Conflict and Cooperation in the Global Commons: A Comprehensive Approach for International Security

10. Maritime Security Consortiums

173 CHAP TER 10 Maritime Security Consortiums GORDAN E. VAN HOOK For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself. —Sir Walter Raleigh, “A Discourse of the Invention of Ships” The ocean covers 71 percent of the earth’s surface.1 The ability to traverse, exploit, and share this vast expanse is crucial to the security and prosperity of every nation around the world. The maritime domain is essential to global mobility and trade and is an abundant source of vital resources, from food to energy. Because of its indispensability, Alfred Mahan regarded the ocean as “the great common” of mankind.2 In an existential sense, the maritime domain could be considered the “critical infrastructure” of global society, which must be preserved and protected for the benefit of all nations.3 The shared imperative and responsibility for maritime security necessarily transcend the capabilities of individual nations and navies. The realization of the potentialities of collective security through shared awareness demands new approaches to public-private partnerships in the maritime domain. These partnerships are known as maritime security consortiums and enlist multinational, federal, state, local, and private sector entities that, when combined, leverage their shared situational awareness to enhance international security. This chapter explores the ways in which maritime security consortiums could be an important future component of the maritime domain awareness necessary to achieve security in the maritime commons. Maritime Security Consortiums 174 THE NECESSITY FOR COOPERATION Preventing conflict and encouraging cooperation to secure the maritime domain start with the hard task of gaining and maintaining awareness of the environment. The maritime environment is especially challenging in this respect. Awareness can be difficult ashore even given total control of sovereign ground and air space. On the high seas that challenge is far more daunting. In the age of high-speed, high-endurance aircraft, commercial satellite imagery, long-range surveillance, and global digital communications, the ocean remains the “great unknown.” It presents an often turbulent surface, marine life, complex weather systems, and attenuating atmospheric conditions that conspire to suboptimize the human senses and the most highly advanced of technological sensors. These conditions are combined with a plethora of small craft that ply the seas, especially their crowded littorals , and engage in trading, fishing, sports, recreation, and even smuggling as well as more traditional maritime crimes such as armed piracy. This great unknown also carries upon it the massive maritime trade that is the linchpin of the global economic system, carrying 74 percent of the volume of goods on a complex network of liner, bulk, and tanker vessels that form a virtual set of conveyor belts to keep the global manufacturing engine whirring.4 Raw materials are moved from their origin in bulk carriers to countries that form base materials. These are shipped to other countries in bulk to form subcomponents that are then moved via containers to other countries, where they are formed into subassemblies that are then forwarded for assembly of a final product. Between each of these steps are usually one or more transshipment nodes, or gathering points for the efficient grouping and forwarding of multiple shipments to common destinations. Although product labels may indicate the items were made in country x, it should read they were final assembled in country x. Although this virtual maritime conveyor belt is a modern marvel of globalization, it is simply a matter of time before it becomes vulnerable to those seeking to disrupt the global economic system. Complete disruption of the maritime domain would be difficult because the global economic system has inherent redundancies and thousands of vessels. However, disruptions could have profound local and regional effects on smaller, fragile nations highly dependent on few or single ports, which support most of their trade and link them to the larger systems. The social impact of disruptions may be severe and lead to inevitable civil unrest. Many nations suffer from weak governance and brittle control of their populations, and disrupting their economies may have disastrous effects, tipping them toward failed states, which can breed terrorists with the threat of further disrupting the global system. Additional civil unrest and human suffering can result when humanitarian food aid is interdicted, as has happened in East Africa by Somali pirates. gordan e. van hook 175 Disruption of maritime...