Over recent years, the Asia–Pacific maritime security environment has become increasingly building complex. Transnational dangerous and unionize crime in the maritime world ( including illegal, unreported and unregulated fish ; plagiarism ; and traffic of weapons, drugs and people ), terrorism and an increasingly assertive taiwanese nautical strategy are generating promote complexity .
The evolving strategic challenge hasn ’ t gone unnoticed in Australia, or in its Asia–Pacific neighbor. While countries with the means have invested heavily in their navies, others have focused more on developing their coastguards. More recently, the moral force manoeuver context has been the catalyst for enhance bi- and multilateral maritime cooperation .
Unsurprisingly, the region ’ second focus on civil–military maritime security is increasing the need for more comprehensive and coordinated maritime domain awareness ( MDA ) ( see here, here and here ) across the Asia–Pacific .
however, while many commentators have highlighted the need for greater regional cooperation on MDA, it has proved difficult to reach agreement on how to turn that theme into a fully-fledged multilateral arrangement.
Some of our policy contacts around Canberra have suggested to us that the European Union ’ s Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics ( MAOC–N ) in Lisbon offers a feasible model for improving regional cooperation .
The MAOC–N was established in 2006 under the auspices of the EU by seven countries ( Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, the Netherlands and Italy ) as a multilateral forum for combating and countering drug traffic from the Cape of Good Hope to the norwegian Sea .
The center is an significant separate of EU law enforcement efforts in coordinating nautical and aviation intelligence. The investment has paid dividends in disrupting plagiarism and illicit drug flows .
The MAOC–N ’ s success has been underpinned by the depth and breadth of european cooperation and the EU ’ s well-developed organizational structure. unfortunately, neither of those conditions exists in the Asia–Pacific in general or in ASEAN more specifically .
Because of its complex geopolitical context, ASEAN ’ mho framework for inter- and intraregional and global share of jurisprudence enforcement information and news is convoluted and frequently difficult to navigate .
ASEAN operates a range of formal and informal networks that exchange tactical, operational and strategic data. In most cases, the frameworks that promote this work are supported by long-run interpersonal and interagency relationships of hope.
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These frameworks jointly form a complex vane of arrangements. The characteristics that make relationships of trust and sharing potential in ASEAN have besides encouraged the development of multiple channels of communication. Although they don ’ thymine necessarily generate results efficiently, these multiple channels are effective at providing operational agencies with opportunities to exchange information .
The diverse and frequently compartmentalize system that is law enforcement intelligence-sharing in ASEAN brings with it more than a few risks and challenges. The lack of a central depository imperils distributed access to knowledge, and the lack of a clear information architecture increases the hazard of duplicative report and feedback loops .
At the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum Inter-Sessional meeting on Maritime Security, the US government sought to address these challenges by proposing the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum Transnational Threat Information-sharing Centre ( ATTIC ). Despite the potential benefits presented by ATTIC, a miss of possession among ASEAN member states has seen the mind pine away in a policy limbo .
Two existing mechanisms, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia ( ReCAAP ) and the Information Fusion Centre to the ASEAN regional forum, crack opportunities for increased MDA cooperation .
ReCAAP is a regional government-to-government agreement to promote cooperation against plagiarism and armed looting. It has 20 members, including North, South and Southeast asian countries ; Australia ; the UK ; and the United States.
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ReCAAP ’ s Information Sharing Centre in Singapore facilitates communication between regional authorities and the nautical community and enables seasonably and accurate classification and analysis of incidents. The center ’ mho report and psychoanalysis assist coastal states to take jurisprudence enforcement actions, and shipowners american samoa well as embark masters to adopt risk-mitigation measures .
The Information Fusion Centre is a regional maritime security center hosted by the Singaporean navy. The concentrate facilitates information share and collaboration between its partners and provides actionable information to regional and external navies, coastguards and other maritime agencies. It covers the full range of nautical security threats and incidents, including piracy, armed robbery at sea, weapons proliferation, maritime terrorism, and bootleg and drug smuggling. It besides hosts assorted multilateral information-sharing portals and platforms in support of regional and international frameworks .
many an australian official might be tempted to promote the development of a new regional MDA mechanism or documentation ATTIC. however, the creation of an Asia–Pacific MAOC-type arrangement is a bad suggestion. Putting aside the language, technical, confidence and geopolitical hurdles, an Asia–Pacific MAOC may simply add further bureaucracy to the region ’ s already complicated information-sharing arrangements. Australia and its partners may find more utility in making far investments in ReCAAP ’ s Information Sharing Centre and the Information Fusion Centre given their successes to date .
