Sable Island uses the Royal Navy as a capstone test

The Naval War College's capstone Battle of Sable Island game pitted the US Navy against the Royal Navy because it was the largest fleet American students could plausibly face. Using Britain as the opponent did not mean either government expected or desired war. The exercise maximized professional difficulty at a time when treaty equality and incomplete congressional funding left the Royal Navy as the most demanding benchmark. It tested accumulated operational judgment and supplied no hidden foreign-policy plan. Interwar war games could use a modeled adversary as a controlled stress test without identifying an intended enemy.