Are security operations on the high seas as much about fighting crime as projecting power?

There are a number of rising security challenges playing out on the world’s oceans – and a number of reasons that states get involved to address them. Taking the case of the Indian Ocean, DIIS Researcher Jessica Larsen examines this trend.

From counter-terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to counter-piracy law enforcement and maritime security capacity-building in the late 2010s – the Indian Ocean has been a testing-ground for an evolving complex of international cooperation and burden-sharing.

The chapter tells the story of how the maritime domain has been engaged through various security interventions, which not only have the aim of combatting crime and ensuring stability. They are, the chapter argues, also part of an evolving trend of power projection at sea. This finding nuances prevailing assumptions in mainstream maritime security studies, which approach maritime security operations as examples of governance and international collaboration in response to insecurity. It brings to the fore how participation in maritime security operations are as much indirect ways for states to sustain broader strategic priorities and thus are a central dimension of rising geopolitical tensions that are playing out today.

The chapter is published in Maritime security: Counter-Terrorism Lessons from Maritime Piracy and Narcotics Interdiction, a volume edited by Edward R. Lucas, Samuel Rivera-Paez, Thomas Crosbie and Felix Falck Jensen (IOS Press, 2020).