Essay On Maritime Security

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The increased focus on maritime security post 9/11 has inadvertently put SLOC like the IO on the radars of many observers for fear of disruption to shipping and trade. For starters, the threat of piracy, especially along the waters near the Horn of Africa and in the northern part of the Straits of Malacca, continues to be a bane to merchant ships. The busy shipping traffic in the IO naturally attracts the attention of pirates keen to grab the cargo, and even the vessels and the valuables carried by their crew members. The changing threat perception in maritime security, resulting from the threat of terrorism, has also resulted in the introduction of many security-related initiatives affecting the use of the ocean. Rising strategic interests by the world’s naval powers, growing assertion to protect sovereign and economic interests at sea, and extension of maritime boundaries by nations also influence behaviors in the ocean and the security matrix in the waters, and affect the perspectives and use of the IO. With increasing dependence by the world’s economic powers on energy supply from the Gulf, the role of the Indian Ocean in facilitating maritime energy transport has become more prominent.…show more content…
Despite the efforts of a multinational coalition to patrol the waters off east Africa, the area impacted by Somali piracy remains huge at approximately 2.5 million square miles, with pirates’ use of mother ships enabling Piracy Attack Groups (PAGs) to stage vessel hijackings at great distances from the coast. To date, even an international naval presence combining the resources of the European Union, NATO, and the US Navy has had great difficulty in securing such a wide swath of ocean. As a result, many merchant vessels transiting through the western Indian Ocean have implemented their own anti-piracy measures, including the hiring of private-armed security

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