EX SEA WARRIOR 2026: Forging Ethical Leaders Under Pressure
WAS POSTED ON: Monday, July 20, 2026 12:00 AM BY Stockdale Center
EX SEA WARRIOR 2026: Forging Ethical Leaders Under Pressure
Royal Norwegian Naval Academy | Bergen, Norway | June 2026
Each June, Naval Academy midshipmen travel to Bergen, Norway for EX SEA WARRIOR, a demanding leadership exercise hosted by the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy. This year, SOCM Jonathan Bertera led four midshipmen through the exercise alongside Finnish Naval Academy cadets. The value of SEA WARRIOR isn't the physical difficulty itself — it's what that difficulty reveals about character and judgment when comfort and certainty are stripped away.
Ethics Under Pressure
The exercise's most instructive moments were ethical rather than physical. In one scenario, a midshipman acted on a supposed authority figure's word without independently verifying a threat — a decision that became a powerful lesson in the danger of deferring judgment under pressure. In another, the team weighed intelligence gathered under fire against the safety of civilians in their care, choosing to protect the vulnerable at real cost to the mission. Master Chief Bertera co-led a formal ethics seminar during the exercise, guiding midshipmen through dilemmas around lawful orders and the limits of military obligation — the same material he teaches at the Academy, now tested in real time under fatigue rather than in a classroom.
Character and Partnership
The exercise also surfaced quiet moments of courage and honesty: one midshipman, outnumbered and running on almost no sleep or food, faced down a simulated attacker rather than back away; after a hard-fought loss in a separate scenario, the team openly acknowledged in their own debrief where fatigue had eroded their discipline, rather than making excuses. Training alongside Finnish and Norwegian cadets for nearly two weeks, the group found that differences between nations showed up in execution and style — never in the underlying sense of right and wrong, a meaningful finding for the future of allied cooperation.
Category: Leadership, Character, & The Warrior Ethos
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Naval Academy, Department of the Navy, or Department of Defense.