October 1st 2003
The military's US Pacific Command is trying to convince friendly nations in Asia to share intelligence on terrorism as part of a new regional maritime security policy, US Pacific Fleet Commander Adm Walter F Doran said Wednesday in Washington.
The policy envisions sharing information on ships' cargos and passengers as they travel the vast Pacific to help narrow the search for terrorists or dangerous or forbidden cargo, Doran said.
"The global war on terrorism is like watching water running downhill. Water always goes to the place of least resistance," Doran said.
As terrorists are flushed out of Afghanistan and Iraq from two successive US-led wars "they tend to find themselves in Southeast Asia," Doran said.
"We need to get a framework of willing nations in southeast Asia to work on our situational awareness," Doran said.
He acknowledged it would be impossible to track the contents and intentions of every ship in the region but said the regional security policy would allow participating countries to better define the "gray" areas where they don't know what they don't know.
The project was initiated after the "Shangri-La discussions" hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore May 30-June 1, which featured US Pacific Command chief Adm Thomas Fargo as a speaker.
