ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the issue of the extent to which small navies are different from medium and large ones in anything apart from the simple matter of the number of platforms and/or people. Large navies struggle with this just as smaller ones do. For all its world dominance, the US Navy, for example, has a range of commitments that means it has to meet possible contingencies around the world that are varied geographically. The relationship of coastguard forces with their navies differs from one country to another, their ships are often armed and, in the case of the Japanese Coastguard, their rules of engagement seem more robust than the Navy's. It will be remembered that the ships responsible for the aggressive harassment of the USNS Impeccable in March 2009 were in fact from China's State Oceanic Administration and the Coastal Maritime Safety Agency, not the PLA Navy.
