While its other activities like island building have gotten most of the headlines, China’s decisive line of effort in the South China Sea is the forcible imposition of Beijing’s vision of maritime sovereignty on local civilian mariners. China is waging a maritime insurgency to overturn the prevailing U.S.-backed regime of international law that upholds the freedom of the sea, a fundamental U.S. national interest for which the United States has gone to war no less than six times. The United States and its allies must now reorient their strategy to one of maritime counterinsurgency—positioning forces to protect civilians as they exercise their rights under the free and open international legal regime that we seek to preserve. This panel will discuss different dimensions of how to operationalize this new strategic concept so the United States and its partners can successfully defeat China’s maritime insurgency and defend free seas.