This year multinational anti-piracy operations inthe Gulf of Aden (China's first active naval engagement beyond Asia) saw Chinese and American ships operating inthesamezone and communicating with each other in a friendly enough manner.
Beyond fear and treating the event as a competition, networking nights often leave those attending inthesame comfort zone they arrived in: see a person you know, spend the majority of the night by their side, and meet a few new people but not nearly as many as you hoped had you decided to branch off early and look solo.