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The Human Element of Sea Power: Ports, People, and Presence in the South China Sea

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By Eleanor Gaudion and Michael Posey

American maritime strategy in the South China Sea often starts by counting ships. Planners must keep enough hulls forward to contest Beijing’s constant pressure and its excessive maritime claims. The number of ships matters because a Navy that is too small, too strained, or too delayed in maintenance cannot meet the demands of a global maritime power. Still, ship counts, or a fleet’s volume of tonnage, can pull the conversation in the wrong direction. In 2005, Admiral Michael Mullen, then the Chief of Naval Operations, argued for a 1,000-ship navy. However, the basis of his call was not “more hulls.” Instead, he envisioned a multinational “fleet-in-being” that leveraged international cooperation to achieve maritime domain awareness, mobility, and access.

Strategists often reduce Alfred Thayer Mahan to the apostle of fleets, commerce, bases, and command of the sea. His framework also emphasized the human element. In The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Mahan lists six principal conditions affecting sea power. The list includes geographical position, coastline accessibility, extent of territory, and population size, as well as the “character of the people” and the “character of the government.” Sea power cannot be pigeonholed as simply hulls and military strength afloat. It also depends on national habits, political will, maritime culture, institutions, and the human systems that allow ships to achieve strategic effects.

Mahan’s principles remain relevant in the South China Sea. The number of ships the United States has must be considered alongside where those ships can go, how long they can remain forward, and whether partners want them there. Access drives that problem. Access constitutes a range of possibilities, from overflight rights to permanent garrisons. It also includes the permissions and practical support that allow forces to enter, operate, replenish, repair, and work with partners. While basing gives a navy staying power, access enables presence.

The U.S. Navy does not need to match the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s local presence ship for ship in the South China Sea. Instead, the U.S. Navy needs access that links lawful operations at sea to port visits, exercises, repair arrangements, and partner relationships ashore. The human element of sea power, built on trust, access, and routine cooperation, turns ship presence into influence. The decisive factor in the South China Sea is not ship numbers or capabilities alone, but the human infrastructure of access, repair, and partner trust that allows ships to operate with purpose and endurance.

Port visits, recurring exercises, maintenance agreements, professional exchanges, or staff talks at a partner-nation headquarters may seem modest compared with carrier strike group operations or a shipbuilding plan. Yet routine interactions hold quiet, practical meaning, such as helping port authorities learn what a U.S. ship needs, helping commanders from different navies understand one another, and making a partner government more comfortable agreeing to future American requests. Though day-to-day formalities may seem insignificant, they can shape possibilities in the South China Sea in crisis or in conflict.

Naval campaigning blends hard and soft power, but the better frame for the South China Sea is the human element of sea power. Joseph Nye defines soft power as the ability to get desired outcomes through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion or payment. Smart power, an integrated strategy and toolkit that draws on both hard and soft power, aids planners in framing naval campaigning most effectively. While the concept helps, it should not distract from the practical maritime point: naval power works best when ships, ports, repair facilities, embassy teams, and partner navies reinforce one another through cultivated and sustained relationships.

The South China Sea Problem and Freedom of Navigation Operations

The South China Sea links the Pacific and Indian Oceans through vital trade routes. Roughly one-third of global shipping passes through it. China uses excessive legal claims, coast guard operations, maritime militia pressure, and the militarization of South China Sea features to routinize its presence and justify its claims. Although the 2016 arbitral tribunal rejected China’s expansive maritime claims, Beijing continues to press its position, as reflected in the Department of Defense’s 2024 China Military Power Report and CSIS reporting on Chinese coercive tactics at Second Thomas Shoal.

In the South China Sea, the United States does not need to chase every Chinese patrol. It needs to appear often enough, with enough purpose and enough partners, to render Chinese coercion ineffective. Freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) remain necessary. These operations challenge excessive maritime claims, preserve legal positions, demonstrate operational access, and reassure partners that the United States will not treat coercive claims as settled facts. FONOPs matter for strategy and alliance politics, as they are lawful and legitimate, resting on treaty law, customary international law, and long-standing U.S. legal positions.

A recent example shows how they support the narrative of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” In August 2025, USS Higgins conducted a freedom of navigation operation near Scarborough Shoal. Beijing claimed it had expelled the destroyer; the U.S. 7th Fleet rejected that claim and said Higgins operated in accordance with international law before continuing normal operations. USNI News, Reuters, and the Associated Press captured the ambiguity: a U.S. warship asserted navigational rights, while China sought to recast the same event as a sovereignty narrative.

Freedom of navigation operations do not build partner capacity on their own. They cannot repair ships or make access automatic. They work best when they are not one-off events. A legal challenge at sea should connect to the next port visit, the next exercise, the next repair arrangement, and the next conversation with a partner navy. When port partnerships are grounded in the human element of sea power, the logistics, operations, and wartime readiness of both navies stand to benefit.

Port Visits Are Strategic Acts

When new sailors visit a port, their leaders remind them that they are ambassadors. Some may hear that as a warning to behave ashore. Most understand that port visits also build relationships and continue service in another form. With timeless ceremony, liberty, public affairs, and diplomatic theater, port visits remind hosts that U.S. naval power arrives with people, expectations, and presence, not only steel. A 1921 Proceedings article described foreign port visits and official calls as routine duties involving courtesy, ceremony, and relations with foreign officials. Likewise, a warship entering port by invitation shows that the host government has chosen to cooperate with the United States.

A port visit alone, even to a country with close ties to Beijing, will not deter China. Port visits, however, can make deterrence more politically sustainable. A ship in port gives visible proof that the United States is welcomed and able to operate with partners. Port visits also create human contact that a communique cannot replicate. Commanders meet their counterparts. Supply officers and port authorities learn requirements and test procedures. Defense relationships become personal.

Vietnam and Malaysia show how cautious partners can still create room for maritime cooperation. The USS Carl Vinson’s 2018 visit to Da Nang marked the first U.S. aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam in more than forty years, and the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group visited Vietnam in 2023. The USS Abraham Lincoln’s 2024 port call at Port Klang was the first U.S. carrier visit to Malaysia in 12 years. These visits did not transform Vietnam or Malaysia into U.S. allies. Their contribution is more modest, and more useful: they make cooperation visible and routine without forcing partners into a binary choice.

Port visits to the Philippines convey a different message. As a U.S. treaty ally directly exposed to Chinese pressure, the Philippines is increasingly vital to the U.S. posture in the South China Sea. The U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Defense Guidelines describe the importance of alliance coordination, including access to agreed locations under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Even in the Philippines, U.S. Navy access depends on domestic politics, public trust, alliance management, and a shared sense that American presence contributes to Philippine security rather than simply serving American requirements.

The Philippines also illustrates why access must be handled carefully. After a port call and fuel stop in Subic, USS Guardian ran aground on Tubbataha Reef in 2013, damaging a protected site and forcing the Navy to dismantle the ship in place. The United States later paid the Philippines nearly $2 million for damage to the reef. Access is a privilege sustained by discipline, local awareness, and strategic empathy for the host nation.

Relationships Become Access

Access, basing, and overflight do not appear automatically when a crisis begins. They are built over time through trust, repeated contact, legal arrangements, mutual benefit, and political confidence. Security cooperation helps build trust conditions that contribute to access, basing, and overflight outcomes. Military access to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific could shape the outcome of a conflict, and lower-level peacetime access, such as overflight and logistics, can matter even if combat access remains politically sensitive.

In a crisis, governments rarely grant access to strangers. They are more likely to grant it to people and institutions they already know, and to forces they trust will act with discipline. That trust is built through exercises, exchanges, port calls, staff talks, coast guard engagements, logistics planning, and professional military relationships. The relationships built now shape which access decisions are politically possible in a time of crisis.

This is where the human element of sea power matters most. The United States should not treat naval operations, diplomacy, economic cooperation, and sustainment as work done in separate rooms by separate people. A port visit can open the door for a multinational or bilateral exercise. Exercises can reveal logistics requirements and test assumptions. A logistics agreement can facilitate future access for repairs. Repair cooperation can generate economic benefits. Political support can create access during a crisis.

The Indo-Pacific will not follow a NATO template anytime soon. Instead, each relationship must be nuanced and bilateral to deliver the best outcomes for both countries. Vietnam and Malaysia may offer political access and maritime diplomacy. The Philippines may provide operational access, geography, and alliance-enabled logistics. Meanwhile, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Australia are stronger candidates for maintenance, repair, replenishment, and industrial support. The United States must continue to work with each partner on what they can actually support.

Japan’s value to this network could extend even further. In a Foreign Affairs interview, Oriana Skylar Mastro argued that Japan fighting alongside the United States in a regional conflict from the start rather than shifting to a later supporting role could strengthen deterrence. Japan’s geographically forward-positioned ports enable a much shorter response timeline. The speed advantage would not be a function of hull numbers, but instead a function of years of exercises, staff talks, and routine interactions that have facilitated Japan’s response rather than requiring negotiation in a time of crisis. Routine human interaction leads to familiarity, which leads to fast, credible ally responses.

Maintenance Enables Maritime Influence

Presence breaks down when ships cannot be repaired, replenished, or politically sustained. A ship that can be repaired forward returns to operations faster. A ship that must transit long distances for maintenance pays a tax in time, fuel, and availability. A fleet tied to a few fixed facilities becomes easily targetable and narrows its own options. Delayed maintenance imposes real readiness costs.

The Navy already relies on forward repair in several places. Naval Sea Systems Command describes the Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center as keeping the Seventh Fleet mission-ready from Yokosuka and Sasebo. At the same time, its Singapore detachment supports repair work across the region. Australia is developing the Henderson Defense Precinct to support naval shipbuilding and sustainment. In South Korea, the Navy reported that USNS Wally Schirra completed major maintenance in 2025.

Forward sustainment already exists in pieces. The Navy already thinks in terms of refuel, rearm, resupply, repair, and revive, and it already uses forward repair facilities, allied shipyards, and partner access. But the Western Pacific demands a more integrated approach to logistics, resupply, and sustainment than the current system provides.

History reinforces the point. Mahan is sometimes reduced to a “more ships” (or bigger fleet) thinker. Still, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History was also about commerce, bases, maritime infrastructure, and national systems that enable fleets to operate over long distances. World War II offers an even more practical example. In the early 1940s, Service Squadron Ten performed many functions of an advanced naval base in the Pacific, supporting voyage repairs and helping return ships to service without sending every damaged vessel back across the ocean. But that access did not appear by magic. At Ulithi, survey work, pontoon piers, repair ships, floating dry docks, tenders, welders, carpenters, electricians, shipfitters, and command and control arrangements turned a lagoon into a functioning forward base. Although the contemporary Indo-Pacific differs, the lesson still holds: maritime power depends on forward sustainment, and forward sustainment depends on relationships, access, skilled people, and political preparation.

Economic Cooperation Makes Presence Less Extractive

Partners cannot see themselves as being taken advantage of, as it neither serves them nor American interests. Ship repair, port infrastructure, workforce development, technical training, logistics contracts, maritime domain awareness support, and industrial partnerships can help partners build capacity while improving American endurance.

The Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative supports partner maritime security and human capital development. In the Philippines, the U.S. Embassy’s transfer of mobile energy systems to Palawan demonstrates how partner-capacity efforts can connect infrastructure, resilience, and maritime access in a contested area. Allied participation in maintenance, repair, overhaul, and shipbuilding cooperation offers one path for strengthening endurance. Japanese shipyards could serve as forward maintenance hubs, improving readiness and creating stable demand for Japanese industry. These initiatives enable shared maritime endurance: more repair options for the United States, more work and capacity for partners, and fewer single points of failure for everyone.

The Human Infrastructure of Maritime Power

The United States should think of relationships as maritime infrastructure. Ports, drydocks, logistics hubs, legal agreements, and maintenance facilities matter. Behind each of them are people: port officials, shipyard workers, diplomats, logisticians, naval officers, coast guards, local political leaders, embassy teams, and sailors who have interacted with one another before a crisis. This kind of infrastructure is easy to miss because it does not appear to be a source of combat power and does not appear in fleet-size comparisons or shipbuilding plans. However, in a crisis, it may determine whether ships can enter port, whether repairs can be made, whether logistics can flow, whether partners accept political risk, and whether American presence is seen as legitimate.

Some of the great strategic thinkers can help us understand the importance of the human element of sea power. Clausewitz reminds us that military action remains connected to political intercourse, not divorced from it. Mahan reminds us that sea power depends on commerce, bases, national systems, and the ashore infrastructure that allows fleets to operate across distance. Corbett reminds us that maritime strategy is about communications and movement, not simply occupying ocean space. James Cable’s theory of naval diplomacy reminds us that navies are political instruments below the threshold of war, using limited naval power to secure advantage or avert loss. In sum, maritime presence is not created by hulls alone. It is created by relationships, permissions, habits, and support networks that allow hulls to have political effects.

China’s advantage in the South China Sea is proximity and persistence. The United States draws its advantage from a network of allies and partners, global mobility, operational experience, and legitimacy when it acts in defense of lawful maritime use. The U.S. advantage must be cultivated as the competition for the South China Sea remains a contest over whose presence is more legitimate, sustainable, and politically useful.

China understands the logic of employing the human element of sea power. In Cambodia, Beijing has financed the expansion of the Ream Naval Base, rotating Chinese ships through its pier, and framing the arrangement as a mutual-benefit partnership rather than a foreign outpost. This comparison is instructive rather than reassuring. Cambodia’s government insists that Ream remains open to any friendly navy, yet years of opacity about the terms of access open a door to Beijing and Phnom Penh familiarity that could prove impactful in wartime. That uncertainty, or strategic ambiguity, can be useful to China, yet also points to an opportunity for the U.S. While China’s version of relationship building runs through dependency and quiet leverage, the American version depends on a wider set of partners who retain the standing and political space to say no. The United States does not win the human element of the sea by default. It wins by ensuring its access is transparent, consensual, and reciprocal in ways that Beijing’s arrangements are not.

While these behaviors reflect diplomacy and logistics, they also constitute sea power. Ships cannot exercise influence where they cannot enter, repair, or remain. The U.S. Navy does not lack port visits, exercises, or repair arrangements, but sometimes these activities are treated as separate events rather than as parts of the same maritime campaign.

Implications for Maritime Planners

Navy and joint planners should plan port visits as campaign events rather than courtesy calls. The Navy sets a theater by increasing its access to key terrain, such as ports near a chokepoint. Therefore, a port visit should do more than put sailors ashore and generate photos. It should test access, build relationships, support public diplomacy, reveal logistics friction, and set conditions for the next engagement. It should create relationships across ranks and functions to encourage a port-wide familiarity that can be called upon in times of uncertainty.

Planners should also map access by function. Some locations may support port visits and replenishment. Others may support exercises, crew rest, voyage repair, emergent maintenance, drydock work, or contracted sustainment. Not every partner is a base. Not every port is a repair hub. Nevertheless, many can still contribute to the overall campaign.

Finally, planners should integrate operations, diplomacy, economics, and sustainment into a single maritime campaign. Freedom of navigation operations, exercises, port visits, repair agreements, senior-leader engagements, and partner-capacity efforts should build on one another rather than stand alone.

Conclusion: Ships Need People

The United States needs a ready fleet, a stronger maritime industrial base, and enough ships to meet global commitments. Shipbuilding, maintenance reform, and industrial revitalization still anchor U.S. maritime power, as the Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy also makes clear. Ships alone, however, will not secure American influence in the South China Sea.

The future of U.S. maritime presence will depend on where ships can go, how long they can stay, whether partners welcome them, and whether they can be repaired and sustained forward. Those conditions are built through people. Port visits, exercises, maintenance cooperation, and professional exchanges may seem ordinary, but they build trust, test assumptions, and enable future operations.

Mahan’s “character of the people” was not a decorative phrase. It points to the habits, confidence, discipline, and political will that allow maritime power to endure. In the South China Sea, that character will not be measured only by the number of ships the United States builds. It will also be measured by whether the United States can build the trust and access that allow those ships to matter.

The United States cannot match China’s proximity-driven presence ship-for-ship in the South China Sea. It does not need to. The better task is to show up consistently, operate lawfully, sustain forward, and do so alongside partners who see American presence as legitimate and useful. The human element of sea power begins with a simple recognition: ships need ports, ports need trust, and trust begins with people.

Eleanor Gaudion is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Foreign Affairs with a focus in intelligence and military relations. She previously served as an intern at the U.S. Army War College, revising national security wargaming scenarios for students.

Michael Posey is an active-duty Naval Flight Officer. He holds business degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Florida. He is a doctoral candidate in education at Pennsylvania State University. Currently, he serves as an assistant professor and the Admiral William F. Halsey Chair of Naval Studies at the U.S. Army War College.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of War.

Featured image: Rear Adm. Eric Anduze, commander, Task Force 70 and Carrier Strike Group 5, shakes hands with a member of the Vietnamese military during Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington’s (CVN 73) regularly scheduled port visit in Da Nang, Vietnam, July 30, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Anthony Vilardi) 

Middle East

The Silent Threat : Overlooked Radiological Risk in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz

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By Dr. Abdek Mahamoud Abdi

Introduction

Following American and Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader on 28 February 2026, Iran’s naval forces have frequently declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, laid mines, and issued warnings that they would target unauthorized vessels. A ceasefire agreement on 14 June lasted only a few weeks. By late July, American strikes on Iran occurred almost every night, and tanker traffic through Hormuz had fallen well below pre-war levels. The Hormuz crisis has extended beyond the Gulf. On 20 July, the Houthis announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, and two days later claimed responsibility for strikes on Saudi tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, in the Red Sea. Experts had long warned about this scenario. The simultaneous pressure on both chokepoints has now become a reality.

However, the focus on the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait mainly concerns conventional threats, such as anti-ship ballistic missiles, one-way attack drones, and waterborne explosive devices used by Houthi forces. Yet a lesser-discussed risk exists, which is diverting commercial radioactive material for use in a Radiological Dispersal Device, or dirty bomb. The security challenges in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, including radioactive cargo transportation, established smuggling networks, and limited naval resources, hinder the effectiveness of current maritime security measures.

Radiological Risk in Maritime Transport

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) classifies radioactive sources into five categories based on the potential harm they could cause if left unshielded. Category 1 and 2 sources, elements such as cobalt-60 and cesium-137 used in cancer treatment and industrial irradiators, could kill someone within minutes to hours of exposure.

According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office analysis of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) risk assessments, Category 3 sources, commonly found in industrial gauges and well-logging equipment, are actually more likely to end up in a dirty bomb than Category 1 or 2 material. Not because they’re more dangerous, but because there are so many of them in ordinary commercial use, and the security around them is lighter. By contrast, Category 4 and 5 sources don’t have enough activity to pose much of a threat, even if fully dispersed. So when people talk about dirty bomb risk, the conversation should focus on Category 3.

The key concern, therefore, is not access to weapons-grade material but the possible misuse of legitimately used radioactive sources. From a security perspective, the consequences of such an incident could extend well beyond radiation exposure, potentially causing public panic, temporary disruption of affected areas, major economic losses, and costly decontamination operations. This disruption would result not from direct casualties but from strict international regulations and frameworks that require the immediate quarantine of any area with elevated radiation levels. Consequently, an attack targeting critical regional transport nodes would weaponize public anxiety to effectively paralyze maritime operations, transforming localized contamination into an indefinite, multi-billion-dollar trade bottleneck.

These sources are transported legally through the Red Sea corridor, including radiography equipment, well-logging tools, and medical isotopes destined for hospitals and industrial facilities across East Africa and the Middle East. That ordinary traffic is exactly what creates the opportunity for smugglers.

In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s fast-attack vessels pose significant risks to maritime navigation. The ongoing conflict has escalated this threat into open hostilities, involving the placement of mines and direct attacks on tankers. In addition, Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea have created a parallel security challenge, forcing vessels to reroute and increasing pressure on maritime-security forces. The volatility of this environment makes the seizure of such radioactive materials a starkly real possibility.

Even if no party deliberately attempts to get these radioactive materials for a planned attack, a conventional missile or mine hitting a standard commercial vessel carrying legal Category 3 cargo could breach its containment hulls. This would spill radioactive material directly into open waters or vital harbor shipping lanes, creating localized environmental hazards and forcing immediate, long-term closures of strategic maritime routes due to contamination fears. These developments demonstrate how security pressures in the Gulf and the Horn of Africa can interact and compound vulnerabilities across interconnected maritime routes.

Potential Diversion Vulnerability and Consequences

Research into sanctions evasion has documented a so-called dark fleet of tankers, predominantly transporting Russian and Iranian oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), that manipulate or deactivate their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders and follow irregular and complex ownership structures and routes to conceal their activity and destination details. Coupled with the dhow smuggling routes between Yemen and the Somali coast, monitored by UN authorities over several years as channels for arms delivery to Houthi forces, these networks could just as readily facilitate the movement of a stolen radioactive source as weapons. Although no such case has yet been identified, the conditions are conducive to this possibility. Oversight vulnerabilities and well-established smuggling routes abound, while coalition naval forces are stretched across two active fronts.

If a ship carrying legally declared Category 3 material were boarded, disabled, or hit, its cargo could vanish before anyone could establish a perimeter, especially since coast guards and coalition ships are already strained by the Hormuz crisis. Adding naval mines and loitering munitions in shallow, crowded waters raises the chances of a hull breach that could release radioactive cargo into a port or fishing area. This scenario directly aligns with Iran’s asymmetric maritime doctrine, which weaponizes key global shipping routes to compensate for its conventional military disadvantages. Tehran has explicitly demonstrated its intent to enforce total maritime leverage. Notably, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy recently reiterated its complete and decisive control over the Strait of Hormuz, warning that any vessel operating outside its authorized routes would face catastrophic consequences.

The IAEA monitors incidents involving nuclear and radioactive materials through its Incident and Trafficking Database. In 2025, 34 member states reported 236 incidents, up from 147 the previous year. The IAEA notes that most of this increase is due to late reports of older incidents, not an actual rise in trafficking, which is an important distinction when assessing trends. Since its inception in 1993, the database has recorded over 4,600 incidents, including about 730 involving theft or attempted theft. Importantly, approximately 55 percent of these thefts occurred during transport rather than storage.

Regarding the Red Sea specifically, the genuine threat does not lie in the possibility of Houthi-affiliated groups attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Such an endeavor necessitates resources and expertise that no non-state actor in the region currently possesses. The credible threat involves Houthi-affiliated groups, or other criminal networks operating within the same domain or zone, gaining access to an unsecured Category 1 to 3 radioactive source via channels already used for trafficking other illicit items. While the integration of radiological materials into maritime weaponry by Houthi forces remains an unverified capability, the operational motive and territorial precedents within the Yemeni conflict zone are well-established. Security assessments have long flagged the vulnerability of Yemen’s domestic infrastructure. As early as 2010, international intelligence raised alarms regarding the lack of physical security at a centralized Yemeni radiological facility which housed significant quantities of industrial and medical isotopes. This vulnerability underscored a persistent fear that non-state actors could seize localized commercial sources to fashion a radiological dispersal device (RDD).

The integration of such materials into naval mines or drone payloads would represent a significant development, signifying a shift from traditional sea-denial weaponry to the deliberate use of radiological contamination. To date, publicly available information does not confirm that this has been achieved. While not yet realized, the threat remains an area of grave concern, and should thus be communicated and addressed accordingly.

A radiological dispersal device detonated at key logistic regional hubs such as Djibouti or Jeddah would likely not result in a substantial number of fatalities directly attributable to radiation exposure. However, Djibouti serves as the operational logistics hub for foreign naval coalitions protecting the Bab-el-Mandeb and operating in the Red Sea, while Jeddah represents Saudi Arabia’s primary economic gateway on the Red Sea. Targeting these mega-terminals allows asymmetric actors to simultaneously disrupt U.S. military support and operations in the region, and inflict severe regional pressure. Consequently, it could nonetheless compel operators to suspend terminal operations for an extended period due to decontamination procedures, incurring costs to shipping, insurance, and regional commerce amounting to billions.

Recommendations for Radiological Maritime Security

Maritime security in the region remains predominantly focused on intercepting missiles and drones. There is limited insight into the actual movement of radioactive materials. The following three measures could help improve the current response to the crisis:

Expand radiation detection capabilities to smaller and informal ports. The United States National Nuclear Security Administration’s Megaports Initiative currently equips major seaports, including several in the Middle East, with radiation portal monitors and trained personnel. Extending similar coverage, including mobile units, to secondary ports in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as dhow landing sites, would address a significant gap.

Enhance due diligence concerning the logistics of radioactive sources. Shipping and logistics companies operating in higher-risk jurisdictions should verify the recipients of Category 1 to 3 materials. This should build upon the cradle-to-grave principle outlined in the IAEA Code of Conduct, with support from the IAEA’s Division of Nuclear Security and its physical protection advisory missions where applicable.

Incorporate radiological threat scenarios into existing crisis planning. The Combined Maritime Forces, via Combined Task Force 153 in coordination with Operation Prosperity Guardian (a U.S.-led multinational coalition established to protect merchant shipping and counter asymmetric attacks in the Red Sea) and EUNAVFOR Operation Aspides, should incorporate defensive scenarios involving a radiological dispersal device (dirty bomb) into their maritime frameworks and joint exercises with regional states such as Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. This proactive approach ensures the development of a response plan before an incident occurs

The Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz can no longer be evaluated solely in terms of missile, drone, or cyber risks. This conflict has already demonstrated that disruptions at one strategic chokepoint can spread to others. The Houthi blockade against Saudi shipping, which occurred within weeks of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, serves as evidence of this phenomenon. Diverting commercial radioactive materials would be a cost-effective and rational subsequent step within this pattern, even though such an action has not yet been undertaken.

For nations situated at this critical juncture, particularly Djibouti, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, developing a comprehensive radiological risk management framework is no longer a mere formality but an essential measure to ensure their national security and the continued operation of global maritime trade.

Dr. Abdek Mahamoud Abdi is an independent consultant in environmental and social safeguards, climate finance, blue economy and energy security, working across East Africa and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Global Engineering for Development, Environment and Society from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, with additional postgraduate certifications in nuclear safety, maritime environmental risk, and the blue economy.

Featured image: U.S. Marines and Sailors assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit transport a simulated casualty across the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) during a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response drill while underway in the East China Sea, Oct. 5, 2024. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Luis Agostini)

Middle East

Stepping Stones to Security: Pacifying the Tunb Islands

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By Frank Bell

Introduction

Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb occupy positions of strategic importance disproportionate to their size. Situated near the Strait of Hormuz, the three islands provide forward positions for surveillance, missiles, unmanned systems, and maritime interdiction. A territorial dispute dating back more than five decades has become part of the military architecture, and the ongoing war between the United States and Iran, surrounding one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints.

This creates a problem separate from sovereignty. If forces operating from disputed territory threaten commercial navigation or neighboring states during an armed conflict, destroying those forces may solve the immediate tactical problem without solving the longer-term security problem. Weapons can be replaced. Abandoned positions can be reoccupied. Suppression can interrupt coercion without eliminating the geographic advantage that made it possible.

The United States should degrade Iran’s ability to defend and employ Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb as military positions. Afterwards, an Arab-led coalition should temporarily administer and demilitarize the islands while U.S. military power remains available as an external deterrent. Such an arrangement could prevent the regeneration of Iranian maritime coercive capabilities without determining the islands’ ultimate sovereignty.

The purpose would be limited: pacify the islands without annexing them and create conditions under which responsibility for security in the Strait can pass to the regional states that depend upon it.

Geography, Sovereignty, and Militarization

The dispute over Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb predates the establishment of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1971. Before federation, the individual emirates conducted their territorial affairs under British protection. Sharjah claimed Abu Musa, while Ras al-Khaimah claimed Greater and Lesser Tunb. Sharjah became one of the six founding emirates of the UAE on December 2, 1971; Ras al-Khaimah joined the federation the following year. The UAE subsequently inherited and has maintained those territorial claims.1

The circumstances surrounding Iran’s assumption of control differed between Abu Musa and the Tunbs. As Britain prepared to end its treaty relationships with the Trucial States and withdraw its military presence from the Gulf, it sought settlements between Iran and the Arab rulers. Sharjah reached a last-minute memorandum of understanding with Iran concerning Abu Musa. Neither party surrendered its sovereignty claim, but the agreement permitted Iranian forces to occupy designated areas while Sharjah retained a presence on the island.2

No comparable agreement was reached over Greater and Lesser Tunb. On November 30, 1971, two days before the UAE was formally established, Iranian forces landed on the Tunbs after negotiations with Ras al-Khaimah failed. Armed resistance occurred on Greater Tunb and casualties resulted. Iran regarded the action as the restoration of Iranian sovereignty; the Arab side regarded it as a forcible seizure. Iran has controlled the islands since.3

The distinction remains important. Iran’s initial military presence on Abu Musa resulted from a negotiated arrangement that deliberately left sovereignty unresolved. Its control of Greater and Lesser Tunb followed military action without a comparable agreement with Ras al-Khaimah. Today, the UAE maintains the claims inherited through Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah, while Iran claims sovereignty over all three islands.

Their contemporary strategic importance derives as much from geography as sovereignty. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has used the islands as military positions within Iran’s wider defense network surrounding Hormuz.4 Independent reporting has documented IRGC garrisons and military infrastructure on the islands, while recent U.S. military operations identified coastal-defense systems and cruise-missile storage and launch facilities on Greater Tunb among targets associated with threats to commercial navigation.5

This does not mean every component of Iran’s maritime-denial network is deployed on every island. Their significance comes from their contribution to a wider system of surveillance, missiles, unmanned systems, air defense, and maritime forces extending along Iran’s southern coast and into the approaches to Hormuz.

The three islands are also not identical military positions. Abu Musa is the most significant from a civilian standpoint, with a resident population generally estimated at around 2,000 alongside Iranian military facilities. Greater Tunb has a much smaller civilian footprint and an Iranian military presence, while Lesser Tunb is effectively a military outpost. Reliable public estimates of the current strength of the Iranian garrisons on the islands are scarce.6

That uncertainty matters in considering military options. Removing an isolated and degraded garrison presents a very different problem from assaulting intact defensive positions. Operations involving Abu Musa would also have to account for its civilian population. Intelligence on surviving forces, civilians, and island defenses would therefore shape how pacification was attempted.

The islands are thus two things at once: disputed territory whose sovereignty remains unresolved and military terrain capable of affecting international navigation. A workable policy must address the latter without pretending to resolve the former.

From Suppression to Pacification

Military action can destroy a missile launcher, radar installation, or drone facility. It cannot determine what happens to the position afterward.

If military infrastructure on the islands were neutralized during a wider conflict and Iranian forces subsequently returned, the problem could regenerate. New systems could replace those destroyed. Surveillance could resume. Fortifications could be rebuilt.

The policy question therefore extends beyond whether the islands constitute legitimate military targets during a conflict. It is what security arrangement should follow their neutralization. Simply destroying military installations provides suppression. It does not necessarily provide security.

Pacification describes the desired condition, not a prescribed method of assault. An opposed amphibious seizure by the United States should not be the automatic next step after strikes against the islands. Once a garrison has been isolated and its military capabilities sufficiently degraded, surviving personnel could first be offered an opportunity to surrender. If they refused, continued isolation, additional strikes, a raid, or ultimately seizure would remain options depending upon conditions at the time.

The distinction is important because territorial possession is not the strategic objective; denial of renewed military use is. Coalition forces do not require the islands as bases for further operations. The requirement is to remove the IRGC military presence and infrastructure and prevent the islands from again becoming forward positions for maritime coercion.

Temporary administration offers a middle course between restoring the military status quo and using military victory to impose a territorial settlement. Military systems could be removed or destroyed, remilitarization prohibited and monitored, and competing sovereignty claims preserved for peaceful resolution.

The strategic benefit is not simply the destruction of weapons. It is denying the positions from which those weapons can repeatedly return.

This also gives the operation an endpoint. Once the IRGC military presence has been removed, the islands demilitarized, and safeguards against renewed military use established, direct American control would be unnecessary. The result would be narrower than conquest but more durable than suppression.

Legal and Diplomatic Obstacles

The proposal carries substantial legal and diplomatic risks.

Iran exercises effective control over the islands while the UAE maintains sovereignty claims. A military operation followed by an externally imposed administration could be interpreted as an attempt to alter territorial control through force rather than as a limited maritime-security measure.

Any temporary authority would need narrow limits. Participation could not confer sovereignty. Existing territorial claims would remain intact. The authority would be responsible for security, demilitarization, essential civil functions, and protection of civilian property and economic activity.

Regional governments may support the security objective while remaining wary of any mechanism that appears to transfer disputed territory through military action. Legitimacy will depend heavily on Arab state participation, preservation of the competing sovereignty claims, and a credible endpoint.

Without that endpoint, temporary administration risks becoming occupation by another name.

Who Governs the Islands?

Several administrative models are possible, but replacing Iranian military control with indefinite American administration would defeat the purpose of the proposal.

United Nations administration would offer formal international legitimacy but could prove politically difficult to establish. A broader multinational coalition would provide greater operational flexibility, yet an administration dominated by outside powers could gradually assume the characteristics of an open-ended foreign occupation.

An Arab-led regional coalition deserves greater consideration. Gulf states could provide the principal administrative and security presence following demilitarization, supported where useful by international observers and technical personnel. No participating state would exercise sovereignty through the coalition, and any forces deployed on the islands would remain limited to security, monitoring, and enforcement of demilitarization.

The UAE would necessarily have an important role because of its sovereignty claims, but participation should not itself constitute recognition of those claims. Involving other Arab states would help distinguish regional security administration from simply transferring disputed territory from one claimant to another.

The underlying principle is straightforward: security on the Arab side of the Gulf should increasingly become an Arab responsibility. American military power should support regional security institutions rather than substitute for them indefinitely. An Arab-led coalition administering the islands, supported by regional maritime forces and backed by American deterrence, would reflect that division of responsibility.

The United States would not need to administer or permanently garrison the islands. Its more useful role would remain outside them. American naval and air forces operating in the wider region could provide intelligence, surveillance, logistics, and credible deterrence against remilitarization without transforming the islands into permanent American bases.

An Iranian attempt to return personnel and military equipment would therefore become a problem of detecting and denying remilitarization, rather than necessarily defending the islands against a conventional counter-invasion.

The coalition would administer and monitor the islands. Regional states would increasingly secure the surrounding maritime environment. American military power would remain available as a strategic backstop.

This arrangement offers an alternative to abandoning the islands after destroying their military infrastructure or turning a limited security operation into an indefinite American occupation.

The Strait After Pacification

The consequences would extend beyond the islands.

The Strait of Hormuz is both a military operating environment and a commercial artery. Changes in its security posture affect naval calculations, shipping schedules, chartering decisions, insurance premiums, energy markets, and perceptions of regional risk.

Removing offensive military infrastructure from forward positions could reduce one source of uncertainty confronting commercial operators. Demilitarization would not eliminate the wider risks of conflict with Iran or guarantee unrestricted navigation. It could, however, reduce the ability to use the islands for surveillance, interdiction, or attacks against maritime traffic.

Greater regional responsibility for maritime security need not mean American disengagement. U.S. naval power, intelligence, logistics, and deterrence would remain important, but in support. American military action would create the conditions for an Arab-led regional security arrangement rather than becoming the arrangement itself.

The islands’ eventual disposition could also reshape the longer-term balance of maritime influence within Hormuz, particularly by limiting the ability of any single coastal state—or combination of states—to impose unilateral conditions upon commercial transit. Decisions made during a conflict could influence the maritime balance for decades afterward.

How Does It End?

The credibility of temporary administration depends upon a simple question: temporary until when?

An arbitrary deadline says little about whether the security problem has been resolved. Termination should instead be conditions-based.

Those conditions could include removal of offensive military infrastructure, a durable monitoring regime, limitations on future military deployments, sufficient regional capacity to maintain the security arrangement, and an accepted diplomatic or legal process through which sovereignty claims can proceed without threatening freedom of navigation.

Once those conditions are satisfied, the temporary authority should leave.

The aim is not permanent foreign control or indefinite demilitarization enforced by American troops. Temporary administration provides a bridge between military action and political settlement.

Conclusion

Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb present a strategic problem that military strikes alone cannot resolve. Offensive systems can be destroyed and military forces removed, but neither action prevents strategically valuable positions from being rebuilt and used again.

Temporary administration offers one possible bridge between military necessity and political settlement. Properly structured, it would neither determine sovereignty nor require permanent American occupation. Its narrower purpose would be to deny renewed IRGC military use while shifting responsibility for the islands’ security toward regional states.

The larger principle extends beyond these islands. Military operations around strategic maritime chokepoints should be judged not only by whether they destroy an immediate threat, but by whether the security arrangement that follows prevents that threat from returning.

If cleared during military operations in support of its war against Iran, the Tunbs and Abu Musa should not become permanent American positions, nor should their ultimate ownership be decided by the United States.

The objective is to pacify the positions, secure the maritime approaches, transfer responsibility to a sustainable Arab-led regional security arrangement, and leave sovereignty to diplomacy.

In that sense, these small islands could become stepping stones—not toward occupation, but toward a more durable security order in the Strait of Hormuz.

Francis J. Bell is a graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business. He works as a private consultant with interests in strategy and international security. His writing focuses on maritime doctrine, deterrence, and emerging operational concepts.

References

1. United Arab Emirates, “Letter dated 23 October 2014 from the Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General,” S/2014/759, October 24, 2014; United Arab Emirates, “Letter dated 14 March 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General,” S/2016/245, March 16, 2016. The UAE communications maintain the claims to Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb and describe the historical claims of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah.

2. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. XXIV, Middle East Region and Arabian Peninsula, 1969–1972; Jordan, September 1970, documents concerning British negotiations over Abu Musa and the Tunbs; United Arab Emirates, “Letter dated 23 October 2014,” S/2014/759. The latter reproduces the 1971 Memorandum of Understanding concerning Abu Musa, which preserved the competing claims while providing for an Iranian military presence in designated areas. Contemporary U.S. diplomatic records show Britain pressing Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah to reach accommodations with Iran before British withdrawal.

3. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. XXIV, documents concerning the Persian Gulf islands dispute, 1971; United Arab Emirates, “Letter dated 23 October 2014,” S/2014/759. Contemporary diplomatic records document the failure to obtain an agreement over the Tunbs and Britain’s inability to compel Ras al Khaimah to relinquish its claim.

4. Jon Gambrell, “3 Islands Help Control Access to the Strait of Hormuz. They’re in the Crosshairs of the Iran War,” Associated Press, July 16, 2026. Gambrell describes Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps garrisons and military infrastructure on the islands, including missiles, fast boats, and air-defense systems on Abu Musa and Greater Tunb and a military presence on Lesser Tunb.

5. U.S. Central Command Public Affairs, “CENTCOM Conducts Morning Round of Strikes Against Iran,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, July 15, 2026. CENTCOM reported using precision munitions against coastal-defense systems and cruise-missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb and stated that the strikes were intended to degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

6. Gambrell, “3 Islands Help Control Access to the Strait of Hormuz.” Recent reporting describes Abu Musa as containing a village alongside a substantial IRGC base, Greater Tunb as possessing comparable Iranian military infrastructure, and Lesser Tunb as having only a military presence. Reliable open-source estimates of current garrison strength remain limited.

Featured image: Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb and the surrounding maritime approaches. Author-generated illustration created using multiple geographic references. Not for navigation. (Courtesy of Frank Bell)

Asia-Pacific

The Insurance Trigger: Sovereign Guarantees and Commercial Lawfare as Deterrence Against a Chinese Quarantine of Taiwan

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By Meng Kit Tang

Markets Close Before Missiles Fire

Tanker traffic in the Persian Gulf fell from 138 transits to fewer than eight within days of insurers withdrawing war-risk coverage in 2026. No ships were seized nor missiles were fired. Rather, the market closed the water before any navy could. That episode clarifies the problem in the Taiwan Strait more starkly than any fleet comparison. A quarantine there need not begin with interdiction. It can begin with paperwork of how a change in risk is priced and who is willing to bear it.

The strategic implication is precise. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not need to win command of the sea to interrupt Taiwan’s trade. It needs to make insurers hesitate. Once coverage is restricted or withdrawn, charter parties and loan covenants do the rest. Ships divert on their own.

The same mechanism that emptied the Gulf offers Beijing a fast, low-visibility path to sever Taiwan’s maritime lifelines. It also points to where deterrence must be constructed, not in missile silos or carrier decks alone, but in the ledgers and liability clauses that determine whether merchant vessels are willing to sail at all.

The Insurance Trigger: Commercial Lawfare and the Risk Cascade

A quarantine of Taiwan need not begin with gunfire. Instead, it begins with patrol patterns and the careful cultivation of doubt. The model Beijing has rehearsed relies on the appearance of lawful control rather than the application of overt force.

China Coast Guard cutters conduct “routine” inspections. Maritime militia vessels loiter in numbers that feel less like presence than occupation. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) remains just over the horizon, visible enough to anchor the scene but distant enough to preserve deniability. Legal ambiguity does the work that coercion would otherwise require.

From that posture, the mechanism unfolds with quiet efficiency. An inspection regime is announced under the language of safety or customs enforcement. The Joint War Committee in London, attuned to risk rather than intent, considers the Strait a Listed Area. After which, protection and indemnity clubs begin to narrow coverage, first with higher premiums, then with exclusions that matter. Charter parties and mortgage covenants, written to avoid precisely this kind of exposure, take over. Shipowners do not need to be ordered away. They withdraw because their contracts demand it, their insurers insist on it, and their lenders will not tolerate the alternative.

Traffic thins before any vessel is seized. The decisive fact is not damage sustained at sea, but risk reclassified on paper. This sequence does not require unanimity among insurers to take hold. Partial restrictions are enough. As such, a handful of major clubs tightening terms can reprice the entire route.

Shipping is a conservative business with narrow margins and strict compliance cultures. Faced with ambiguity in coverage, operators choose certainty elsewhere. Diversion becomes the rational default, not the exceptional case. The cascade is therefore less a switch than a ratchet, with each incremental tightening reinforces the next. The market reacts and moves as if a line has been crossed even when no single decision appears decisive.

Taiwan’s exposure to this dynamic is acute. Its energy system depends on a steady rhythm of liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries, with storage measured in days rather than months. A simple interruption to this rhythm and the problem is not only scarcity but unpredictability. Grid operators cannot plan around shipments that may or may not arrive. Industrial output and household consumption compete for a shrinking and unreliable supply. The waters around the island simultaneously carry approximately $2.45 trillion in annual commerce through surrounding sea lanes.

When confidence falters, the consequences propagate outward as quickly as they accumulate at home. Wargames suggest commercial diversion accelerates within seventy-two hours of a notional crisis, with merchant losses rising sharply before major combat and power generation falling to a fraction of normal capacity as fuel deliveries slip out of sequence.

The pattern mirrors what Chinese exercises have rehearsed without concealment. During the “Justice Mission” drills, coast guard and militia elements practiced the administrative choreography of control by issuing notices, establishing inspection routines, and shaping the legal narrative that would accompany any future operation. The rehearsal was less about fighting than about governing the terms under which others decide whether to sail.

That window between the moment risk is redefined on paper and the moment ships stop sailing is where the contest will be decided, and where preparation must already be in place.

Hormuz and Taiwan: Lessons and Limits

The record from the Iran-Iraq Tanker War offers the clearest precedent for what sovereign commitment can accomplish when insurance markets retreat. Under Operation Earnest Will, the United States did more than escort tankers. It absorbed the upper layers of risk through reflagging and sovereign backing.

By some accounts, war-risk premiums fell by more than half, and traffic returned even as Iranian attacks continued. The lesson was not about warships alone. It lay in Washington’s willingness to stand behind commercial exposure when private insurers stepped back. That willingness allowed underwriters to recalculate rather than retreat, and ships to sail that would otherwise have stayed in port.

However, tactical success at sea did not automatically restore confidence. The United States damaged Iranian assets and secured individual transits, yet broader commerce recovered only when financial risk became manageable.

The gap between naval action and commercial effect proved stubborn. This is a warning that any Taiwan scenario relying on convoy operations without addressing the insurance dimension risks repeating that failure, with escorts protecting ships that no longer wish to sail.

It should be noted that the analogy begins to fray once geography and actors come into view. The Strait of Hormuz narrows to roughly thirty-three kilometers, it is a confinement that amplifies mines, fast craft, and shore-based weapons. The Taiwan Strait spans closer to one hundred thirty kilometers at its narrowest point. That distance dilutes the immediacy of physical harassment without diluting the speed with which perceived risk propagates through insurance markets.

In the Taiwan case, diversion is likely to hinge even more purely on financial calculation than on proximity to danger, making the insurance mechanism the primary instrument, not a secondary effect.

The actors differ as well. Iranian forces and their proxies operated with limited conventional reach. The China Coast Guard functions within a system backed by a nuclear-armed state and supported by the world’s largest navy in hull count. Legal claims, domestic statutes, and coordinated messaging accompany every operational move. The stakes are categorically higher and the room for misinterpretation narrower.

The Gulf experience confirms that insurance can close a sea lane and sovereign guarantees reopen it. It does not offer a template for sailing convoys under the shadow of a major power. Any application in the Taiwan context demands more deliberate legal framing and more restrained operational posture. The mirror reflects the mechanism clearly. It distorts the setting in which that mechanism must be managed.

Taiwan’s Role: Pre-Crisis Coordination

Taiwan’s role in this problem is neither symbolic nor auxiliary. A sovereign backstop offered by Washington carries greater political weight if Taiwan is seen to bear part of the burden of keeping its own sea lanes open. That visibility need not take the form of public declarations or new institutions. Commercial shipping does not wait for governments to clarify their positions. Within days of perceived risk, vessels divert, contracts are voided, and schedules unravel. If coverage is to hold, the groundwork must already exist before the first announcement is made.

What Taiwan can do is practical and, if handled carefully, conducted without public announcement.

The first task is cultivating understandings with the insurance market itself. Discussions with Lloyd’s syndicates and the major protection and indemnity clubs can establish thresholds at which coverage tightens and the conditions under which it can be sustained. These need not be formal agreements, but a shared expectation about triggers and tolerances can slow the reflex toward withdrawal.

Alongside this, port authorities can maintain standing open-port declarations that are legally sound and routinely exercised. Shipping firms take their cues from clarity. If access conditions are known and stable, the argument that waters are unsafe becomes harder to sustain.

Closer to shore, Taiwan’s Coast Guard carries a distinct responsibility. Final-approach escorts into port can be handled by a civilian maritime service as it signals control without inviting the confrontation associated with naval deployments. This reduces the exposure of foreign naval forces in confined waters while preserving visible protection for inbound traffic.

Beyond Taiwan’s immediate approaches, pre-arranged diversion protocols with ports in Japan and the Philippines would give shipping companies alternatives that are more than theoretical. These include contracts, berth rights, and customs procedures settled in advance, when time is still available to resolve them carefully.

Taiwan cannot openly designate war-risk zones or advertise convoy frameworks without risking a response that accelerates the scenario it seeks to avoid. It is not to abandon sufficient preparation but to conduct it carefully in a register that does not provoke. Agreements can be specific, rehearsed, and ready to activate  yet remain outside public view until the moment they are needed.

Beijing’s Escalation Calculus

Beijing’s approach to a Taiwan quarantine is best understood through two escalation thresholds that define both its options and its constraints.

The first sits below the threshold of force. Public moves would draw a response that is legal, diplomatic, and informational rather than kinetic. Chinese authorities would issue counter-declarations, challenge the measures under UNCLOS, and frame them as external interference in a domestic matter. State media would amplify that framing while diplomats pressed insurers and flag registries to distance themselves. The Coast Guard would likely increase patrol tempo to signal resolve without direct confrontation.

Pre-announced sovereign guarantees are, perhaps unexpectedly, less provocative than reactive interventions during a crisis. They set clear expectations, signaling to the markets that political risk has already been accounted for and absorbed, thus eliminating the ambiguity that Beijing might seek to exploit.

The second threshold is crossed when naval escorts begin to transit the Strait, at which point Beijing’s stance becomes more rigid. Escort operations, under Chinese domestic law, can be framed as violations of sovereignty, even in international waters. The PLAN shifts from passive observation to active shadowing, probing for weaknesses while avoiding direct engagement. The Coast Guard takes on a more prominent role, with boarding attempts against escorted vessels serving as a means to test rules of engagement without escalating to a confrontation between major surface combatants.

Each encounter becomes a contest of both legal and operational authority. When a vessel halts and submits to a Coast Guard inspection under duress, it may not technically be seized, but it still challenges the integrity of the convoy framework. Doctrine must address this scenario directly, as what escorts do when a merchant captain complies under pressure is just as operationally significant as their response when force is employed.

Across both thresholds, legal warfare provides the connective tissue. The doctrine of the three warfares: legal, media, and psychological ensures operational actions are paired with arguments and sustained pressure campaigns. Beijing would contest the legitimacy of sovereign guarantees, question their compatibility with maritime law, and seek to isolate participating insurers through diplomatic channels.

The contest extends beyond the seas, unfolding in international maritime legal forums and through the flag state administrations. Washington and Taipei must therefore prepare their legal arguments in advance, grounded in the precedents of Earnest Will and the Red Sea convoy, and communicate them to governments whose neutrality will influence insurer behavior before PRC counter-narratives can take hold.

Time compresses all these choices. China’s own dependence on Taiwanese semiconductors and the exposure of regional supply chains limits how long a quarantine can be sustained before incurring costs at home. That constraint favors a rapid shock to commercial confidence rather than a drawn-out campaign. If sovereign guarantees are in place before a crisis, the mechanism Beijing seeks to exploit may never take hold.

The Sovereign Guarantee Framework

The architecture of sovereign guarantees in the Taiwan Strait is designed to preserve commercial confidence and deter coercion. Central to this system is the integration of doctrine, escort strategies, and allied logistics, ensuring that the framework operates effectively under pressure.

Doctrine: Institutionalizing Insurance-Backed Deterrence

Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait hinges on maintaining commercial confidence under pressure, making insurance a core element of operational strategy. At the heart of the system is a U.S.-led reinsurance mechanism, which pre-negotiates war-risk coverage for vessels operating under American guarantees. Commercial insurers continue to provide standard coverage, while the sovereign layer activates only when risk surpasses the private market’s capacity, preserving the current system without triggering collapse.

Vessels operating under the guarantee are publicly designated and sail within energy and humanitarian corridors, allowing insurers to reassess exposure and commanders to clarify rules of engagement. These corridors signal a deterrent by reducing perceived risks, providing legal clarity, and affirming U.S. credibility in maintaining commercial flow.

For effective deployment, this structure must be embedded in doctrine. The U.S. Seventh Fleet would establish standing procedures for insurance-backed convoy operations, including activation protocols and coordination with Lloyd’s and P&I clubs. Annual tabletop exercises at Fleet Activities Yokosuka would ensure synchronized timelines between insurance activation and operational decision-making, closing the gap between tactical escort actions and commercial confidence.

Escorts: Calibrated Presence and the Problem of Coerced Compliance

At sea, escort operations must strike a balance between visibility and restraint. An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer would provide command and defense capabilities, signaling commitment, while unmanned systems would ensure surveillance and documentation without escalating tensions. These assets shadow Coast Guard vessels, recording interactions without unnecessarily heightening the stakes.

Rules of engagement must be graduated: initial contact prompts bridge-to-bridge communication and warnings, followed by interposition and unmanned asset deployment if boarding is attempted, and defensive measures only in response to overt force.

More complex cases require equal consideration: a merchant captain who submits to a CCG boarding request under implicit pressure rather than explicit force. No shots are fired, and no legal seizure takes place, yet the integrity of the convoy is quietly and completely undermined.

This situation lies outside the scope of current rules of engagement, which address the use of force but not voluntary compliance. Doctrine must clarify the authority of escorts to intervene before compliance occurs and define the legal justification for such intervention within the corridor designation framework.

A captain who yields to subtle intimidation rather than overt coercion presents a challenge that cannot be addressed by warships or written rules of engagement alone. Failing to address this gap leaves the most critical flaw in the structure unaddressed.

Equally, de-escalation triggers matter as much as escalation authorities. A commander who knows precisely when to hold course and when to yield tactical ground without conceding strategic credibility is as operationally valuable as one who knows when to act.

Allied Integration: Logistics, Access, and Shared Credibility

Allied logistics provide the depth that makes the system credible over time. Japan offers the backbone through pre-negotiated port access and substantial throughput capacity, enabling rerouting if direct Strait transit falters. The Philippines extends reach into the southern approaches with forward sites for replenishment and support.

Shared tracking and communication protocols across U.S., Japanese, and Philippine forces reduce friction during compressed decision timelines. Taiwan’s coast guard manages final approach into port, maintaining presence without raising the profile of foreign naval forces in sensitive inner waters.

Limits of the Sovereign Guarantee Architecture

While sovereign guarantees stabilize markets, they do not eliminate the coercive capabilities of Chinese maritime forces, and pressure from these forces will persist. The value of the system lies in deterrence rather than resolution. By denying China its fastest, least costly options, the framework forces Beijing to resort to more overt measures, where costs increase, ambiguity narrows, and interference becomes harder to disguise as routine enforcement. This recalculates the escalation burden, shifting it onto the side that can least afford to bear it publicly.

Pre-Empting the Insurance Weapon

A PRC quarantine of Taiwan would not require forceful military action through the Strait to succeed. The decisive impact would come earlier, through contracts, premiums, and the subtle recalibration of risk. Once insurers withdraw, shipping follows, and the island loses access without a single exchange of fire at sea. In this scenario, the key factor is not naval vessels or missiles but confidence in coverage. This shift in focus makes the threat hard to deter through traditional naval presence alone.

The sovereign guarantee architecture directly addresses this. By absorbing risk upstream, it prevents hesitation from turning into withdrawal. Once credible backstops are in place, the insurance trigger loses its power, as the expected economic disruption no longer materializes. The mechanism fails before it activates, and Beijing’s window for rapid, decisive commercial disruption never opens.

For naval commanders and policymakers, this means preparation must start before the legal and financial framework of a quarantine becomes visible, not after commercial shipping has already made its calculations. In the Taiwan Strait, control over movement may depend less on patrol patterns than on who first convinces underwriters that uncertainty has already been priced and contained. That is the real contest… and it has already begun.

Tang Meng Kit is a Singaporean freelance analyst and commentator who works as an aerospace engineer. He graduated from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU, Singapore in 2025.

Featured image: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen reviews Taiwan Coast Guardsmen, September 2021. (Wikimedia Commons)