Tag Archives: Malaysia

Whither the Private Maritime Security Companies of South and Southeast Asia?

April 16, 2014 Guest Author 8 Comments

This feature is special to our Private Military Contractor (PMC)s Week – a look at PMCs’ utility and future, especially in the maritime domain.

In a week-long operation in June 2010, 6 vessels were attacked and robbed over a 130-mile span while in a nearby strait armed security contractors kept watch for the pirate threat.¹ The same waters have played host to a “sophisticated syndicate…deploying speedboats from motherships” with raiding parties able to “board, rob, and disembark a vessel with ﬁfteen minutes without the bridge knowing.”² The location was not the Somali coastline or the Bab el-Mandeb, but rather 4,000 miles to the east, among the Anambas Islands and the Singapore Strait.

2011 Crude Oil Flows through Southeast Asia. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For the past decade or so, when people thought of private military contractors (PMCs)³ they typically thought of land-force outfits like the Academi formerly known as Blackwater and its founder Erik Prince. During this same period, the word “piracy” generally brought to mind skiffs plying the waters of the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Guinea. Others have written elsewhere on this site that some of the more interesting uses of PMCs during this timeframe have in fact been in combating (or attempting to combat) the now-diminished pirate scourge off East Africa in the form of private maritime security companies (PMSCs). Yet historically one of the greatest epicenters of piracy has been in the waters of South and Southeast Asia. If the region, already home to PMSCs operating in a variety of capacities and more than one-third of the world’s seaborne-oil trade, faces a resurgence of piracy, it may see a similar growth in PMSCs.⁴ This article will touch briefly on the historic precedents, preconditions encouraging the presence of PMSCs, and regional factors affecting their utility.

Precedents and Prevalence

South and Southeast Asia have long been home to private and quasi-private security arrangements. Cdr. Chris Rawley, U.S. Navy Reserve, notes that “historically, the line between privateering and piracy has been a thin one. From the 15th to the 19th century, pirates were often employed as a political tool by the Malay states to resist colonization by disrupting trade of the British and Dutch. Conversely, in the mid-1800s, the British East India Company’s private armies protected shipping in Malacca from pirates.”

The history of Singapore’s founding and growth under British rule is itself closely tied to this blurred public-private partnership. When the British arrived at Malaysian Singapore and sought local allies to protect their trade and investment, the recently displaced Temenggong, sea lord of the orang laut sea people, who themselves were noted for their marauding maritime prowess, presented himself as an acceptable solution. The Temenggongs thus served as part local officials, pressured to resettle their power base to neighboring Johor, and part maritime security contractors for hire, serving British counter-piracy operations in the early 1800s and port security for Singapore.⁵

In recent years, PMSCs have provided a range of services in South and Southeast Asia. According to The Diplomat’s Zachary Keck, “PMCs operating in Southeast Asia have primarily been focused on providing maritime security to clients, particularly in combating piracy. This has been especially true in narrow chokepoints like the Malacca Straits” and has included companies such as Background Asia and Counter Terrorism International (CTI).

In addition to providing these escort vessels and transit/cargo security aboard merchant vessels, PMSCs have worked extensively on port security (Gray Page, Pilgrim Elite, and the Glenn Defense Marine Asia group now know for the ‘Fat Leonard’ scandal), training and maritime hardening efforts (Trident Group), crisis response, and fisheries protection in countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) (Hart).⁶ PMSC experts James Bridger and Claude Berube remark that in contrast with Africa, the companies in South and Southeast Asia place a greater focus on port vs transit security, due in part to the prevalence of at-berth and in-port crime, as well as training, vessel hardening, and security planning.

Preconditions

Attacks and attempts in 2013: South Asia and Southeast Asia. Source: IMB.

What conditions have given rise to this most recent cast of companies? In Carolin Liss’s 2011 book Oceans of Crime, she attributes the rise of PMSCs in South and Southeast Asia to several factors including states divesting former functions and the changed security landscape. This includes relatively more powerful transnational actors, both those interested in stability such as multinational corporations and multilateral institutions and those, such as terrorist organizations, interested in the opposite. Another element of the changed landscape facilitating PMCs’ rise is to Liss the disappearance of the Cold War struggle between the United States and Soviet Union, and the attendant opportunities for training of regional security forces.⁷ Further, post-Cold War terrorism heightened the focus of governments and the shipping industry on maritime security, as the threat joined piracy as a perceived regional risk to maritime assets, although it has so far failed to be nearly as impactful.⁸

In general PMSCs may find a market whenever the threats to maritime assets – be they from criminals, separatists, or environmental, corporate, or territorial disputes – appear to outweigh states’ capacities to safeguard those assets. The perception of corruption or distrust of the competency and fairness of states’ protective functions will similarly further the reception for external services.

How do these threat measures stack up in South and Southeast Asia? The first thing to note is the wide variance among the nations and waters of the region – as can be expected from such an diverse expanse generalities are hard to come by, so the following is a survey rather than a summation of the area.

With regards to the historical scourge of piracy, a recent report by the insurance firm Allianz made headlines for describing a 700 percent rise in actual and attempted attacks occurring in Indonesian waters in a 5-year span, from 15 in 2009 to 106 in 2013,⁹ although most of these were robberies at berth or at anchor.¹⁰ The International Maritime Bureau (IMB)’s April 2014 update notes that Indonesian “Pirates / robbers are normally armed with guns, knives and, or machetes…attacking vessels during the night.”¹¹ Derived from IMB statistics, the Allianz report also notes that in 2013 South Asia’s 26 incidents and Southeast Asia’s 128 combined to far outstrip Africa’s total of 89 incidents, with only 7 of the latter considered acts of Somali piracy.¹²

Attacks and Attempts in 2013. Source: IMB.

While privation is often portrayed as a leading spur for illicit maritime activities, analyst Karsten von Hoesslin contends that groups operating in Southeast Asia exhibit “more sophistication and structural coordination, reflecting the existence of organizations that go well beyond opportunistic marauders seeking to merely compensate for economic hardship.”¹³ In 2012 von Hoesslin noted such syndicates active in the Philippines, conducting kidnapping and robbery (K&R) operations, with robbery and hijacking organizations plentiful in Indonesia’s Anambas Islands and Riau Islands Archipelago.¹⁴

On the other hand, IMB’s April 2014 update demonstrates the fluid nature of piracy, stating only three years later that “attacks have dropped significantly in the vicinity off Anambas / Natuna / Mangkai islands / Subi Besar / Merundung area” and “dropped substantially” in the Strait of Malacca since 2005, although no such improvement is noted for the Singapore Straits.¹⁵ The year 2005 is significant as the year that Gerakan Aceh Merdaka (GAM) separatists and previous perpetrators of maritime assaults at the entrance to the Malacca Strait signed a post-Tsunami peace accord with the Indonesian government.¹⁶

Attacks and Attempts in 2014 to April. Source: IMB.

The assets most at risk in Southeast Asia are in general not the more than 60,000 tankers and container vessels that ply the waters but tugs and other small vessels with low freeboards. Nonetheless, Erek Sanchez, a maritime security contractor, notes that insurance companies now require nearly all merchant vessels to “have a security team aboard or have a proven static anti-boarding mechanism that satisfies the requirements set by the insurance company,” meaning there is plenty of business to be had.

Adding to PMSCs’ potential in the region is the lack of enthusiasm for joint patrols by multinational forces in and around Indonesian waters due to sensitivity of competing territorial claims. While understandable from a sovereignty perspective, vessels must as a result rely on the prospect of the strengthening of individual naval forces or seek additional protection.

Although the majority of attacks in the region – whether at sea, at anchor, or in port – are short-run robberies, when hijackings do occur they are often inside jobs. An interesting variant on hijackings occurs in the Sulu Sea between rival fishing companies who “attempt to deplete the maritime assets and platforms of their competitors.”¹⁷ This points to another factor that might increase the region’s potential for PMSCs – that of maritime resource competition.

According to Rawley, “Poorly managed fisheries and maritime crime in SE Asia are inextricably linked. In the 1990s, over-fishing partially caused the loss of livelihood of coastal communities that contributed to the surge in piracy near Malacca. Southeast Asian countries that cannot afford adequate coast guards might reach out to NGOs or PMCs for fisheries enforcement patrols in their territorial waters.”

Taken together, the sustained incidence of piracy and robbery, especially near Indonesian waters, along with resource competition between companies, states, and fishermen indicates that there will be a ready market for PMSCs in the region for some time to come. In Part 2 I will look at factors that might lessen the need for or hinder the operations of PMSCs in South and Southeast Asia, as well as provide a brief outlook on their future uses in the region.

LT Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founder and vice president of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.

Follow @scheneypeters

1. Risk Intelligence, “2010 Statistics Fact File.” Marisk.dk
2. Karsten von Hoesslin, “Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea in Southeast Asia: Organized and Fluid,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2012): 35:7-8, 542-552: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2012.684652
3. I use this term interchangeably with private security contractors (PSCs).
4. U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate of 2011, updated April 4th, 2013: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10671
5. Carl A. Trocki, Prince of Pirates: The Temenggongs and the Development of Johor and Singapore, 1784-1885 (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2007), 24.
6. Carolin Liss, Oceans of Crime: Maritime Piracy and Transnational Security in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011), 331.
7. Ibid, 323.
8. Ibid, 327.
9. “Safety and Shipping Review 2014,” Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, 27: http://www.agcs.allianz.com/assets/PDFs/Reports/Shipping-Review-2014.pdf
10. Attacks in territorial waters, whether against vessels underway, at anchor, or moored, by definition under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are not considered pirate attacks and when possible I will attempt to distinguish between sea robbery and piracy, although the terms are frequently conflated.
11. International Maritime Bureau: http://www.icc-ccs.org/piracy-reporting-centre/prone-areas-and-warnings
12. Allianz, 27
13. Von Hoesslin, 541-542.
14. Ibid, 544.
15. IMB.
16. Von Hoesslin, 545.
17. Ibid, 545.

Future War, Strategic Outlook

Dire Straits: ASEAN and Piracy

August 6, 2013 Guest Author 2 Comments

Amid reports of hijackings and narrow escapes by merchant vessels in the Gulf of Guinea, West African piracy has begun to capture international attention. Meanwhile, NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield and the EU’s Atalanta maintain presence with other international partners in the Gulf of Aden, securing a crucial trade route against the threat of Somali piracy. However, the waterways of Southeast Asia are now almost entirely absent from the Western media narrative regarding the threat posed by piracy to international trade. This comes as some surprise, since piracy in this part of the world is very much on the rise.

According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), 57 attacks were reported in Southeast Asia during the first six months of 2013. Of the 297 pirate attacks that took place in 2012, 81 were perpetrated in Indonesia’s coastal waters alone, surpassing the 75 attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Aden the same year. This resurgence of Southeast Asian piracy is placing significant stress upon the shipping industry, generating new expenses and placing human lives at risk.

Malaysian special forces abseil onto a vessel from a police helicopter during an antipiracy demonstration in the Strait of Malacca (Jimin Lai / AFP) — Malaysian special forces abseil onto a vessel from a police helicopter during a counter-piracy demonstration in the Strait of Malacca (Jimin Lai / AFP)

It is little wonder that this region has become the latest hot spot for pirate activity. It is estimated that approximately one-third of global crude oil and over half of global liquefied natural gas pass through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea each year. In fact, roughly one-third of global trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, making it one of the most vital waterways to the world economy. Yet despite its strategic significance, there have been only limited efforts to secure the flow of goods and fuel through the Strait. In 2004, an informal arrangement was established between the naval forces of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore to cooperate on counter-piracy operations. In 2006, when Indonesian authorities expressed concern that they lacked the capabilities necessary to patrol Indonesia’s own territorial waters, the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard agreed to contribute vessels and crews to counter-piracy efforts on a limited basis.

For some years, this multinational arrangement saw success in reducing both the frequency and intensity of regional piracy, particularly in the Strait of Malacca. Unfortunately, these successes, rather than motivating further security cooperation, seem to have contributed to a certain degree of complacency. In April 2011, the Chief of the Malaysian Defence Forces was quoted claiming that the multinational collaboration had brought a complete end to piracy in the Strait. This does not mesh with the aforementioned increase in attacks over recent years.

An Anchorage off Singapore — The Singaporean anchorages, plump with potential piracy victims.

The current situation presents both a powerful motive and an opportunity for pirates to prey on shipping in the Strait of Malacca – the value and volume of shipping is considerable, and the lack of a formal counter-piracy framework in the region leaves patrolling disjointed. In place of the current multinational collaboration, an intensive counter-piracy program on the part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) might better discourage pirate activity. ASEAN, whose membership comprises ten countries, has embarked on an effort to establish a functioning political-security community by 2015. The lack of an effective ASEAN response to a conflict in the Malaysian region of Sabah during the early months of 2013 has cast some doubts as to whether the necessary level of security integration can be achieved by the 2015 deadline. But regardless of whether the ASEAN member states can fully realize their integrationist ambitions, the attendant reform process may present the perfect setting in which to adopt a shared counter-piracy strategy, exchange best practices, and commit to a plan that will see the Strait of Malacca consistently and effectively patrolled by the naval forces of ASEAN member states.

Southeast Asian governments have been striving to position their region as a major economic hub, and the success of these efforts will depend in large part on whether international audiences see ASEAN integration as credible. Piracy in the Strait of Malacca is precisely the kind of challenge ASEAN can address through collective action, demonstrating that needed credibility. Continued complacency, on the other hand, will only contribute to a deepening crisis, undermining ASEAN once again and harming prospects for regional economic growth by fueling organized crime. With an ASEAN Summit set to take place in Brunei Darussalam this October, it is imperative that piracy make it onto the agenda.

Paul Pryce is a Junior Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council of Canada. With degrees in political science from universities on both sides of the pond, he has previously worked in conflict resolution as a Research Fellow with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and as an infantryman in the Canadian Forces. His current research interests include African security issues and NATO-Russia relations.

Strategic Outlook

Do We Need an Indo-Pacific Treaty?

July 8, 2013 Guest Author Leave a comment

By Natalie Sambhi

Indonesian Foreign Minister Natalegawa has recently articulated his proposal for an Indo-Pacific Treaty at no less than three different conferences (including ‘Intersections of Power, Politics and Conflict in Asia’ in Jakarta in June) and it bears careful reading because it contains ambitious ideas.

To summarise his proposal, Natalegawa sees the Indo-Pacific region as beset by a deficit of ‘strategic trust’, unresolved territorial claims, and rapid transformation of regional states and the relationships between them. The potential for these factors to cause instability and conflict requires the region to develop a new paradigm, an Indo-Pacific wide treaty of friendship and cooperation, to encourage the idea of common security and promote confidence and the resolution of disputes by peaceful means. At present, Natalegawa has only provided the broad concepts behind the treaty but a precursor question is whether a treaty is really necessary?

Natalegawa argues that the Indo-Pacific region needs to be thought of as its own separate system. By having a treaty, regional states will start to think of themselves as members of a community responsible for common security. But the appeal of the idea depends on whether you consider multilateral agreements effective in encouraging member states to cooperate. Less powerful states in the Indo Pacific have few means to contribute to regional stability other than engaging more powerful states. In talking about managing the rapid transformation of regional states, Natalegawa espouses his idea of ‘dynamic equilibrium’ which entails ‘no preponderant power’. Rather than allow the region to be dominated by bilateral tension between powerful actors, Natalegawa argues their interests are inter-linked. The US and China, along with India and Japan are thus encouraged to see their actions in the context of ‘common security’.

The Indo-Pacific is an important geostrategic and economically significant area but it’s a long way from being a formal institution. Indonesia, a non-aligned state located at the geo-strategic centre of the system, might see itself as an obvious choice of broker for this treaty. However, the Indo-Pacific is, at best, a nascent ‘system’, and there’s no central body like ASEAN driving the process for this treaty. In absence of such a framework, it’s hard to see how Indonesia will be able to bring regional countries even to the negotiating table.

The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and the East Asia Summit’s Bali Principles both had ASEAN providing the diplomatic management for negotiating these agreements. They too encourage member states to build ‘strategic trust’, renounce the use of force and settle disputes by peaceful means, as well as include norms like the promotion of ‘good neighbourliness, partnership and community building’. Yet, they’ve had limited effectiveness as a mechanism for action or conflict prevention. Almost all of the so-called ‘Indo-Pacific’ states belong to one or both of these agreements, but no multilateral system has yet demonstrated the ability to ensure that all states adhere to those norms.

In order to effectively tackle the region’s security challenges, including the rapid social and economic transformation of states and the friction this might bring, there needs to be a strong incentive to cooperate and a mechanism for conflict management. The proposed treaty, like the previous two, provides neither.

Security issues between ASEAN states show a clear preference for bilateral resolution. Most recently, smoke from burning forests in Sumatra last month blanketed Malaysia and Singapore in the worst haze since 1997, with severe risk to health. First Singapore then Malaysia sent their representatives to Jakarta to urgently discuss a solution with the Indonesian government. An agreement signed by ASEAN states in 2002 to tackle haze hasn’t been ratified by Indonesia. Instead, at an ASEAN–China Ministerial Dialogue in Brunei earlier this week, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to a trilateral process to manage fires and haze in future—the three states have a clear interest in cooperating on this issue. ASEAN can provide a forum to discuss the haze but, when push comes to shove, the actions of Southeast Asian states demonstrate a tendency to bypass the ASEAN framework.

Similarly, China’s assertive and uncooperative behaviour towards the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal is at odds with the TAC and Bali Principles. China’s made clear its preference for bilateral engagement with other territorial claimants and to avoid international courts. Without the most powerful states in the ‘Indo-Pacific system’ backing the treaty, norms (in this case, the expectation that states won’t resort to the use of force or coercion) won’t provide the restraint needed. States will continue to rely on traditional alliance partners for protection or to provide a balance to other aggressive actors.

Multilateral frameworks in parts of the Indo-Pacific have been most effective when they have formed for a clear purpose. As Victor Cha argues, coalitions have formed ‘among entities with the most direct interests in solving a problem’. I think the best we can expect for now is a complex network of overlapping agreements and groupings that form to solve clearly defined and immediate issues. Direct interests will yield definite action. The Indo-Pacific treaty could build trust in the long term and as a proposal for more order-building in a transformational Asia, it shows Indonesia trying to lead the way. But if the strategic outlook is as dire as Natalegawa describes, I’m doubtful a new treaty is what we’ll need to tackle some of the region’s most pressing security challenges.

Natalie Sambhi is an analyst at ASPI and editor of The Strategist. Image courtesy of Indonesian Foreign Ministry. This post first appeared at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI)’s blog The Strategist.

Current Operations

Borneo Violence Escalates

March 6, 2013 Guest Author 2 Comments

Malaysian police search suspects leaving the security cordon in Sabah.

In the aftermath of Malaysia’s “Operation Sovereign,” I’ve got another update over at USNI News about the stand-off in Sabah between Malaysia’s armed forces and the followers of the self-styled Sultan of Sulu, including new naval developments. More news has come out since, with Reuters reporting Malaysian officials have found 13 bodies and detained several more followers during their post-op security sweep, although it’s unclear if the deaths occurred during our prior to the assault. As I sum up in the USNI Post:

Amid reports that more fighters had arrived despite the naval patrols, a fragile peace process in the Philippines, and an unsettled Filipino population in Sabah, the fears are not just that the violence will continue, but that the violence may spread.

At The Diplomat you can read some of the strange conspiracy hypotheses swirling around in the background of the stand-off.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.