Break-out Group 1

  

 

The latter had a huge economic interest in the unimpeded flow of hydrocarbons and, in some cases, a strategic interest in assured naval access. Conflict in Iraq and increasing energy demand, particularly from China and India, had accentuated the critical importance of access. However, maritime crime, notably piracy and trafficking, together with the spectre of maritime terrorism, increasingly threatened to undermine freedom of maritime communication.

 

The increased incidence of piracy posed a particularly serious threat to shipping, contributing to concerns that escalating maritime crime was entrenching a lawless environment with rich pickings for miscreants. At the same time, this environment was allowing the potential for terrorism at sea to grow. Following a series of pirate attacks on ships culminating in an assault on a cruise vessel, the US Office of Naval Intelligence warned in November 2005 that vessels should stay at least 200 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia. This illustrated the extent of the problem of maritime lawlessness.

 

However, vessels were most vulnerable to pirates and sea-robbers when at anchor waiting to enter port. The problem was especially pronounced in the northern Gulf close to Iraq, where unresolved territorial disputes allowed exploitation of gaps in security coverage deriving from a lack of clarity in boundary delimitation. Under cover of darkness, maritime criminals used high-speed boats to mount attacks that were often followed by rapid escapes to open waters. Another dimension to maritime crime involved extensive smuggling of petrol, electronic goods, narcotics, explosives and weapons, along with trafficking in people. There appeared to be a progression over time from contraband in low-value goods to high-value items. Despite the pervasiveness of the problem of maritime crime, the United Nations’ International Maritime Organisation (IMO) had been slow to tackle the issue.

The US in particular was concerned that its terrorist adversaries, inspired by al-Qaeda, would use regional waters as ‘maritime highways’ to move personnel, weapons and finances. Although the threat was still defined rather imprecisely in terms of the potential perpetrators’ organisational identity, the US was also concerned that terrorists could use the sea as a vector of asymmetric attack against its own vessels and those of friendly states. The examples of the attacks on the USS Cole in 2000 and the French oil supertanker Limburg in 2002, both off Yemen, together with the suicide assaults on Iraqi oil platforms in April 2004, had illustrated the immediacy and potential lethality of the maritime terrorist threat in the region.

 

In response to concerns over maritime crime and terrorism, the US and UK navies were seeking to heighten coordination with regional and international partners, notably in terms of intelligence-sharing aimed at creating a more comprehensive and accurate regional maritime picture. One-third of Coalition vessels in the region were now provided by the United States’ international partners, mainly European and Asian allies. The Pakistan Navy was due, in early 2006, to assume leadership of the Coalition’s Task Force 150, which is tasked with preventing movement of terrorists in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. Washington’s close alliance with Pakistan seemed likely to preclude India from playing a leading maritime role in the Coalition in the near future, despite the wider context of New Delhi’s rapidly intensifying strategic cooperation with the United States. Nevertheless, India’s increasing dependence on energy resources imported from the Gulf meant that its navy would be increasingly active and visible in the region and that it would continue to be an important partner for the Coalition.

 

Since 2004, the US-led coalition had been cooperating with Kuwait and the new Iraq against maritime crime and terrorism, but coordination could usefully be tightened further, and the US recognised the need to help its regional partners to expand their presently limited capacities for providing maritime security. In particular, Iraq needed a much more effective capability to protect offshore oil platforms. Exercises provided an important means of enhancing both capabilities and the intensity of cooperation. Comprehensive regional registers of both ships and mariners, both still lacking, could contribute significantly to the creation of a more complete and useful maritime picture. More effective coordination between diverse government departments and agencies in regional and extra-regional states could also help to improve the effectiveness of maritime security measures.

 

Comparisons could be drawn with the maritime security problem in Southeast Asia. There, the United States’ suggestion in 2004 of a Regional Maritime Security Initiative had encouraged littoral states – notably Indonesia and Malaysia – to implement more effective national and regional measures against piracy and other maritime crime in the Malacca Strait, and to cooperate more closely with extra-regional user states. As a major oil and gas consumer whose survival and prosperity depended on free maritime trade, Japan’s interest in maritime security in both the Gulf and Southeast Asia was acute. Like other user states, Japan had a role to play, alongside littoral states and international organisations such as the IMO, in efforts to counter maritime crime and terrorism. Japan’s concerns over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction meant that it strongly supported the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and was participating in and hosting PSI exercises with other US allies.

 

In the Gulf, littoral states’ navies were restricted mainly to operations within their own territorial waters. They were commonly equipped and trained mainly for dealing with relatively low-intensity maritime security challenges. However, extra-regional powers involved in the Gulf and surrounding areas – particularly the US and UK – have deployed maritime forces that are geared primarily to responding to more conventional threats through deterrence and, if necessary, the disruption, destruction and defeat of enemy forces. For the littoral states, preparing for combat remains the priority, but since the 1990s they have placed considerable emphasis on adjusting to the expanded requirement for littoral (rather than blue-water) operations, and for the ‘grey area’ of ‘operations other than war’. The US Fifth Fleet has faced special challenges because of the requirement to operate in the two different geographical environments of the Gulf and the Western Indian Ocean, and also the need to provide direct assistance – notably the deployment of 10,000 personnel – in support of US land forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

In the Gulf region, more conventional maritime security concerns have persisted alongside the challenges posed by maritime crime and terrorism. Western powers with naval forces in the Gulf, as well as Arab states in the region, were concerned about Iran’s potential maritime response if international sanctions were imposed because of its nuclear programme. There was particularly concern over the possibility of Iran using mines to block the Strait of Hormuz. Accidental naval clashes, particularly between Coalition forces and Iran, were a worrying possibility in the Gulf. The US and Iranian navies monitored each other’s activities closely, with the US vessels making every effort to manoeuvre deliberately and slowly to reduce the chances of miscalculation. But there was still potential for mistakes.

 

Some regional states feared a naval arms race. Territorial disputes were already leading to occasional maritime skirmishes. In this unstable maritime environment, bilateral confidence-building exchanges between major naval players would be invaluable. While inter-state tensions seemed likely to rule out an over-arching multilateral regional security arrangement in the foreseeable future, less demanding forms of security multilateralism such as a regional sea power symposium might be both feasible and valuable in terms of enhancing regional stability. Such a maritime symposium might even constitute a first step towards the expansion of the Gulf Cooperation Council into a larger regional security forum including Iran, Iraq and Yemen.