Maritime Security Archives

August 23, 2025 — No Comments

Inside African Maritime’s Architecture: Integrating, Overlapping, and Concentric Security Strategies through the Prism of International Relations Theories – Part 1

By Leonardo Pesci - Africa Desk

Introduction

Surrounded by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the Red and Mediterranean Seas, the maritime domain represents an immense source of wealth for Africa. Yet, African waters remain connected to a series of issues impacting security and all its referent objects: humans, states, environment, society, and economy. In light of these concerns, this essay is the first in a two-part series investigating maritime security practices on the continent. More precisely, they will offer a vision of current strategies addressing maritime security issues through the lens of International Relations and Security theories.

The articles will highlight two, perhaps counterintuitive, tendencies. On the one hand, it will draw on constructivist approaches to International Relations (IR), particularly securitization and regional integration theories, to highlight the internal convergence and cooperation among African States and (sub)regional organizations into a thematic security community. The second publication will employ a specific case study to embed within IR theories, the posture of a single state toward external threats and third states operating in African Waters. The outcome of this two-fold endeavor will underscore how the internal dynamics of integrations are balanced with neorealist approaches towards external states on the continent.

General threats and geographical scopes of maritime security in Africa

For a long time, African understanding of security has intersected with traditional and state-centric issues, including inter- / intra-state conflict, peacebuilding, human trafficking, terrorism, and poverty. Only more recently, the maritime domain has become a compelling issue for the agendas of national governments and regional organizations.

The spectrum of threats is wide, spanning from the notorious cases of piracy off the Somali coasts and the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) to less-known yet relevant issues. These include energetic security, illegal, unreported and undocumented (IUU) fishing, oil theft, armed robbery, and human, weapons, and drug trafficking. Other illicit activities conducted at sea involve environmental degradation, dumping of toxic wastes, and spilling of polluting agents. The costs of these actions have high impacts on the continent, contributing to exacerbating structural vulnerabilities such as economic fragility, food (in)security, political instability, conflicts, and impacting states to control their territory and population.

To begin with, the West Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea are known for the intense activities linked to piracy. Although the phenomenon has recently decreased, renewed insecurity emerged from the latest Houthi attacks against commercial vessels (133, only in 2023), and the consequent disruption of submarine cables. These latest developments have made the region a new hotspot of insecurity, diverting commercial maritime traffic to the old route of the Cape of Good Hope.

Additionally, Islands and states in the East Indian Ocean are reportedly engaged in fights against the massive increase of criminal networks involved in heroin trafficking. Similarly, the African Mediterranean coasts, primary gateway to Europe, have long been under international attention for human trafficking and coastal fuel smuggling.

On the other side of the continent, the GoG - a 6.000 km coastline bordering 19 states - has become the center of new commercial routes as well as criminal activities. Similar to other regions, piracy reportedly decreased by 90% in 2024. However, serious challenges remain in a region extremely rich in terms of natural resources, maritime wildlife, and the center of new commercial routes.

For instance, fishing activities in the region account for 4% of the global fish supply. In turn, IUU fishing operated by private enterprises and foreign vessels (flagged in Europe and Asia) impacts local economies, food security, and maritime biodiversity. To illustrate the point, it is estimated that IUU fishing accounts for 40 - 65 % of the fish captured in the region. It has been observed that a more sustainable allocation and management of the fishing sector would be worth $2 billion annually for national and local economies.

Cooperation structures: Maritime Security Institutions and (sub-)Regional Cooperation

In the light of these issues, the past decade marked a period of intense development for African maritime architecture. Within the continent, a proliferation of multilateral and bilateral agreements has gradually concentrated and intersected maritime concerns under the attention of old and new institutions leaning towards the formation of an African security community for maritime affairs. The beginning of this momentum coincides with the rising threats linked to piracy in Somalia and the Gulf of Guinea in the late 2000s.

During the decade, new governance practices emerged. Encapsulated in securitization discourses, they encouraged continental integration in the maritime domain, envisioning common solutions to shared problems. The outcome of such efforts has been condensed in the creation of new institutions, renewed engagement in existing ones, new security tools, and joint enterprises reflected in new visions and strategies. Such governance and security practices can be found through charters, meetings, symposiums, conferences, and the constitution or renewal of regional and sub-regional bodies and committees. More practical tools should not be underestimated. These include communication and information sharing platforms, capacity building, joint rescue coordination centers, common juridical frameworks, and published documents and strategies. These developments are coupled with the creation of sub-regional bodies and treaties, declarations, and Memoranda of understanding dealing with maritime security issues.

For instance, North African states have cooperated with Europeans through bilateral agreements as well as in multilateral settings. Worth mentioning is the 5+5 Defense Initiative, whose first meeting took place in 2004 in Paris. Similarly, the Djibouti Code of Conduct of 2009, united states from the Horn of Africa and Western Indian Ocean, established practices under the common objective of fighting piracy and set a shared information and knowledge management system.

On the Atlantic Side, the Yaoundé Protocol, signed by 26 member states part of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), introduced a comprehensive maritime security framework. The architecture has divided maritime areas into “responsibility zones” and has broadened cooperation to all sorts of illicit activities conducted in the sea (e.g., money laundering, illegal arms and drug trafficking, human smuggling, maritime pollution, IUU fishing, toxic waste dumping, and the sabotage of offshore infrastructure).

During the same years at the sub-regional level, African organizations developed their maritime visions and strategies. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) reorganized the SADC Maritime Committee (SMC), adopting in 2007 its first maritime strategy, targeting piracy off the Somali coasts and the Indian Ocean. Simultaneously, the SMC created the Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) System, a joint intelligence platform for information sharing on maritime events and trafficking, and has set an embryonic legal framework to deal with piracy. On the other hand, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mentioned maritime security for the first time in 2005, integrating the topic as one of the four pillars in its Security Sector Program.

At the continental level, the African Union (AU) revisited the 1993 African Maritime Transport Charter, publishing in 2007 the first official document dealing with maritime security: the Abuja Declaration and Plan of Action on Maritime Security. Thereafter, the AU Secretariat for maritime issues has worked on a common and comprehensive strategy for the continent, finalized in 2014 as the 2050 African Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIMS).

The document represents a key moment for the African Union’s management of maritime spaces, setting the common goal of “developing a sustainable thriving blue economy in a secure and environmentally sustainable manner,” and offering a comprehensive map of security risks and mitigation strategies. AIMS identifies common objectives, stakeholders (including states, civil society, and business groups), main threats, and the measures to mitigate them. It emphasizes the need for cooperation at the national and regional levels to achieve a sustainable and safe maritime environment for states and people.

Furthermore, AIMS 2050 ambitiously sets the rules to harmonize states' legal frameworks on national maritime law to foster judicial cooperation, defining and combating maritime criminality under a unified legal framework.

Drawing on the AIMS 2050, the Lomé Charter (African Charter on Maritime Security, Safety and Development) was adopted in 2016, and the Djibouti framework was expanded in its scope through the 2017 Jeddah Amendment .

Maritime environment through the prism of International Relations and Security Theories

From the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the western Gulf of Guinea, passing through all the African coastlines, conventional and unconventional challenges have compelled states to find collaborative solutions at the national, regional, and sub-regional levels. From this analysis, two major theoretical implications can be drawn. First, the African maritime sector has gradually converged towards a thematic security community. Secondly, over time, it has integrated traditional state-centric security approaches to include other referent objects, such as human, economic, and environmental security.

To begin with, a security community can be understood as a group whose members construct securitization with one another. Securitization, in turn, refers to the discursive act of framing an issue as a security threat to a specific referent. The securitization of a thematic area, hence, passes from the creation and reiteration of new practices and discourses. The process begins with the identification of a shared threat and a collective engagement against it. It continues with the creation of repertoires (e.g., common practices, tools, and technologies such as declarations, strategic documents, and information-sharing platforms), and it ends with a shared enterprise (e.g., common objectives and shared securitization vision). It finally culminates with the creation of a community grounded in mutual objectives and common visions of goals. In this sense, the emergence of crossing and overlapping institutions in the African maritime sector suggests a gradual process of formation of a maritime security community, composed of states, regional and sub-regional organizations, maritime professionals, as well as civil society, sharing a common objective, and establishing common practices under the umbrella of a single security issue.

Secondly, Christian Bueger has categorized security issues in the maritime domain on four different dimensions: marine and environmental security, economic security, human and state security. Given the interconnectedness of maritime and continental challenges, the literature suggests a substantial reconciliation between the four domains. These syntheses are often explicated – and visible - in the documents, declarations, and strategies through the nexus “maritime security – sustainability - development”. In other words, in the African continent, a gradual shift has occurred from an early understanding of maritime security as inextricably linked to the state and sovereignty, to a maritime domain which has become interconnected with the state, human security, wealth, food security, economic development, and political stability.

For instance, the early versions of the Yaoundé and Djibouti codes of conduct were based on negative measures aimed at limiting illicit activities, particularly piracy, to safeguard and prioritize state security. The more recent developments (e.g., AIMS 2050, Lomé Charter, Jeddah Amendment) reflect more positive notions on maritime security. These documents are more oriented towards developing a sustainable and thriving blue economy within a secure and environmentally sustainable framework in African coasts.

Integrating multiple aspects of security, these charters have implicitly attempted to structure an increasing number of institutions into a security community that reconciles human, state, economic, and environmental security under the umbrella of maritime security. They have thus expanded their scope for the development of wealth and a sustainable maritime sector, pushing against all illegal activities conducted at sea (i.e., IUU fishing, crimes against the environment, human trafficking, etc.).

Conclusion

The African Maritime domain has been subjected to substantial transformation over the past decades. It is now embedded within a broader understanding of security, which integrates state, human, economic, food, and environmental concerns. This conceptual shift comes together with an intense proliferation of institutions, frameworks, and strategies that lean towards the creation of a thematic security community. In this context, however, the effectiveness of these efforts will be dependent on the degree of cooperation achieved and the level of implementation of the measures. As the continent continues to confront complex maritime challenges, the consolidation of this security community will be essential to ensuring not only safety and sovereignty but also sustainable development and a resilient blue economy for future generations.

March 18, 2024 — No Comments

Japan’s OSA: Balancing Security and Stability in the Indo-Pacific

*Authors: Southeast Asia and Oceania Team

Introduction

Amid escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, exacerbated by assertive Chinese actions, in April 2023, Japan declared a new cooperation framework—Official Security Aid (OSA). Positioned as a strategic departure from its longstanding Official Development Aid (ODA) framework, the OSA marks Japan's commitment to strengthening the armed forces of like-minded nations. This move reflects Japan's response to the evolving security landscape, characterized by Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea (SCS) and other geopolitical challenges.

From ODA to OSA

For decades, Japan stood as a bastion of ODA, considered as the main reliable partner for Southeast Asian nations. Its aid is granted under a request-based system and reflects a commitment to regional stability via non-military means.In the postwar era, Japan utilized development cooperation to establish relations with neighboring countries and subsequently to support the expansion of Japanese businesses in Asia. It played a role in the transition from socialist regimes and, amid China's rise, contributed to the development of legal systems and the consolidation of democracies.

The OSA, however, underscores Japan's proactive stance in gaining a more dominant role in the region, marking its first attempt in the postwar era, in which this country seeks to directly enhance the capabilities of foreign military forces. Under the OSA, Japan aims to provide not only equipment and supplies, but also support for infrastructure development to the military forces of like-minded countries, thereby bolstering their security capabilities.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's 2022 Shangri-La Dialogue address marked a pivotal moment in this new approach, with an announcement on doubling Japan's defense spending, and on the necessity in a departure from Japan's traditional post-war foreign policy, primarily centered on economic contributions. Japan's move towards OSA fits with its long-standing role as a vital ally for Southeast Asia in maritime security, especially during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's leadership.

The realization of OSA materialized around the Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) 50th anniversary, culminating in a Joint Vision Statement and an implementation plan which emphasized maritime security cooperation. Subsequently, Japan extended its security assistance totaling $13 million to Bangladesh, Fiji, Malaysia, and the Philippines, demonstrating a commitment to fostering stability beyond its borders.

Furthermore, Japan’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is set to play a pivotal role in providing maritime security support to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. JICA's plan encompasses capacity-building initiatives and the provision of patrol boats, radar systems, and drones. This comprehensive support seeks to address the security needs of nations grappling with regional power dynamics. This move signifies Japan’s intent to forge a broader international coalition, marking a strategic shift in its diplomatic and security engagements.

Strategic Gains

Amid the delicate balancing acts between superpowers, the OSA offers Southeast Asian claimant states an appealing prospect. With territorial disputes and threats from China in the SCS, Japan’s commitment to enhancing defense capabilities might seem to aim to deter Chinese assertiveness .

In this context, and following the ASEAN-Japan Commemorative Summit, Japan has elevated relations with Vietnamand Malaysia to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and a Security Assistance agreement, including maritime equipment provision, was signed with Malaysia. Additionally, although not a claimant state, Japan plans to build a patrol vessel for the Indonesian Coast Guard. Moreover, coastal surveillance radars will be granted to the Philippines, with discussions on reciprocal troop access and joint military exercises. Japan and the Philippines are also working towards a trilateral alliance involving the US. As Japan has its own territorial dispute with China over its southern islands, the OSA aligns with its ambitions to ensure a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and secure regional supply chain resilience.

*Source: AkinoriMatsui "World flags" - https://en.photoac.com/photo/3989789*

Japan also might envision the OSA as a means to reduce Southeast Asian countries' dependence on China. As the Belt and Road Initiative remains a significant diplomatic tool, the OSA introduces new areas of cooperation. For Bangladesh, for instance, which heavily relies on Chinese weaponry (70%), the OSA offers an opportunity to diversify suppliers and mitigate risks associated with the quality of Chinese-made military equipment.

Balancing security and stability

In his address at the Hiroshima G7 Summit in 2023, PM Kishida emphasized the potential parallels between the current situation in Ukraine and future challenges in East Asia. Observing global instability stemming from the Ukraine war, the rise of China, US-China tensions, and the Israel-Hamas War, Japan’s proactive foreign policy aims to foster deterrence and regional security. This change signifies a departure from its conventional stance of following US priorities by shifting towards a Japan-led multilateral security collaboration. It should be asked whether this securitization led to more, or less stability in the region.

While Japan's emphasis on maritime security and support to like-minded Indo-Pacific countries aligns with countering China's assertiveness, extending OSA to the military capabilities of developing countries introduces complexities.

The potential reactions from ASEAN nations, particularly considering their neutrality and non-alignment strive, could lead to heightened tensions and disrupt the delicate balance in the ongoing superpower competition . Moreover, concerns over an arms race in the region emerge; due to ASEAN countries' diverse capabilities and stances in the superpower competition, providing security assistance to certain members might increase tension in the region and undermine the current multilateral system.

The pursuit of a competitive armament approach, rather than creating a secure environment, may contribute to heightened tension, prompting a more assertive Chinese stance and a Chinese armament of its allies in the region. Furthermore, given China’s extensive arms sales to the region, and its lenient restrictions on arms exports, it is essential to question whether Japan's OSA will genuinely serve as an effective countermeasure to China.

Conclusion

Japan's adoption of OSA signifies a proactive response to regional challenges posed by assertive Chinese actions. While enhancing defense capabilities for like-minded developing countries brings strategic gains, potential reactions from ASEAN, fears of an arms race, divisions, and China's extensive influence, warrant cautious consideration. As Japan assumes a broader international role, the delicate balance between security and stability in the Indo-Pacific calls for careful navigation and strategic planning to mitigate potential negative repercussions of such security related initiatives.

*Views expressed in the article belong to the author and do not represent any organization or its affiliates.

May 10, 2021 — 2 Comments

Chinese IUU fishing: menaces and challenges for South American Navies

By André Carvalho

Nowadays, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is the most significant threat to maritime security worldwide. It is estimated that the IUU fishing is responsible for the annual loss of tens of billions of dollars in revenue for legal anglers. According to data reported in 2020 by the United States Coast Guard (USCG), IUU fishing also affects the global food security preventing the 3.3 billion of people that rely on fish to access their main source of animal protein. Furthermore, it is estimated that 93% of major fish stocks are already “classified, overexploited or fully depleted” due to the IUU fishing mismanagement of maritime resources. Thus, this illegal activity is not only a maritime concern, but also a threat to international security.

China’s IUU fishing has affected the world's oceans and has proved to be a unique and dire threat. The overfishing and water pollution resulting from the illegal activities have caused enormous environmental, economic, and social damages to coastal states affected by these practices. Currently, China has the largest illegal fishing industry in the world. The Distant Waters Fleet (DWF) is the responsible for conducting Chinese IUU fishing operations, and it uses mostly fishing vessels, factory ships and reefer vessels - a logistical scheme to make any legal fishing company jealous. Recent data suggests that the current number of China’s DWF is around 17,000 vessels, making possible for China to diversify its illegal fishing activities near the Korean Peninsula, on the African coast and in the Latin and South American waters.

Nonetheless, China’s fishing fleet also has another strategic duty: to function as the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia. In addition, although the militia has a history of harassing only China’s neighbours and strategic surroundings, one can also understand that they are part of a uniquely devised plan to China exert strategic influence around the globe.

Although the problem is not necessarily new for the South American region, consequences of climate change have altered the composition of fish populations around the world, making the Chinese fishing activities intensify in South American in recent years. The situation started to gain attention in 2016, when ships from the Argentinian Coast Guard sank the Chinese fishing boat Lu Yan Yuan Yu 010 after detecting its illegal fishing activities in Argentinian waters. In 2017, the Ecuadorian Navy seized a Chinese boat which was detected fishing an endangered shark species near the Galapagos Islands. However, it did not seemed to have deterred Chinese intentions in the region.

The situation escalated in 2020, when the Ecuadorian Navy discovered a huge Chinese fleet with between 270 and 400 vessels piling the waters inside the Ecuadorian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Chinese fleet overwhelmed the Ecuadorian Navy in numbers, making the latter require assistance from the USCG in order to deter illegal activities in the vicinities of Ecuador’s EEZ. The fleet then tried to operate into Chile’s EEZ, leading the Chile’s Chief of Security and Maritime Operations to create a task force to monitor illegal fishing activities along the Pacific Coast of South America.

Within this context, a country with a dishevelled navy, with innocuous floating firepower and without a complete situational control of its territorial sea, may find itself tobe susceptible to Chinese illegal fishing activities. In addition, it makes South American navies rely mostly on the USCG’s capabilities to patrol waters e.g. the deployment of the USCG Cutter Bertholf to help the Ecuadorian Navy patrol illegal activities near Galapagos, and the recent deployment of USCG Cutter Stone to patrol the Atlantic Coast of South America.

In this sense, dealing with illegal fishing issues has proved to be a major challenge for South American navies due to limitations in their structure, order of battle and relative power. One of the main problems is that – for reasons that remain unclear - most of the South American navies do not admit the creation of a Coast Guard. Therefore, in some cases these navies are equipped with sophisticated war fighting equipment, but are starkly deficient in coastal patrol. South American countries have small fleets for an ostentatious patrolling of its coast and EEZ and this shows a certain neglect of naval patrol capabilities. A clear example is that the Brazilian navy, the second largest navy in the Americas, in a country with an approximately 8 thousand kilometres long coastline, does not have a continuous production program for ocean and coast patrol ships.

In the same way, South American navies – and armed forces – show a significant absence of tactical and strategic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for sensing their territorial seas, as well as operational terrestrial observation satellites to conduct Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance (ISR) operations.

South America is a region where efforts to engage in cooperation hardly sees continuity. However, when the establishment points to the lack of capacity and resources to keep monitoring and controlling territories in an effective manner, defence cooperation can be a pivotal asset on the fight against Chinese IUU in the region. However, the problem with cooperation in such a scenario is that it is geographically limited. Thus, South American countries could also rely on interoperability for joint operations to tackle doctrinal and structural problems, as well as lean towards area and sea denial strategies as a way to get rid of the dependence on American military power.