Establish "Rules of the Road" in the Gulf

In the past four months, two European submarines carrying nuclear weapons collided in the Atlantic Ocean, Chinese ships harassed a U.S. Navy vessel in the South China Sea, an American nuclear submarine ran into the USS New Orleans in the Strait of Hormuz, and a Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar array towed by the U.S. destroyer John S. McCain off the coast of the Philippines.

Luckily, these incidents resulted in nothing worse than minor injuries and bruised egos. But an accidental confrontation between two hostile navies - say, the United States and Iran - could be disastrous, particularly at this time of turmoil in Iran, and we should do all that we can to strengthen protocols for avoiding such incidents in the future.

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This article was originally published in Defense News.