Far from the political upheaval in Washington and the continuing carnage in Iraq, the navies of the Pacific are girding themselves to provide more of the maritime security that is vital to their expanding economies.
In particular, the US and Asian navies are seeking to prevent the terror that has been spreading on land in Asia from moving to sea where it would threaten the lifelines of all but the landlocked nations of the region. These navies, however, are not doing so well in working together to prevent the shipment of nuclear weapons and missiles from North Korea to terrorists in Southeast Asia or elsewhere.
Led by South Korea, which has been seeking an accommodation with North Korea, several navies have balked at searching North Korean ships on the high seas.
A US naval intelligence report on terror in Asia says: "The number and lethality of attacks are growing as smaller, decentralized jihadist groups increase the violence against local political, security, and communal targets."
Many assaults occurred in the Philippines and southern Thailand.
This year, the report said, 1,015 people have been killed in 491 attacks, compared with 880 killed in 373 assaults last year. Safe havens for terrorists have been discovered in Bangladesh, the site of much civil strife, in Myanmar, Laos and Papua New Guinea.
Both US naval intelligence and the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which tracks piracy worldwide, reported a decline in sea robbery as navies and coast guards have gone on the offensive.
Piracy around Indonesia dropped to 40 incidents in the January-September period, compared with 61 in the same time last year. Even so, Indonesia still had the world's worst record for piracy.
The potential for a link-up between pirates and terrorists remains, the intelligence report says.
Some 70,000 ships pass through the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea every year carrying half of the world's oil and a third of its commerce. A ship scuttled or blown up in those sea-lanes would cause unpredictable economic and political disruption.
The US Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Mullen, told a recent naval symposium in Honolulu: "These ideologues, pirates, proliferators, criminals and terrorists are prevalent throughout the coastal regions that we are all obligated to protect."
He asserted: "Without maritime cooperation, we cannot hope to effectively battle these forces of instability."
The US Navy, however, has urged other navies to take on the greater share of responsibility for countering those predators. In Asia, colonialism ended only a few decades ago and Asians are sensitive to anything that they perceive encroaches on their sovereignty.
Aware of that, Admiral Gary Roughead, who commands the US Pacific Fleet, told the conference: "I made it clear that I don't want to be patrolling in other people's waters."
Similarly, the commander of all US forces in the Pacific, Admiral William Fallon, told Indonesian officers last February: "It's your neighborhood, you should do it yourself."
Mullen, Roughead, and leaders of 15 other navies gathered in Honolulu behind closed doors earlier this month for the annual Western Pacific Naval Symposium. A US Navy spokesman said the Proliferation Security Initiative, which US President George Bush said in Singapore was intended to halt the seaborne spread of nuclear material, was not discussed.
To combat piracy and terror, the US for several years has advocated having the world's 90,000 ships emulate aircraft, almost every one of which is monitored whenever it is in the air. Requiring ships to transmit an automatic identification system and having that information fed into collecting points would be critical.
Then, if a ship started to sail off its plotted track, a navy, coast guard, or law enforcement vessel -- or aircraft -- would check it out.
Roughead said some nations, such as Singapore, now require every ship that enters its waters have such a system. Since pirates usually use high-speed boats displacing less than 300 tonnes, Roughead said they should be included in any monitoring system.
The main task before the navy leaders was to find ways to gather and move information faster than pirates or terrorists could make decisions.
The technology exists and much of the discussion centered on methods of communicating quickly.
When Mullen was asked whether this effort would be a distraction from the US Navy's main mission of fighting wars, he was emphatic: "No, you pay me not to go to war. You pay me to prevent war. This is all part of the deterrence of war."
Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS