced carbon footprint while conducting the exercise from training centers or shipboard while moored pier side. In this way, the Navy was able to include three aircraft carrier strike group staffs in the exercise for the price of one underway. The modeling and simulation in the LVC training environment rivals that of actual underway training in a much more cost-effective environment. Conducting LSE 25 in an LVC environment enables an “Ender’s Game” approach to modern day warfighting in which our Sailors, Chiefs and Officers can take more risk in combatting the challenges of modern-day warfare. By doing so virtually, our Navy and Marine Corps Team can learn from their mistakes and then rewind the tape to try a different approach in the same scenario.
Assisted by the Center for Naval Analyses, the exercise control group collected a mountain of data that will be evaluated over the course of the next few months. All of this data will be evaluated and compiled into a detailed report assessing the Fleets ability to sustain operations in all domains across the full spectrum of combat operations. Lessons learned will enable changes to existing tactics, training, and procedures and contribute to modifications in the design of Large-Scale Exercise 2027. In this way, LSE 2025 will provide Admiral Daryl Caudle—who was the officer in charge of the exercise—with a new playbook to address the challenges and threats he will face as our 34th Chief of Naval Operations. The timing of LSE 2025 could not be better. Stay tuned for more.
Admiral James Foggo (ret.) is the Dean of The Center for Maritime Strategy.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Admiral James G. Foggo, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
The United States Navy just concluded the execution phase of Large-Scale Exercise 2025 (LSE 2025) on Friday, 8 August 2025. This exercise has been conducted biannually since 2021. LSE 2025 was the third iteration of the exercise. LSE 2025 extended across 22 time zones and reached an exercise audience of 22,000 personnel. The exercise included participants from U.S. Naval Forces Europe, Fleet Forces Command, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Central Command, and a response cell from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Large-Scale Exercise series was designed to allow the Chief of Naval Operations the opportunity to test advanced naval doctrine and tactics by integrating numbered fleet operations across multiple Combatant Command (COCOM) boundaries. LSE 2025 demonstrated and evaluated the Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to execute the Navy’s operational concepts of Distributed Maritime Operations as well as the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advance Base Operations while conducting Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment. Conducting naval operations globally in a stressful environment is becoming commonplace. One need only examine the U.S. Navy’s posture in the Red Sea for the last two years to understand the challenges that face the Sailors and Marines in our deployed units every day. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to operate as a combined arms team in the land, air, sea, cyber, and space domains is absolutely essential to maintain maritime dominance in the twenty-first century.
Coordination across COCOM boundaries is accomplished day-to-day by numbered Fleet Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs) that coordinate and integrate naval forces into the high-end fight. Faced with numerous threats across multiple theaters of operation, MOC-MOC coordination enables the numbered Fleets, OPNAV staff, Type Commanders (TYCOM), and System Commanders (SYSCOM), as well as Naval Reserve Forces (RESFOR), to execute the Navy’s new Global Maritime Response Plan (GMRP) to rapidly generate naval forces capable of fighting and winning in a combat environment.
Accordingly, throughout LSE 2025, the Exercise Control Group (numbering 800-strong) tested:
As in the previous two iterations of the exercise, LSE 25 relied on the use of Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) training to enhance the quality of the training and increase the number of personnel in the exercise audience. The employment of LVC technology brought in more players around the globe virtually. Accordingly, it was not required that every participating unit put to sea for the conduct of the exercise. This phenomenon had many positive second and third order effects to include less wear and tear on our ships, reduced operational tempo for our Sailors, reduced carbon footprint while conducting the exercise from training centers or shipboard while moored pier side. In this way, the Navy was able to include three aircraft carrier strike group staffs in the exercise for the price of one underway. The modeling and simulation in the LVC training environment rivals that of actual underway training in a much more cost-effective environment. Conducting LSE 25 in an LVC environment enables an “Ender’s Game” approach to modern day warfighting in which our Sailors, Chiefs and Officers can take more risk in combatting the challenges of modern-day warfare. By doing so virtually, our Navy and Marine Corps Team can learn from their mistakes and then rewind the tape to try a different approach in the same scenario.
Assisted by the Center for Naval Analyses, the exercise control group collected a mountain of data that will be evaluated over the course of the next few months. All of this data will be evaluated and compiled into a detailed report assessing the Fleets ability to sustain operations in all domains across the full spectrum of combat operations. Lessons learned will enable changes to existing tactics, training, and procedures and contribute to modifications in the design of Large-Scale Exercise 2027. In this way, LSE 2025 will provide Admiral Daryl Caudle—who was the officer in charge of the exercise—with a new playbook to address the challenges and threats he will face as our 34th Chief of Naval Operations. The timing of LSE 2025 could not be better. Stay tuned for more.
Admiral James Foggo (ret.) is the Dean of The Center for Maritime Strategy.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.