Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the Malacca Straits

2. Transnational Threats and the Maritime Domain

Transnational Threats and the Maritime Domain 23 2 Transnational Threats and the Maritime Domain1 Brian Fort Introduction On the night of 22 July 2004, a United States Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Kennedy, collided with a wooden dhow while conducting operations in the Arabian Gulf.2 The wooden dhow was no match for the 82,000-tonne aircraft carrier. Search and rescue teams found no survivors and only a small area of debris.3 Whether this was a tragic maritime accident, a failed terrorism attempt, or perhaps even a terrorist practice run may never be truly known. I do not want to sound alarmist nor like a conspiracy theorist, and I have no evidence that the collision was anything more than a maritime tragedy, but in the eyes of terrorist operations planners, I would pose the question — does it really matter? The collision revealed a definitive vulnerability to such a maritime terrorism tactic in a relatively broad swath of littoral water. Although an official report has yet to be released, the security implications are already substantial. Whether as a result of inaction, inappropriate action, or action determined by the bridge crew and/or commanding officer to maintain their course and speed until it was too late to manoeuvre and avoid collision, the end result was that the carrier collided with the dhow. If the dhow had been laded with explosives, 02 PMaritime Terrorism Ch 2 9/28/06, 2:22 PM 23 24 Brian Fort might it then have proven to be a match for the carrier? Would it have made the headlines as the most terrible act of maritime terrorism to date in the new century? The author was the executive officer of a U.S. Navy cruiser operating in the Arabian Gulf in the months following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. While some scoffed at us, we took the threat of dhows to the aircraft carrier we provided defence for very seriously. On several occasions we sprinted away from the carrier to encircle a nearby dhow and attempt to determine its intentions. While we may have never really believed those intentions were anything other than fishing or recreation, we took their potential threat at face value. With that in mind it is not too hard to understand, that my own personal first reaction when I learned of the collision was that of terrorists attempting to learn how to exploit any vulnerability in naval force protection at sea. In comparison, the very nature, quantity, quality, and brutality of pirate attacks in Southeast Asian waters in recent years has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate significant vulnerabilities for terrorists to exploit in maritime security. The surge in piracy, particularly in Southeast Asia, is only matched by the surge in its reporting by numerous global media outlets. With global security lagging the global economy I believe the links between piracy and maritime terrorism are more blurred than ever and must be recognized. The same avenues that have led to global economic successes have also paved the way for the emergence of numerous transnational threats. The aim of this chapter is to review the world of transnational threats, provide a prelude to later discussions on the nexus between piracy and maritime terrorism, and discuss countering these threats in the maritime domain by drawing parallels from the author’s experience at sea. Transnational threats are activities perpetrated by non-state actors that not only transcend national borders but also have regional or global impact.4 Yet, at least prior to the 9/11 attacks, they seemed easy to overlook because they are so varied in nature and scope. Further, their effects are obscured by the fact that many are somewhat insidious with gradual and long-term consequences rather than immediate ones. With the exception of global terrorism, most transnational threats clearly have a lower overall profile in global security considerations than do big-power geo-politics, regional wars, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But while some transnational threats are not direct threats to state security, they can be threats to a state’s economy and the quality of life of its citizens, and therefore threaten national interests. The combined effect of 02 PMaritime Terrorism Ch 2 9/28/06, 2:22 PM 24 Transnational Threats and the Maritime Domain 25 transnational threats such as terrorism, drug and human trafficking, weapons proliferation, and piracy — along with their...