The Future Maritime Operating Environment and the Role of Naval Power

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Some countries have begun to take harsh counter-measures that could further inflame regional affairs. In applying its new maritime doctrine (2014), Indonesia has seized and scuttled Vietnamese and Thai vessels, and seized a number of Chinese fishing boats. 82 Should economic and political pressures lead to attempts to exploit the waters of the Arctic and Antarctic, “fishing’s final frontiers” 83 , international tensions would likely ensue. Perhaps even more ominous in the long-term is the possibility that the oceans might experience the fate commonly known as the tragedy of the commons. 84 Application of this concept, that originally offered insight into the history of feudal England, argues more generally that in the absence of effective governance environmental decay and ruin is inevitable. Alongside overfishing, where the relevance of the commons analogy is most readily apparent, the emergence of dead zones in the ocean coastal zones would seem analogous. While there is research to support a conclusion that dead zones are a naturally occurring phenomenon and are affected by climate change, the fact that some are found near major population centres has led some scientists to posit that human activity is implicated. In some cases, intense agricultural and industrial activity has spilled nutrients (e.g., nitrogen) into the water and led to the depletion of oxygen such that no marine life can be sustained (a process termed eutrophication). 85 The number of such zones has doubled every decade since the 1960s and some forecasts indicate that they could increase in the tropical oceans by more than 50 percent in coming decades. 86 Should this happen, serious consequences will follow in some of the most productive fishing grounds, with cascading economic and political fallout similar to that flowing from depletion of fish stocks. 87 The implications for the international community of failing to make progress on these issues are obvious. However, the drafting and implementation of international agreements to address pressing dangers facing the oceans commons, such as overfishing, aquaculture and dead zones, that by their nature require that immediate national interests be set aside to preserve a long-term public good, will be extremely difficult. And yet failure to do will most probably generate international tensions that, when combined with other maritime security considerations, will be difficult for governments to manage. 82 Mervyn Piesse, The Indonesian Maritime Doctrine: Realising the Potential of the Ocean (Future Directions International: Dalkeith, Australia: 22 January 2015), pp. 5–6. 83 Lieutenant-Commander Ray Snook (RCN), “The Future Fight for Fish”, Canadian Naval Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer 2011, p. 11. 84 The idea of the “tragedy of the commons”, in which unregulated use of a common good results in its depletion was explored in Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons”, Science, Vol. 162, December 1968, pp. 1243–1248. In this article, he described the concept as “[e]ach man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his [benefit] without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” 85 Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss, “What Causes Ocean ‘Dead Zones’?”, Scientific American (online), 25 September 2012, Cheryl Lyn Dybas, “Dead Zones Spreading in World Oceans”, Bioscience, Vol. 55, No. 7, 2005, pp. 552–557, and Stephen R. Carpenter, “Phosphorus control is critical to mitigating eutrophication”, Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, Vol. 105, No. 32, 2008, pp. 11039–11040. 86 Robert J. Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg, “Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems”, Science, Vol. 321, 15 August 2008, pp. 926–928. 87 Quirin Schmeier, “Marine dead zones set to expand rapidly”, Nature, 14 November 2008. 20 DRDC-RDDC-2016-R085
3.2 Submarine Cables Given their significance to global communications and commerce (as discussed earlier), experts frequently draw attention to the vulnerability of undersea cables to damage. Regardless of whether the damage is intentional or the consequence of accident or natural disaster, the impact when such damage has occurred has been considerable. Natural phenomena account for about 10 percent of the damage to submarine cables. Underwater currents (“turbidity currents”) created by undersea earthquakes can flow for hundreds of kilometres with sufficient power to snap cables. One such incident followed the Hengchun earthquake near Taiwan in December 2006 and affected undersea cable connections to China, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam, with the result that it took 11 ships and 49 days to repair. 88 In other cases, storm-induced wave action, as happened with Hurricane Iwa (1982) near Hawaii and Hurricane Sandy (2012) off New England, each broke a number of submarine cables. Violent storms have also severely damaged shore-based cable stations. Looking to the future, submarine cable networks will not be immune from the effects of climate change, with a projected increase in number and intensity of major storms. 89 Nevertheless, a 2007 study concluded that more than three-quarters of all cable faults are caused by human activity. 90 Most of this occurs on the continental shelf in waters less than 200 metres deep and is the result of ships’ anchors, fishing behaviour and dredging activities. In one case, in 1986 a Chilean container ship accidentally broke three of four trans-Atlantic cables by mistakenly dragging its anchor chain for several kilometres off the coast of New Jersey. 91 That an estimated 65 percent of unintentional damage to submarine cables is occurring in coastal waters is not surprising given the intensification of human activity there in recent decades. 92 Intentional damage to submarine cables, a new and at present a relatively rare occurrence, has become a concern for those looking at critical infrastructure protection. In both world wars, cutting undersea cables was a highly effective means of disrupting enemy communications. 93 Cables were also a target of espionage in the Cold War with the US tapping Soviet undersea cables, and more recent revelations indicate that cables continue to be viewed as an important 88 Chih-Chieh Su, Jing Ye-Tseng, Ho Han-Hsu, Cheng Shing-Chiang, Ho-Shing Yu, Saulwood Lin, and James T. Liu, “Records of Submarine Hazards off SW Taiwan” J. P. Terry and J. Goff (eds.), Natural Hazards in the Asia-Pacific Region: Recent Advances and Emerging Concepts (Geological Society: London, 2012), p. 45. For the impact on Taiwan, see Jon Herskovitz and Rhee So-eui, “Taiwan quake shakes confidence in undersea links”, The Washington Post, 28 December 2006. 89 Carter, “Submarine Cables and Natural Hazards”, in Burnett et al., Submarine Cables: The Handbook of Law and Policy, pp. 241–252. 90 Robert Wargo and Tara M. Davenport, “Protecting Submarine cables from Competing Uses”, in Burnett et al., Submarine Cables: The Handbook of Law and Policy, p. 256. 91 The incident is described in Mick Green and Keith Brooks, “The Threat of Damage to Submarine Cables by the Anchors of Ships Underway”, CIL-ICPC Workshop on the Protection of Submarine Cables (National University of Singapore: 2011) [accessed on 20 February 2015 at http://cil.nus.edu.sg/programmes-and-activities/past-events/international-workshop-cil-icpc-workshop-on- the-protection-of-submarine-cables/powerpoint-presentations-and-papers-presented-at-the-2011- workshop/], p. 3, fn. 4. 92 Lionel Carter, “Submarine Cables and Natural Hazards”, in Burnett et al., Submarine Cables: The Handbook of Law and Policy, p. 238. 93 Jessica Woodall, “Australia’s vulnerable submarine cables”, The Strategist (online), 31 May 2013. DRDC-RDDC-2016-R085 21
Page 1 and 2: The Future Maritime Operating Envir
Page 3 and 4: Abstract … Drawing upon a wide ar
Page 5 and 6: Table of Contents Abstract … ....
Page 7 and 8: List of Figures Figure 1: One World
Page 9 and 10: Acknowledgements I am grateful to a
Page 11 and 12: 1 Introduction 1 The maritime envir
Page 13 and 14: Much of the discussion that follows
Page 15 and 16: 2 The Maritime Environment as a Glo
Page 17 and 18: finfish and shellfish are farmed. 3
Page 19 and 20: 2.2 Undersea Communications and Min
Page 21 and 22: esources) there will be continued g
Page 23 and 24: 2.4 Regulation of Ocean Space The U
Page 25 and 26: 3 Challenges to Order in the Mariti
Page 27 and 28: impossible, and certainly not a sho
Page 29: esult, confrontations between gover
Page 33 and 34: jurisdiction.” 99 There is, howev
Page 35 and 36: of al Qaeda had tried to buy into a
Page 37 and 38: 3.4.1 Chokepoints The existence of
Page 39 and 40: There is, moreover, a major securit
Page 41 and 42: In some regions, such as off the Ho
Page 43 and 44: will not be reduced by decisions of
Page 45 and 46: EEZ and protected it by using more
Page 47 and 48: access. 173 They will also alter th
Page 49 and 50: ecently noted, “[e]conomic growth
Page 51 and 52: evenue. Despite improvements in Sin
Page 53 and 54: Table 4: Overview of Major Indo-Pac
Page 55 and 56: 4.2 US Decline and Sino-US Competit
Page 57 and 58: joint statement regarding Beijing
Page 59 and 60: order upheld by the US since 1945 p
Page 61 and 62: population uncomfortable with a rev
Page 63 and 64: An important element of the 2012 st
Page 65 and 66: including the freedom of the seas.
Page 67 and 68: premiums for the NSR make the voyag
Page 69 and 70: activity in the Arctic could preced
Page 71 and 72: Alongside the impact of Russian pol
Page 73 and 74: 5 Mitigating the Challenges Maritim
Page 75 and 76: Even in areas that directly intrude
Page 77 and 78: 6 The Role of Navies What is the ro
Page 79 and 80: The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) is an
Page 81 and 82:
More recently, a Chinese naval frig
Page 83 and 84:
6.4 Sea Control and Sea Denial 343
Page 85 and 86:
quite possibly, the sea denial capa
Page 87 and 88:
detection and counter-detection. It
Page 89 and 90:
Whether they are conventional or nu
Page 91 and 92:
theorists that confronting a modern
Page 93 and 94:
The development of cyber capabiliti
Page 95 and 96:
middle-Power navies will be unable
Page 97 and 98:
those hostilities ended asserted th
Page 99 and 100:
maritime patrol aircraft in controv
Page 101 and 102:
traditional maritime Powers. For ri
Page 103 and 104:
References .. Primary Sources Arcti
Page 105 and 106:
_____, Congressional Budget Office.
Page 107 and 108:
Clark, Bryan. The Emerging Era in U
Page 109 and 110:
Krepinevich, Andrew. Why AirSea Bat
Page 111 and 112:
Till, Geoffrey. Seapower - A Guide
Page 113 and 114:
Burnett, Douglas R., Tara M. Davenp
Page 115 and 116:
Grygiel, Jakub J.. “The Dilemmas
Page 117 and 118:
Montgomery, Evan Braden. “Contest
Page 119 and 120:
Weir, Gary E.. “The answer may be
Page 121 and 122:
“Indian Navy Plans to Acquire 50
Page 123 and 124:
“Pew, National Geographic Applaud
Page 125 and 126:
DOCUMENT CONTROL DATA (Security mar
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