Maritime Security on a Broad Scale - Coursework Example

Maritime Security Introduction Because of its complex nature and vastness in size, the maritime domain is particularly susceptible to disruption and exploitation by individuals, nations, and organizations (Trelawny 2005, p. 3). The vastness of the oceans and the lengths of shorelines make the land accessible by terrorists as well as rogue nations. Such groups to destroy other nations or some would still stay in strategic positions and take advantage to seize vessels. Nearly 80 percent of the world populations living within a range of 200 miles off the shoreline are potential victims of such groups. The processes of ensuring maritime security involve many partners targeting to preserve freedom at the seas, facilitating and defending trade, and maintaining good governance at sea (McNicholas 2008, p. 4). Maritime security is different from safety at sea; the former is a combination of responsive and preventive strategies using both the law and military for protection of the seas. The crucial difference is between unintentional and man-made dangers and risks (Feldt, Roell and Thiele 2013, p. 7). For this case, safety relates to the hazards to the ships, passengers and crew, navigation and cargo. It relates to environmental protection by use of techniques and regulations, whereas security relates to operational requisitions (McNicholas 2008, p. 4). Safety is the responsibility of civilians, and its success depends on common efforts by both non-governmental and governmental bodies (Rahman 2009, p. 6). Maritime security is a responsibility with no clear definitions as it concerns the operations involved. It is the responsibility of governments, but the power to act for the States is a sovereign decision, which has different options. It bears a strong effect on Maritime collaboration. The topic has no universally legal or accepted definition because it is a broad topic spanning across many areas. This work will discuss four sections of the topic, energy security, environmental security, economic security, and national security. There is an established relationship among the subsets because the threats posed all result originate from operations at sea and because they have similar policy measures for curbing. The paper will also discuss the risks for each of the subsets and give a vast insight into what maritime security concerns. An essential conclusion of the relationship between the four subsets is in their causes. It therefore, follows that the four subsets relate with one another in a cycle, where the threats posed are the central focal point. The Inter-Relationship among the Four Subsets of Maritime Security Maritime security is a broad area concerning the protection of resources in the Maritime Domain. Some of these resources contribute to the economic worthiness of the world such as fuel and fish stocks. Environmental control measures, which constitute Environmental maritime security ensures that the ecological set-up of the oceans remains balanced and un-interfered (Rahman 2009, p. 6). At the same time, the oceans form routes of trading and other commercial activities since ships and other water vessels carry the largest volumes of goods. Measures of protecting international trade could result in the protection of nature because of the use of the same channels. Some of the items of business could be energy products such as oil and gas, which fall into the category of maritime energy security. There is a mere implication that trade, energy, and environmental security relates directly (Trelawny 2005, p. 4). The same trade contributes to the economic performance of nations because water vessels transport items of trade. National security depends on how well a society secures its maritime domain from acts of terrorism and piracy. This factor relates to the notion that pirates and terrorists could exploit vulnerable countries using sea routes. As such, the four domains relate to a cycle bound by the nature of the threat and the possible effects (HM Government 2014, p.5). Figure 1. Inter-relationship of the four subsets of maritime security according to causes. Maritime Energy Security Energy is critical to security, economic stability, and international trade of a nation, yet it faces particular vulnerability of attacks. Ensuring that energy passes safely is a challenging factor because it requires unified actions by global governments. Maritime energy security forms a vital ingredient of energy security, which requires effective confrontation of illicit activities and interferences over a vast operating space. Water covers more than two-thirds of the surface of the earth, and nearly 80% of global businesses move by sea (Rahman 2009, p. 6). Most of the seas of the globe, however, do not fall under the jurisdiction of any country. Protection of oil chemical and gas tankers and other vessels at sea is a challenge to the maritime energy security department. As much as there is no international agreement, which specifically focuses on the topic, there are some recent efforts to strengthen the subset. Some of the measures undertaken include a treaty of criminal law, which encompasses maritime terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction transport, improved security at seaports, ship tracking systems, and improved collaborations concerning inspection of vessels. The initiatives and treaties effected over the past decade enhance energy diplomacy and require better-positioned nations to offer protection for maritime transport of fuel and oil and critical maritime infrastructures. Threats to Maritime Energy Security The most common form of threat for this subset is piracy attacks. There is information that Iraqi oil lines experience frequent attacks from pirates even while the country has over 14000 military personnel deployed to guard the infrastructure. There are also practical attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Aden, in West Africa, the Somali Pirates and other regions where the oil tankers pass. Most of these attacks constitute armed robbery or at times hijackings. The attacks are at times because of terrorist attacks, such as the Mumbai attacks of 1993 and 2008. There was another attack on the French oil tanker, Limburg by Al Qaeda while it was carrying about 400,000 barrels of oil off the Yemen coast in 2002 (Rahman 2009, p. 9). There are numerous other attacks, which still confirm the fact that terrorism is the main threat to maritime energy security. Maritime Environmental Security This subset describes a series of strategies, which target to curb activities that can cause environmental disasters occurring at sea. Some factors of consideration in the marine environment include sea temperatures and salinity, ice flows, maritime natural resources, regulated fishing practices, marine sanctuaries among others. There are measures designed to create heightened awareness of how fragile the natural environment is with a relationship to violent activities. Some of the factors, which destroy the marine environment, could result from oil spillage over the vast space in the sea and lead to adverse effects on marine life. In addition, the mounting competition for declining marine resources in the recent years has caused environmental depletion. There are incidences of large scale uncontrolled fishing, which means that the entire globe is in danger of running out of fish stocks. Events such as the ones described call for increased collaboration between nations globally (Trelawny 2005, p. 4). Maritime Environmental Security Threats Oil spillages could result from terrorist attacks or other forms of attacks on oil tankers or accidents at sea (Maritime Transport Committee 2013, p. 6). In some rare cases, there is the threat of possible use of weapons of mass destruction to make the sea and other waterways unsupportive of life. Such events cause massive pollution of the sea resulting to death of marine life and subsequently affecting economic performance of some nations. At this point, there is clarity of the correlation between maritime energy security and environmental security. The first factor is that while there are measures to protect the marine energy infrastructure, the results lead to prevention of spillages, which could affect the environment. The second consideration relates to the causal agents, in this case, terrorism and other forms of attacks as well as accidents (NSMS 2013, p. 1). While there are initiatives to prevent such attacks, the moves subsequently use environmentally conscious tactics to avoid pollution. Maritime Economic Security Global trade depends on maritime transport, and there are great efforts now to make the system open and frictionless. Freely flowing global trade depends on large a large fleet of ocean-moving vessels. This kind of business is a fundamental factor for the improvement of world economic performance in the second half of the 20th century. The initial reactions to events of 11 September changed the perception of global business meaning that air transport was more vulnerable to attacks. There was, therefore, a proposal that that global business shifts to the sea. The rationale for this action is that at that time, the sea remained untouched. However, as time faded on, there was improved scrutiny of trading at sea, with particular preference for the terror attacks by Al Qaeda (Shea 2012, p. 3). As a result, there is a factor to consider in terms of the security of goods at sea. The primary cause of loss of wealth in the vast waters is terrorism and related attacks. The below diagram is a model representing interrelations between factors of the economy and sea attacks. Fig 2. The interrelation of between factors of the economy and sea attacks. Most of the attacks at sea target the richest vessels with a target of looting or at times hijacking for ransom. Perpetrators of these acts target political advantage in the case of terrorism and financial gain for the event of piracy. The map (fig. 3) shows some of the world’s frequent piracy and other forms of attacks on marine vessels (Bueger 2014, p. 10). The map reveals that most attacks happen in the oil-producing regions of the world, mainly the Gulf of Aden (Shea 2012, p. 3). Once again, the interrelation of the two previous subsets is in their cause, which means that efforts to curb them have similar approaches. Fig 3. Maritime Piracy Hotspots in the World. Source: Google Maps Maritime National Security The vast and ungoverned maritime domain is a region that pirates and terrorists target to exploit in attempts of attaining their land-based objectives and goals (NSMS 2013, p. 5). There is also a rising concern by the international community that perpetrators of such acts collude with each other to achieve their separate aims. For the policymakers to formulate the best countermeasures, they must distinguish between piracy and terrorism. The intelligence units must also determine the types of existent relationships between the two groups. As such, national security depends on how secure the oceans are from acts of terrorism because of a number of reasons (Trelawny 2005, p. 4). The first is the strength of the control and regulatory mechanism, which patrol the ships to ensure that they are free of aids to attacks. There is widespread fear that vessels could carry terrorists or their weapons of attack including bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Threats to Maritime National Security Both piracy and terrorism pose a threat to national security (Klein 2011, p. 30). This fact calls for effective countermeasures, which could be a combination, or the use of one method fits them all approach. Nations retain some sense of negative implications of counter-attacks against sea terrorists and pirates because such a strategy may illicit many ethical questions. It is not easy to defeat such actions using one approach neither can one nation succeeds singly. It is, therefore, a collaborative approach because Terrorism is a global menace (Shea 2012, p. 3). Conclusion This work has described maritime security on a broad scale including four subsets namely economic, national security, environmental, and energy security. There are different implications for each subset; however, commonalities relate in the nature of threats and the deployed countermeasures. There is a realization that maritime security encompasses a vast area of the open sea, where no nation claims jurisdiction. Management for such domains is, therefore, a difficult task for one country, which means that it takes a collaborative approach to controlling all the threats. All the four areas of this topic face one common threat, terrorism. As it emerges, there is no convenient way of dealing with terrorism because of the broadness of the open sea. Maritime security, therefore, involves a series of countermeasures against threats resulting from terrorism and related factors. At the same time, measures to counter one could apply to all of them and help in managing maritime resources. Bibliography Bueger, C. (2014). What is Maritime Security? Christian Bueger. Bueger.info. Available at: http://bueger.info/what-is-maritime-security/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. DHS. GOV, (2002). Maritime Commerce Security Plan for the National Strategy for Maritime Security. Available at: https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/HSPD_MCSPlan.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. Feldt, L., Roell, P., and D. Thiele, R. (2013). Maritime Security – Perspectives for a Comprehensive Approach. maritimesecurity.org. Available at: http://www.maritimesecurity.org/Reports%20&%20Regs/222_Feldt_Roell_Thiele.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. HM Government. (2014). The UK National Strategy for Maritime Security. www.gov.uk. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310987/20140508_NSMS.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. Klein, N. (2011). Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maritime Transport Committee, (2003). Security in Maritime Transport: Risk Factors and Economic Impact. Available at: http://www.oecd.org/sti/transport/maritimetransport/18521672.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. McNicholas, M. (2008). Maritime Security: An Introduction. Burlington, MA: Academic. NSMS (2013). National Maritime Domain Awareness Plan. Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/national_maritime_domain_awareness_plan.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. Rahman, C. (2009). Concepts of Maritime Security: A Strategic Perspective on Alternative Visions for Good Order and Security at Sea, with Policy Implications for New Zealand. Ro.uow.edu.au. Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1087&context=lawpapers [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. Shea Nelson, E. (2012). Maritime Terrorism and Piracy: Existing and Potential Threats. http://globalsecuritystudies.com/. Available at: http://globalsecuritystudies.com/Nelson%20Piracy%20Final.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. Trelawny, C. (2005). Maritime Security: Implementation of the ISPS Code. [online] http://www.imo.org. Available at: http://www.imo.org/blast/blastDataHelper.asp?data_id=17987&filename=Maritime.pdf [Accessed 15 Feb. 2015]. Read More