Guest post: “Defending the Mission: Executing a Principled and Effective Counter-Lawfare Program”

Today we welcome two new Lawfire^® contributors, Captain Dustin E. Wallace, USN, and Captain Ian Santicola, USN, who continue the discussion of lawfare.  They explain how U.S. Pacific Command executes a principled counter-lawfare program to counter China’s lawfare strategy.

Defending the Mission: Executing a Principled and Effective Counter-Lawfare Program

By

Captain Dustin E. Wallace, Staff Judge Advocate, U.S. Pacific Command

and

Captain Ian Santicola, Chief of National Security Law & Director of the Counter-Lawfare Center, U.S. Pacific Command

A recent critique in Lawfire offers a valuable reminder: we must never forfeit our core legal values or transform the law into a mere instrument of national power.  As the two principal counter-lawfare advisors at U.S. Pacific Command (US PACOM), we appreciate this warning – and offer that protecting our nation’s rule of law values directly shapes and informs how US PACOM executes a principled and effective counter-lawfare program.  In so doing, US PACOM’s Counter-Lawfare Center denies adversaries legal legitimacy, sharpens deterrence, and safeguards the Joint Force’s freedom of maneuver.

China’s Strategy: Winning Without Fighting

Lawfare serves as a cornerstone of China’s grand strategy to win without fighting.  Through a systematic, well-resourced, whole-of-government strategy that includes “foreign-related rule of law,” assertive domestic statutes, expansive jurisdictional claims, and mischaracterization of international law, Beijing builds legal pretexts for intimidation, isolation, and coercion.  China uses these measures to weaken international norms, undermine the sovereign rights of its neighbors, justify coercive actions globally, and remake the international order in its own authoritarian image – without triggering military conflict.

The pattern is documented, not abstract: China’s 2021 Coast Guard Law purports to authorize weapons use against foreign vessels, and a 2024 implementing regulation asserts authority to detain foreign nationals for up to 60 days for “trespassing” in waters lawfully open to all — together, domestic legal cover for coercion our partners absorb at sea.

Ceding the legal narrative directly advances Beijing’s goal.  Silence does not protect legal integrity; it surrenders the cognitive domain and hands Beijing an uncontested victory.

Principled Counter-Lawfare Holds the Line

Counter-lawfare is not a weaker form of lawfare.  While adversaries misuse law as a geopolitical weapon or substitute for armed force, counter-lawfare actively defends the rule of law against that exploitation.  

US PACOM’s Counter-Lawfare Center does not bend doctrine or manufacture legal advantages.  It states, clearly and affirmatively, what international law provides.  By actively defending the rule of law, principled counter-lawfare secures our operational legitimacy, refusing to let China’s sustained false legal narrative rewrite established facts or subvert legal principles our nation shares with allies and partners across the globe.

When US PACOM marked the tenth anniversary of the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award, it did not editorialize; it reminded a multinational audience of what a duly constituted tribunal actually unanimously held – that Beijing’s nine-dash line has no basis in international law.  Restating a legal fact is not weaponizing the law; it is defending it.

Moreover, far from diverting resources from warfighting, principled counter-lawfare directly supports it.  By keeping commanders, planners, and operators informed — through timely, clear, mission-relevant legal products that track adversary activity and clarify what the law actually permits — US PACOM’s Counter-Lawfare Center grounds operational and tactical decisions in accurate law rather than an adversary’s false narrative, sharpening their decisions and helping set conditions favorable to the Joint Force.

Safeguarding Our Legal Integrity

US PACOM’s principled counter-lawfare directly addresses concerns regarding the overextension or weaponization of law through three distinct practices:

• • Stating Actual Law: US PACOM anchors every product in established rules and shared principles. Accuracy constitutes our strategic interest.
  • Mandating Coordination: US PACOM coordinates all counter-lawfare products with experts from within the Department of War, the interagency, and allies and partners – this vetting ensures our products maintain absolute legal integrity before publication.
  • Building Multinational Coalitions: China’s coercive lawfare repels allies – whereas US PACOM’s principled counter-lawfare unites them. Like-minded nations across the Indo-Pacific are actively joining our counter-lawfare efforts to safeguard our shared legal values while exposing and opposing China’s malign use of the law. 

Conclusion

Narrative legitimacy represents decisive terrain in long-term strategic competition.  By maintaining high legal standards, coordinating across government, and standing alongside our partners, US PACOM’s principled approach to counter-lawfare exposes and opposes China’s legal coercion while preserving the rule of law.  We refuse to abandon the legal high ground – or cede the narrative to those who distort legality to advance their strategic interests.

Disclaimers

The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Pacific Command, the Department of the Defense/War, or any other entity of the U.S. Government.

The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect my views or those of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, or Duke University. (See also here).

About the authors:

Captain Dustin E. Wallace is an officer in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps currently serving as Staff Judge Advocate for U.S. Pacific Command.  Captain Wallace’s operational assignments include Fleet Judge Advocate for U.S. Pacific Fleet and for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet, Deputy Fleet Judge Advocate for U.S. Seventh Fleet, Assistant Command Judge Advocate for USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and deployments in support of Task Force 134 in Baghdad and the Afghan National Army Legal School in Kabul.  He holds a J.D. from the University of Tulsa and an LL.M. from Columbia University.

Captain Ian Santicola is a U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps officer currently serving as Chief of National Security Law and the Director of the Counter-Lawfare Center at U.S. Pacific Command.  Captain Santicola has served in a range of operational legal positions in the United States and abroad, including with U.S. Seventh Fleet in Japan, U.S. Third Fleet in San Diego, and U.S. European Command in Germany. He has also deployed in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He holds a J.D. from Albany Law School, an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, and a Master of Arts from the U.S. Naval War College. 

Remember what we like to say on Lawfire^®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!