Howdy, it is another historically informed maritime current events podcast! Or The Bilge Pumps as we three naval geeks of yore call it. As an explanation, well pretty much imagine three naval historians having a chat while carrying out a medieval re-enactment, but without the cool swords or place armor, plus it’s done by Skype and recorded…whilst sitting down.
So what is episode eight all about? Well, primarily it is questions from the listeners, Mark Naoier, Taurevanime, and someone on Discord who then deleted their post! The #Bilgepumps team is being sort of topical, in that there is an issue which has created a lot of tweets lately, namely narco subs and stealth car transporters. We also ask what is the legacy of Mers El Kebir, and finally, what will naval icebreakers be used for in the future?
#Bilgepumps is still a new series and new avenue, and although possibly no longer having the new car smell, we are getting the impression that it’s liked. But now we need you. Do you have suggestions for topics? Comments on how we could improve? Or most importantly, ideas for artwork, then please either tweet them to us the Bilgepump crew (with #Bilgepump) at Alex (@AC_NavalHistory), Drach (@Drachinifel), and Jamie (@Armouredcarrier). Or you can comment on our Youtube channels (listed down below).
This June has been unsettling for the Arctic. Russia experienced three events the Arctic Council has been dreading for years: an oil spill, an outbreak of wildfires, and the hottest Arctic temperature record being set with a 100-degree Fahrenheit day in Siberia.However, Russia is not alone in addressing these events. The Arctic Council, the Arctic’s premier multilateral organization, has sought to prepare the region and the globe for the eventuality of a warmer Arctic.
These recent events bring into focus both the work the Council has done to promote regional governmental frameworks and the long road that remains ahead for fulfilling its mission of monitoring the Arctic environment. The Council has not been idle since its founding in 1996 and is continually promoting active measures to ensure the Arctic environment is protected as the region warms and opens to increased economic activity, with a host of working groups, agreements, and policy recommendations coming forward to address concerns like oil spills and sea ice retreat.This summer represents a major test of the Arctic Council as these crises come at a time when the Arctic Council is being pulled in directions it would rather avoid. Tensions are rising between the two most powerful states on the Council, the United States and Russia, and calls to direct the Council to address rising Arctic militarization have grown from prominent leadership.
Historically, the Council has tempered its focus on issues it can resolve and gain regional coordination on, ranging from environmental research to new regional agreements, with each state of the Council doing their part to empower the institution to meet those communal goals through the acknowledgement of the Council’s limitations. With consideration of those limitations weakening as the region experiences its worst June yet, the Arctic Council finds itself in newly tense territory.
It becomes critical to examine this June from the perspective of improving Arctic Ocean governance to tackle these emerging environmental issues. Given the track record of the Arctic Council in developing regional frameworks, the solution lies with it and its member states. Particularly, acknowledging the Council’s limitations and its adopted role would enable the Council to do the job it has been designed to do in terms of providing coordination on scientific research, regulations, and indigenous representation instead of becoming another institutional battleground for international competition. Thus enabled, the Council would be able to further the quiet lead it has maintained on Arctic issues for more than 20 years in creating mutually acknowledged regulations for the Arctic’s waterways and in strengthening the overall international maritime regime.
Regional Facilitator and Forum
The Arctic Council began from efforts to preserve the Arctic environment in 1996, and today research coordination across all members and observers of the Arctic Council remains paramount.This marks the first area where members could assist in developing governmental frameworks for the Arctic region by empowering the Council through reaffirming its mission to coordinate regional scientific research. Scientific research coordinated by the Council enables member states to address emerging issues, act on new opportunities, and protect their communities.
The clearest example of such information dissemination is linked to the publication of the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment which renewed global interest in the potential of a warm Arctic and the plight of the unique environment of the polar region.This research is not glamorous and does not yield immediate results, yet it is fundamental to the establishment of effective regional policies for all member states in response to the increasing changes of the Arctic. Particularly, coordinating research enables a broader understanding of the regional transformation, a sharing of ideas and perspectives, and has stood the test of tensions in maintaining relationships in spite of broader international disagreements.In effect, the Council’s push toward scientific research has enabled states mostly concerned with the broader global environment to maintain Arctic policy flexibility without radically shifting their own domestic policies. This stability of research coordination could be disrupted by continued calls for the Council to address regional militarization, which in turn could negatively impact the collection and coordination of research within the Council’s network. Thus, recognizing the limitations of the Council in addressing emerging issues regarding militarization enables the continued functioning of scientific coordination and diplomacy in the high north and preserves domestic policymaking for Council members.
One of the most recognizable aspects of the Arctic Council is the inclusion of a variety of indigenous people’s organizations from throughout the Arctic region. This marks the second area where the Arctic Council could assist in furthering Arctic maritime governance as it has been critical in engaging the local indigenous communities. Climate change is ravaging the Arctic landscape in different ways, so the Arctic Council has been dedicated to ensuring the ways of life of the regional indigenous communities are preserved as best as possible and their voices are heard through the Arctic Council’s Permanent Participant organizations and the Indigenous People’s Secretariat.This engagement with the indigenous community has played a large part in the overall regional engagement of the Arctic Council, with the Council supporting critical issues like health, economic, and education initiatives alongside cultural preservation programs. In turn, these communities provide member states with experts offering deep knowledge of the local environment, climate conditions, and real-time impacts of climate change throughout the region, giving the Council critical on-the-ground information regarding how regional warming is impacting the Arctic.
As the Council is pushed to address issues like militarization and other dicey political issues, the indigenous communities of the Arctic could be pushed into the background as political capital is expended to address narrower national interests. This could inhibit the ability of the Council to address rising maritime issues like the endangerment of marine environments due to increased human activity or climate change, issues where indigenous communities are the most vulnerable and most aware of in the changing climate. Thus, there is the risk of the Council being unable to address problems noticed by indigenous populations if it focuses on addressing militarization or other issues heavily tied to the competing national interests of member states.
One of the crowning achievements of the Arctic Council in the past decade has been the establishment of a series of maritime shipping reports and regulations which were adopted by the International Maritime Organization as the Polar Code in 2017.This is another area where the Arctic Council could further Arctic maritime governance. The Arctic Council’s history of getting members to come together to address communal issues related to environmental management and the prevention of major disasters has been predicated upon putting cooperation above national interest, and this has served as the foundation of the current Arctic regulatory regime, with several agreements and working groups focused on those concerns.
An infographic illustrating the safety requirements in the Polar Code [Click to expand] (Infographic via the International Maritime Organization)Still, the urge to promote national interests has not been dispelled, as evident with the Ilulissat Declaration of 2008, but it has been tempered within the confines of the Council throughout the history of the organization.Unfortunately, several high-profile declarations of concern regarding Arctic militarization within the structures of the Council serve to push out conversations regarding the preparedness of states in dealing with Arctic climate calamities and the preparedness of the Council to provide necessary assistance to states in need. This overconcern with national interests distracts from the central tenets of the Arctic Council and makes it significantly more difficult for the Council to maintain cooperative avenues for assistance with surging issues like sea ice retreat, migration, oil spills, and forest fires as some nations struggle to establish a vague dominance of the Council. Reducing pressure on the Council as the body to address issues like militarization would assist in maintaining its role as a body providing regulatory guidance to member states experiencing the most rapid transformation.
Conclusion
The Arctic Council is the best international body to begin addressing the complex issues surrounding maritime governance in the waterways of the Arctic region by developing and codifying communal responses to regional issues. In order for the Council to pursue such policies effectively it must have a community of members willing to work together and acknowledge the limitations imposed on the Council which have so far enabled its effectiveness for more than 20 years.
Ian Birdwell is a Ph.D. Student at Old Dominion University’s Graduate Program in International Studies. His research focuses on the exploration of the motivations behind the pursuit of Arctic security, how identity factors into the cultivation of regional habits, and the impacts of emerging trade routes on global power dynamics.
Featured Image: “North Pole” by Christopher Michael via Wikimedia Commons
It is typically conceptualized as a developmental or ocean governance challenge. But in fact it represents a remarkable strategic opportunity for the United States. The U.S. has struggled to contest China’s growing maritime insurgency in the South China Sea because its presence is relatively transient and China’s is not. The U.S. could make itself far more competitive in the region by contributing substantial resources to a multilateral maritime policing effort aimed at IUU fishing.
Such action would go a long way toward embedding the U.S. deeper into the region and supporting its strategy of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Instead of relatively short security cooperation exercises, U.S. personnel and assets would work shoulder-to-shoulder with regional partners for long periods of time, and make progress on an issue that readily impacts the quality of life of regional populations.
On a broader level, this policy could reshape perceptions of the U.S. and present China with difficult strategic decisions regarding maritime provocation. First, trust in U.S. foreign policy has declined precipitously under President Trump. Regional powers are concerned about the potential for America’s China policy to spark conflict and are dubious about the strength of Washington’s security guarantees. On the other hand, China has been making a bid for regional leadership, and while few countries see its actions as friendly, it is perceived as more influential and consistently present than a mercurial America. By deeply engaging in a multilateral, local-led mission against a systemic regional problem, the U.S. can substantiate its claims that it supports a free and open Indo-Pacific rather than be seen as destabilizing and high-handed. Moreover, as Chinese vessels are major contributors to IUU fishing, strong U.S. action against the practice would highlight the U.S. as upholding beneficial norms in sharp contrast to an aggressively self-interested China.
It would also cause China tactical heartburn. Chinese vessels routinely ram and dangerously approach ships from other countries but are more circumspect around U.S. ships for fear of escalation. If U.S. service personnel were routinely embedded on coast guard and naval ships from other nations, this level of circumspection would likely expand. In turn, this would provide regional navies more space to maneuver and assert their legitimate claims – evening out the maritime playing field and positioning the U.S. to be more responsive to the competition occurring below the threshold of open conflict.
However, the U.S. Navy must confront the reality of stagnating defense budgets and growing operational demands. Chronic overwork has already led to disaster in the 7th Fleet, and adding more taskings without substantial additional resources is not viable. Luckily, this program could be achieved at relatively low cost by utilizing assets not traditionally employed for national security. For example, IUU fishing is highly dependent on immigrant labor, with recruiters often trapping poor farmers in debt bondage. The State Department could assist international NGOs in targeting this practice. Experts from the U.S. Treasury Department and USAID could work with host nations on countering corruption in port authorities. Satellite radar data is becoming more affordable and proven to be effectivein finding fishing vessels that turn off their transponders. There are some specialized capabilities which would certainly require additional investment. Sustainable training and embedding with partner navies could only realistically be done by the U.S. military. But innovative approaches that leverage the interagency can cut costs.
This policy is not without risks. Three clear issues would require action. First, it would expose U.S. personnel to greater threats. While embedding U.S. personnel on regional vessels might spur caution in Beijing, it is all too plausible to imagine a Chinese maritime militia or coast guard ship ramming a Vietnamese or Filipino vessel – only to inadvertently injure or even kill an embedded U.S. servicemember. Finding the right balance between earning the desired deterrent effect and having adequate force protection would be a challenge.
Second, it could feed into perceptions of U.S. hypocrisy or imperialism. IUU fishing is a major problem, but few countries appreciate meddling. The mission would require effective strategic communications and operating methods to emphasize a local-led, partnered approach. A particular wrinkle would be Japan, which is a major destination market for illegally caught fish. Challenging Japan on this issue might create tensions with a key ally, but failing to do so would invite accusations of hypocrisy. Designing the policy from the start with consultation from partners like Japan would be key to mitigating such challenges.
Third, while China is the biggest perpetrator of IUU fishing, it is far from being the only one. Many disputes over fishing grounds and regulation are between U.S. partners. That adds diplomatic nuance to assistance programs and would demand major efforts to resolve. Drawing on experience and trust earned through existing partnered operations would be vital. If the U.S. can leverage diplomacy to help resolve fishing disputes amongst its partners then it would make further progress on the issue and draw a sharper contrast with China’s behavior.
Another diplomatic wrinkle is the fate of boats and fishermen engaged in IUU fishing across international lines. Those arrested are often without papers, which makes deportation difficult, but governments are leery about detaining large numbers of foreigners for long periods of time. Aside from the humanitarian implications, it is a trigger point for international disputes. The U.S. could use its convening power to propose international courts and institutions to address such concerns, and perhaps draw inspiration from the Courts of Mixed Commissionwhich helped suppress the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Conclusion
IUU fishing is an ongoing humanitarian, economic, and environmental disaster. Working to stop it will be relatively affordable and advantageous for the U.S. if it leverages regional partnerships and interagency assets. More work should be done to explore the possibilities it offers as a matter of urgency.
Matthew Ader is a student in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He is an associate editor at the Wavell Room, and tweets infrequently from @AderMatthew.
Featured Image: ATLANTIC OCEAN (Aug. 17, 2009) Yu Feng, a Taiwanese-flagged fishing vessel suspected of illegal fishing activity, moves through the water before being boarded by crewmembers from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Legare (WMEC 912) and representatives from Sierra Leone’s Armed Forces Maritime Wing, Fisheries Ministry and Office of National Security. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Public Affairs Specialist 2nd Class Shawn Eggert/Released)
On July 2, 2020 at around 4:20 a.m., three vessels attacked the Sendje Berge, a floating production support vessel off the coast of Nigeria. While there were no physical injuries, the perpetrators took nine personnel hostage. The kidnapping is the latest incident in a series of attacks in the Gulf of Guinea, which has become the most piracy-infested region in the world, closely followed by Southeast Asia. Worldwide, 162 actual and attempted piracy attacks were reported in 2019.1 As most incidents have taken place in territorial waters, the cross-border nature of maritime crimes matters for ocean governance. When operating, pirates are not restrained by national borders, and exploit states’ inconsistencies in maritime security capacities and capabilities. Therefore, the unabatedly high numbers of attacks underlines the need for littoral and user states to cooperate on counterpiracy.
Three Regional Agreements to Govern Piracy
To govern maritime piracy through state cooperation, three agreements have been set up in different regions of the world. The members to these regional agreements agree to arrest, investigate, and prosecute pirates on the high seas, and to suppress armed robbery in their respective territorial waters. In Asia, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) was established in 2006. 14 regional states as well as six extra-regional states are currently contracting parties. In East Africa, the Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC) was agreed on in 2009. To date, 20 states from the Indian Ocean region have signed this agreement on the repression of piracy and armed robbery in the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. In 2017, the DCoC’s piracy-only focus was expanded to include maritime crimes more generally when the so-called Jeddah Amendment was adopted by a subset of DCoC member states. Finally, the Yaoundé Code of Conduct (YCoC) to combat illicit maritime activities in West and Central Africa was signed in 2013 by 25 regional states.
Signatories to the regional agreements on countering maritime crimes (Author illustration, based on material from www.freevectormaps.com)
As these agreements were successively established, policymakers were able to utilize insights from already developed setups elsewhere, a learning process that was actively sponsored by the International Maritime Organization. As a result, the agreements’ institutional structures are strikingly similar.2 This is most obvious in the agreements’ information-sharing structures. All agreements have Information Sharing Centers (ISCs) which collect data on maritime crimes and provide infrastructure for information exchange. The regional agreements also have a system of national focal points designated by each member state, which manage piracy and armed robbery incidents within the respective state’s territorial waters, report incidents to the ISCs, and coordinate surveillance activities with neighboring states.
Information Sharing and Capacity Building
These regional agreements have been rightfully praised as a milestone in ocean governance, as they are a strong symbol of the commitment of member states to combat piracy and other maritime crimes. The collection and dissemination of data on maritime crimes is one of the most important practical tasks carried out by the regional agreements, because to efficiently coordinate cooperation between maritime security actors it is crucial to have available all relevant information on the threat at hand. Furthermore, by creating reliability, regular information sharing has the potential to strengthen trust and confidence among key actors.3
Capacity building carried out through the framework of the regional agreements is equally important. To varying degrees, the agreements’ frameworks offer exercises, workshops, and trainings to accumulate expertise on and foster cooperation between national agencies and the shipping industry, and also provide technical assistance to member states. In fact, the regions cooperate in their capacity building efforts on a regular basis. Due to their similar institutional structures, ReCAAP and DCoC members held several joint workshops where best practices were shared.
The Limits of Cooperation
While the setup of the regional agreements is certainly a milestone in counterpiracy governance, the different regions are faced with a variety of challenges concerning cooperation in general and the implementation of the agreements’ provisions in particular.
Concerns over Territorial Sovereignty
Citing concerns over their territorial sovereignty, two of the states most affected by piracy in Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia, refuse to accede to ReCAAP. Although state cooperation in Asia is generally characterized by major sovereignty sensitivities, their reluctance is reinforced by ReCAAP’s open membership policy. While DCoC and YCoC have limited their membership to regional littorals, every interested state can join ReCAAP, which further fuels Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s concerns about foreign involvement in their territorial waters.4 However, the actual impact of the non-membership of key states in Asia remains unclear. Despite their official disapproval, both Indonesia and Malaysia cooperate with ReCAAP on a low-key level, participating in meetings and sharing select information. Nevertheless, an accession would certainly underline the two states’ willingness to commit to multilateral counter-piracy efforts given their strategic position in the Strait of Malacca and the Sulu and Celebes Seas.
Institutional Fragmentation
National sensitivities also led to a fragmented institutional landscape, both regionally as well as internationally. The DCoC operates three regional ISCs in Kenya, Tanzania, and Yemen. The YCoC architecture is even more fragmented, with regional maritime security centers for West as well as Central Africa in Congo and Ivory Coast, an interregional coordination center in Cameroon, and five coordination centers at the zonal level. Due to this fractional structure, information flows may be less efficient, and the ability to swiftly respond to undesirable events on the ocean could be hindered.5 While ReCAAP only operates one ISC, several other data-collecting bodies exist in Asia, such as the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center and the Information Fusion Centre hosted by the Singaporean Navy. To complicate matters further, not all ISCs, particularly those in Southeast Asia, report data in a consistent way.6 Overall, the institutional plethora of information-sharing mechanisms underlines the importance of coordination between the different agencies. To this end, the regions’ potential to learn from each other’s experiences is not being fully realized yet.
Lack of National Capacities
To implement the regional agreements’ provisions on site, the capacities of member states are essential. However, member states’ means to counter maritime crimes in their territorial waters differ significantly. Some states, particularly in Asia, have comparably well-equipped navies, coast guards, and law enforcement agencies. In contrast, other states often lack those capacities, which is particularly apparent in Somalia and Yemen, which are both stricken by the devastating consequences of ongoing civil wars. Although the agreements offer capacity building measures, the mechanisms do not directly account for the resources of member states or their lack thereof.
Gaps in Scope
Although the regional agreements geographically cover the greater portion of world regions currently affected by piracy, there are still blind spots. Whole continents have not set up comparable cooperation mechanisms yet, such as Oceania and the Americas, where local piracy hotspots like the Caribbean and the Venezuelan coast would call for concerted governance efforts. This becomes more salient when not only piracy, but also maritime crimes more generally are in focus, since crimes such as illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing are pressing in every corner of the world
Additionally, the regional agreements are rather narrow in their operational scope. This is particularly obvious in Southeast Asia, where ReCAAP has thus far only institutionalized cooperation on piracy and armed robbery. As policymakers increasingly realize that these crimes are only one of many pressing issues in the maritime domain, the agreements may go one step further. Already in Africa, with YCoC as well as the DCoC’s Jeddah Amendment, the signatory states agreed to also cooperate on transnational organized crime in the maritime domain, maritime terrorism, IUU fishing, as well as other illegal activities at sea. By calling on its member states to develop national strategies for sustainable blue economic growth, the Jeddah Amendment, although very tentatively, even ties maritime security to the greater blue economy.
Looking Ahead
Threats to maritime security cannot be understood in isolation, as they are deeply interrelated. Going forward, maritime security governance will therefore need a more integrated understanding of the hazards posed by maritime crimes as well as the potential of coordinated efforts to combat these crimes.7 Specifically, it is necessary to strengthen maritime domain awareness by emphasizing potential synergies between combatting maritime crimes with the blue economy and the safety of the marine environment. This integrative understanding of developments and threats at sea is a prerequisite for coordination and cooperation between the diverse maritime security agencies and actors in this field.8 In that sense, the establishment of these regional counter-piracy agreements, their process of learning from each other and the gradual broadening of their scope, marks an important first step into realizing the full potential of an integrated approach toward maritime security governance.
Anja Menzel is a postdoctoral researcher at the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany. She received her PhD in International Relations from Greifswald University, where she studied state cooperation on counterpiracy. Her current research interests include ocean governance, the construction of maritime spaces, and the link between the blue economy and development funding.
References
1. ICC IMB 2019. Report. Piracy and armed robbery against ships [1 January-31 December 2019]. London.
2. Menzel A. 2018. Institutional adoption and maritime crime governance: the Djibouti Code of Conduct. Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 14(2), 152-169.
3. Bueger C. 2015. From dusk to dawn? Maritime domain awareness in Southeast Asia. Contemporary Southeast Asia 37(2), 157–182.
4. Lee T. and McGahan K. 2015. Norm subsidiarity and institutional cooperation: Explaining the Straits of Malacca anti-piracy regime. The Pacific Review 28(4), 529-552.
5. Ralby I. 2019. Learning from success: Advancing maritime security cooperation in Atlantic Africa. Center for International Maritime Security, [https://cimsec.org/learning-from-success-advancing-maritime-security-cooperation-in-atlantic-africa/41517].
6. Joubert, L. 2020. What we know about piracy. One Earth Future Foundation, [https://stableseas.org/publications/what-we-know-about-piracy].
7. Menzel A. and Otto L. 2020. Connecting the dots: Implications of the intertwined global challenges to maritime security. In: Otto, Lisa (ed): Global challenges in maritime security. An Introduction. Springer.
8. Bueger C. 2015. From dusk to dawn? Maritime domain awareness in Southeast Asia. Contemporary Southeast Asia 37(2), 157–182.
Featured Image: ReCAAP ISC Signs MOU with World Maritime University (February 7, 2018)
