Understanding Maritime Security
248 pages
Prof Geoffrey Till
The growth of interest in ‘good order at sea,’ and the ‘maritime security’ that would hopefully produce it, only really got going with the full flowering of globalisation twenty-odd years ago. The logic for it seemed unassailable. Mutual economic dependencies made major wars between great powers increasingly unlikely. Attention accordingly shifted to the defence of the trading system on which everyone’s peace and prosperity was based, against anything that might threaten it. That trade was sea-based, since over 80 per cent of goods by volume were and still are transported by ship. The major threats to this were instability ashore which threatened the conditions for trade and the prospect of criminal and terrorist attack. It made sense therefore for the world’s global maritime community to come together in common purpose to defend the system. Hence the expansion of interest in the constabulary role of navies and the growth of coastguards. Hence also the currency of ideas like the ‘thousand ship navy’ and the ‘Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Sea Power’ of 2007.
However, it became increasingly clear from about 2008 that neither a reviving Russia nor a rising China were going necessarily to conform to Western ideas of what the rules-based order should be. It wasn’t long before the agenda of the world’s great and not-so-great navies began shifting back into the more familiar habits of mind associated with great power competition. The requirements of maritime security began to slide down their priority list. Perhaps they could be left to new or expanded coastguards designed to deal with them using assets and people hived off from the less critical parts of large, conventional navies? That done, navies could get on with their real job.
There were two things wrong with this. First of all, the Somali pirate problem and now the Houthis have reminded us that the defence of good order at sea can easily require capabilities beyond the reach of coastguards, Secondly the two faces of the famous (or should I say infamous?) Booth triangle or ‘war-fighting’ and ‘constabulary’ functions are not in fact separate. Instead, they are different positions on the same spectrum, a point particularly obvious now in the age of grey zone operations. Maritime Security, then, is more difficult and important than most people realise, multifarious in form and needs to be thought of as a whole and not artificially divided up.
This kind of thinking clearly lies behind Understanding Maritime Security. The comprehensive nature of the material it deals with, the short concise chapters, the general tone of the book and the repeated brief but useful summaries throughout the book of each issue as it arises all suggest that what the authors had in mind was an effective ‘primer’, an introduction into every conceivable aspect of the all-important task of maintaining good order at sea. One of the main arguments of the book is that this isn’t just a matter for coastguards and navies. All stakeholders need to be involved in the defence of good order at sea, the fishing and shipping industries, mining, marine scientists and so on – and their efforts must be coordinated effectively.
The authors start by defining what they mean by maritime security and discuss the sequence of preoccupations that related discourse has had since the 1990s. They propose that, unlike some other aspects of maritime activity, there has developed a framework of laws, regulations, understandings and expectations that act as a kind of tool kit for ensuring maritime security – if only it were properly enforced. Lack of capability is one reason why it isn’t, and interstate conflict and competition is another. They then consider the main actors in the maritime drama, the good guys trying to deliver security at sea and the criminals and terrorists determined to flout it. Having identified four previous waves of subject interest, they end by speculating about whether the maritime security world is about to enter a fifth wave, dominated by taking on the challenges (and the opportunities) presented by what they call the increasing industrialisation of the world ocean as it encounters more and more human activity, the accelerating advance of new technology at sea and, especially, the impact of climate change. There is a sense that the latter in particular will force us to take maritime security more seriously, whether we want to or not.
If that is indeed the case, then this book will certainly help a lot. It raises issues and questions rather than provides answers and it emphasises the continual need to question the answers that do appear. As an introduction to an important issue, it is hard to imagine a better book length survey of the field, which covers so much. Accordingly Understanding Maritime Security is highly recommended reading for all mariners, and those interested in their ways.
