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Capability Analysis, Global Analysis

Call for Articles, Non-Navies Week: 29 JUL-2 AUG

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CIMSEC is having a Non-Navies Week from 29 July to 2 August as a first step in a longer series on specific non-navies. Delve into this list of non-navy navies with us.

Mainstream policy discussions of navies and maritime law enforcement often consider the denizens of the high seas to be a pliant polity – passive actors being defended, disrupted, or directed by the might of global or local security networks. However, national fleets and their individual warships are not the only ones with the agency to effect global politics and security.

Some topics we have covered at length – pirates and the Private Military Contractors that have risen up in opposition – but we have only scratched the surface.

Commercial enterpirses pursue the possibility of massive drone-ships, bringing new possibilities and vulnerabilities as our virtual network and our trade network grow closer together. Remember those pirates?

Fishing fleets have their own interests and controls – their operations and movement impacting global politics from the Gibraltar to the South China Sea. Sometimes inadvertant, sometimes purposeful, their movements can motivate states or global institutions – from territorial disuptes, to security, to environmental concerns.

Activists attempted to plant Chinese flags on the Senkaku Islands, which are controlled by Japan, as an assertion of the Chinese regime's sovereignty over the uninhabited islands. (Jingcai Mingren/Weibo.com)
Activists planting Chinese flags on Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands. (Jingcai Mingren/Weibo.com)

Ever-better organized and equipped activists are taking to the high-seas, battling whalers or even states. From the Sea Shepards to the “amphibious landings” of Japanese and Chinese activists in the Senkakus, civilians are taking the politics to sea. Somalian piracy actually started as activism, fisherman-come-vigilantes.

Terrorists are an unfortunate reality on the high seas, from the category of at-sea terrorist attacks to the use of amphibious operations as vectors for attack from Israel to Mumbai. Some groups, such as the Tamil Tiger’s “Sea Tigers”, even went so far as be considered a possible real-world naval force.

Colombian authorities discovered this fully functional narco-submarine in 2011. The vessel could carry 8 tons of cocaine and has a range of 8,000 miles. The submarine is similar to the Colombian Navy's own tactical sub, except this one has an interior bathroom and larger beds, sailors said. (Juan Manuel Barrero Bueno/Miami Herald/MCT)
Colombian authorities discovered this fully functional narco-submarine in 2011. The vessel could carry 8 tons of cocaine and has a range of 8,000 miles. The submarine is similar to the Colombian Navy’s own tactical sub, except this one has an interior bathroom and larger beds, sailors said. (Juan Manuel Barrero Bueno/Miami Herald/MCT)

Around the raucus political conflicts flows the silent  schemes of smugglers, black marketeers, and human traffickers. From drug runners to sanction busters, admirals are not the only ones trying to mask their position. Criminal enterprises conduct their own air-sea battle, even operating submarines to smuggle goods.

map_strategic_passages
Shipping density data adapted from National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems.

The almost clinicically precise maps of the sea lines of communication would lead one to think that the oceans are a tame and organized place. Hardly. The sea is as alive with merchants, combatants, and all number of active players creating their own order and chaos.

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