Sea Control - Sea Control 344 - The Western Indian Ocean's Militarization Dilemma

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Links1. Maritime Security and the Western Indian Ocean's Militarization Dilemma, by Christian Bueger and Jan Stockbruegger, African Security Review, April 4, 2022. 2. Safe Seas

Hey, folks, it's Jared. Alexia Bulagi is your host and editor today, and she's joined by Christian Brugger and John Stockbrugger to discuss the militarization dilemma in the Western Indian Ocean. We are still looking for additional audio editors. We're happy to provide you some very basic training materials and instruction in a low stress environment. So if you're interested in finding a way to contribute to SimSec and add to your resume and personal skill set, please send us an email with your resume to ccontrol at simsec.org.

Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast network, The Bilge Pumps, you can find Alex, Jamie, Drac, and a pot of iron brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And on that note, I'll turn it over to Kimbersman. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today, I'm joined by Christian Brugger and Jan Stockbrugger, and we are going to be discussing their latest piece, Maritime Security and the Western Indian Ocean's Militarization Dilemma. Welcome to both of you. Could you please first introduce yourselves to our audience, please?

Yes, hello there. I'm Christian Brugger. I'm a professor in international relations at the University of Copenhagen. I'm Jan Stockbrugger. I'm a visiting assistant professor at the moment at Brown University, working also on international relations. Thanks a lot to both of you. As a reminder, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we may be associated. So first, to begin this interview, could you please talk to us about the genesis of this article, why and how did you come up with this subject?

Sure, I can start off. So six years ago, Christian and I published a paper in the Russia Journal in which we basically analyzed the state of maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean, right? And both of us felt that, you know, a lot of things had changed since then, and so it was time to kind of re-evaluate and, like, re-check the situation. and you know what we did find out was basically that yes a lot of things have changed and that the major problems and issues facing the region are not the same that they were like you know six years ago so that's what we've been writing about in this new paper and you know christian has been traveling a lot to the to the region to the western indian ocean so it's like a really good and like in-depth understanding of the issues and you know like problems facing the region

at the moment. Thank you very much, Jan, for this explanation. Maybe we could start by giving a definition of what we mean by maritime security and what it encompasses. And I know no one more relevant for this kind of attempt than you, Christian Berger. So could you please help us with that? Yeah, thank you very much for the question. Indeed, I've been writing a little bit here and there on the concept of maritime security and also how to understand it. I think what is very important here firstly is that there's no global or universal understanding of what maritime security is. It is very much a perspective question, a question of positionality from where you look at it. So an understanding of maritime security certainly looks different

from the United States than it does from a small island state such as Seychelles. So that is quite important. In my recent work, largely with Tim Edmonds of the University of Bristol, we have come to settle on an understanding of maritime security where we distinguish three different kind of dimensions. And the first one is an interstate dimension. And here we're talking about power projection. We're talking about interstate disputes, but also about gray zone warfare, which is increasingly becoming important.

The second dimension is extremist violence and terrorism. And the third one, what we call blue crime. That is different kinds of expression of transnational organized crime at sea. Piracy is clearly the most prominent here. We're also talking about smuggling and environmental crimes, such as illegal fishing. And that's very much also the understanding of maritime security that underlies our analysis in the paper. Thanks a lot for this explanation on the subject, which is key to understand what will come further. So to dive into the subject, could you give us, Jan, now an idea of what the different maritime security challenges in the Western Indian Oceans are?

What were the dynamics in the past few years and where do we stand now? Yeah, that's a fantastic question. I think one of the major developments really is the decline of piracy of Somalia, right? That was kind of what triggered the international engagement in the region back in 2008, 2009. But we haven't seen a major piracy attack off the coast of Somalia since basically 2012. Pirates still operate in the region, right? So they are still there, but kind of like they no longer threaten shipping to the degree that they used to be. So piracy is still a problem, but it has been successfully suppressed for the time being by international neighbors.

But we have seen that actors, states in the region, pay a lot of attention to other issues and maritime crimes. That includes illegal fishing and drug trafficking through the Indian Ocean, especially from Afghanistan to East Africa and the Middle East. And also illegal fishing, which is a major problem in the waters, especially in East Africa, and most importantly, in the waters of Somalia. There's also the continuing threat of terrorism or terrorism-related activities. I think the most prominent example in recent years is the terrorist attack on Maladib law enforcement agencies in 2020. And we also see conflict spillover. In Mozambique, for example, rebels have attacked ports and coastal infrastructures in recent years. The Houthi rebels in Yemen, they have attacked shipping, especially shipping related to the Arab coalition that fights in the civil war in Yemen.

We also see many interstate disputes and geopolitical rivalries in competition. This includes maritime territorial disputes between Kenya and Somalia, but also between Britain and Mauritius or the Chagos Islands, which currently host a U.S. naval base. And then there are attacks on shipping, like gray zone attacks that are part of the Israeli-Iranian shadow war. We've also seen attacks and sabotage acts by suspected Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz. which is a major shipping lane for oil and then we see more and more naval activity

in the region to kind of help police the waters and to address these crimes which is really great to stabilize the region but it could also lead to new problems and competition that kind of affect stability in the region.

Thanks a lot Jan. Now to continue further and give a clear picture of the context to our auditors. Would you mind, Chris, talking about the main countries involved in the Western Indian Ocean and what are their interests in the region? Yeah, absolutely. There has been quite a remarkable shift, actually, in attention on the Western Indian Ocean. So the region does not look like it used to look like 10 years ago, where everything was about Somali piracy. We can clearly

see here that all of the major naval powers now take an interest in the Western Indian Ocean and that's to some degree new in terms of how they take an interest in the region. Often we think of the Western Indian Ocean

as a marginal region but that has clearly changed and this new attention clearly stands for for a major development as well. And it's largely because of the turn to thinking in terms of the Indo-Pacific. Now the Western Indian Ocean is part of a new larger strategic theatre, and while much of the attention was initially on Southeast Asia or the Pacific, this is now also having a major effect on the Western Indian Ocean region. And we see this, for instance,

in the European Union and their new interest in the Indo-Pacific and their announcement that the Western Indian Ocean would now be an area of interest where they would want to establish a permanent naval presence. But quite obviously, Russia, for instance, has engaged in the region much more substantially. China now has a naval base in Djibouti, which is first overseas base after all.

And let's not forget it's also a major theater for the United States there. So there's quite a substantial shift in attention and we're trying to lay out in the paper is that this is actually quite problematic in different ways. And Yanni can tell us a little bit more about that in a minute. Yeah. Yeah, of course, you talk about it in depth in your article. But to give a brief idea to our auditors, could you please describe us the geopolitical situation of the region and mainly how political instability affects the challenges at sea? Yeah, great. That's a really good question. I think we have to be mindful of the fact that the region needs more international support to protect its waters.

Many states in the region simply don't have large navies or coast guards to protect their waters. So they basically need all the help they can get, whether it's capacity building or actually external naval forces helping to police these waters, which are, like, so important for, like, international trade. The problem here is that, you know, many of these external actors are not just there to help the region or to address maritime crimes such as piracy or drug trafficking or illegal fishing, right? As Christian pointed out, like, the Indian Ocean or the Western Indian Ocean is not part of the Indo-Pacific,

which means that, you know, states or, like, the external naval powers want to, like, establish a geostrategic presence in the region and kind of secure the shipping lanes primarily against their rivals. So that includes, you know, mainly, like, you know, the kind of coalition led by the United States and the European Union on the one hand, and on the other hand, China, which also, as Christian pointed out, is kind of establishing a naval presence in the region.

So, again, like, the problem is that these external actors basically import geopolitical tensions in the region, which, you know, they were not there before, right? They're imported into the region by the presence of external actors, and we believe that this could have, like, a negative impact on the overall maritime security situation in the region, right, especially in the undermined cooperation on maritime security. I'm going to give you, like, an example of what this could look like.

If you want to address maritime crimes, external navies need to coordinate the activities. They need to share information, intelligence, and so on. But the question is, will the American and the Chinese navies do that? Will they cooperate and work together to address maritime crimes? That's a major problem. The other problem is that many smaller states could be really dragged into these rivalries between the U.S., China, and also other states. For example, they could be forced to choose and pick a site.

This has not happened yet, but it's definitely a major concern in the region for many smaller states. And we have already seen how this really affects states in Southeast Asia who are really worried that at some point they might have to choose between the United States or China. So this is a major problem that affects the region, and we think will intensify in the coming years.

Okay, so both of you have made a great job at explaining the challenges. So now we'll turn to the core concept and key concept of your article, which is the militarization dilemma. Could you explain this concept to us and how it is a real challenge to maritime security in the region? Absolutely, I can do that. So basically describing the concept of the militarization dilemma is a situation in which smaller states rely on external military support and engagement to protect their waters, right? But at the same time, this reliance on external support and military engagement makes these states and the broader region vulnerable and risks, as I said, importing geopolitical tensions into the region.

So basically that these tensions and competition between major powers could undermine cooperation in the region to protect the regional waters and to fight maritime crimes such as piracy and drug trafficking to address gray zone attacks and so on. This is basically, why is this a dilemma for smaller states, or the region more broadly? On the one hand, they rely on external military support, but on the other hand, more and more external military engagement by external great powers and navies also risks undermining cooperation and risks importing tensions into the region. And then these tensions could, in the end, undermine efforts and could undermine cooperation to address key maritime security challenges. One way to think about this, about the militarization dilemma, is that it captures the impact of security competition between major powers on smaller states and maritime security cooperation more broadly. So while the security dilemma basically captures the idea that external actors compete for their core interests to protect their survival and their core interests in the region,

but the militarization dilemma basically affects how smaller states deal with these great powers and with the external military presence, because they depend on external military support. That's a major opportunity for them. But at the same time, it risks dragging them into the security competition between the external actors and it might undermine cooperation to address many of the other security challenges, maritime security challenges that affect the region. Yes, absolutely. So I think this conceptualization is very interesting and fascinating to study and useful to encapsulate the tension that is at stake in the region. this situation specific to the western indian ocean is very challenging but can we learn from and compare with other geographical settings and geopolitical settings in the world to try to maybe find ways to address the issue or learn from it i think what we're looking at here is a is a general dynamic and we can really see this

across the board, different regions that we are looking at, that maritime security is increasingly about employing naval forces, military forces for geopolitical interests. And that is new. That hasn't been like this five, six years ago. There was always a trend towards, but now the dynamics are clearly changing. Let me tell you also a little bit on where we found this militarization dilemma for the first time. It is a very practical challenge for, I would say, all smaller countries in the Indian Ocean, but also the Atlantic and the Pacific.

And originally, what triggered our discussion was, I was in December, I was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seychelles, and I gave a talk about the Indo-Pacific and what it might mean for Seychelles. And I was alerting them that it might be problematic that so many naval forces are now operating and everyone wants to open a naval base in Seychelles and so on. And then a junior diplomat, she raised her hand and she basically said, but isn't that fantastic? So many naval forces, they can help us in protecting our exclusive economic zone. We cannot do it ourselves. And there is the dilemma.

and all smaller countries will be facing this situation. And we're actually currently working on our follow-up piece where we're looking at how this plays out in the broader Indo-Pacific. So stay tuned. Hopefully, by the end of the year, that analysis will also be available. Thank you. I will wait for it indeed. So now, in the face of these challenges to maritime security, you argue that institutions are key,

yet most of them are not able to mitigate the geopolitical competition in the region. Only two of them, you cite, the shared awareness and deconfliction mechanism and the contact group on piracy of the coast of Somalia could do so. Could you explain to us why and the importance of institutions and why most of them are not adapted to the challenges at stake? yeah this is a really important question really um so the way we think about is that institutions

don't really like help us to like overcome the militarization dilemma or competition in the region more broadly but they're really important to kind of make sure that states maintain a certain level of cooperation to tackle kind of joint threats and challenges like piracy drug trafficking, illegal fishing but also challenges related to climate change, for instance, right? So the idea is basically that institutions are really important to kind of maintain cooperation

that competition and the militarization dilemma does not derail from the region and external actors from tackling other challenges. So for the Western Indian Ocean, this means we really need to strengthen cooperation, not only

between external naval actors like the US, China, the European Union, but also between these external actors and smaller states in the region. And also with regional organizations like the African Union. So it's really about fostering a dialogue on maritime security and broader geopolitical and geostrategic challenges that face the region, right? The problem basically is that at the moment there are many institutions dealing with maritime security, right? But many of them, most of them, are very technical, right?

They have a very narrow focus, mainly on capacity building and information sharing. They don't really address geopolitical tensions, right? They're not really a forum where states discuss broader issues and challenges. And we think that the only institutions that are broad enough to bring together different states, but also provide a space for broader geopolitical discussions are really a shade and the contact group on piracy of the coast of Somalia. Thank you.

So my next question is obviously what makes the shared awareness and deconfliction mechanism and the contact group on the piracy of the coast of Somalia so relevant to deal with these geopolitical challenges? Could you give us some background history Their main goal and actors, as well as the strength and weaknesses of these institutions, to face the challenges of maritime security. Both of these organizations are actually super fascinating entities.

They're remarkable in several ways. So both Shade, as well as the Contact Group, they came out of the need to coordinate the fight against piracy. So they were born in 2008. Initially, they were rather small initiatives, but they grew substantially with the growing engagement. At some point of time in the contact group, there were over 80 states, international organizations, experts, and so on participating at many, many of the plenary meetings myself as well. and the contact group is literally a diplomatic mechanism that allows to form a consent on the situation at sea and Shade is the military version of this there's a reason why it's called deconfliction

because originally there was the risk that so many naval forces are now operating in the region you need to have some sort of coordination mechanism what is super fascinating about both of these bodies is that they have been very flexible, very adaptable, and produce what we call in the debate experimental governance. So they are trying things out and they change and figure out whether they work or not and so on.

And that's, of course, also part of the reason why both of these bodies are still there. Let's not forget the decline of Somali piracy. The last major successful attack took place in 2012. that is now 10 years ago and to some degree you could have imagined that both of these bodies would die out but the opposite is the case they've been reinventing themselves and particular shade has gradually looked into other issues than than piracy the contact group took a little bit longer But finally, this year in February, it was decided it shall now be renamed into the contact group on illicit maritime activities in the Western Indian Ocean.

And that provides a large opportunity now, a policy window for ensuring that not only other issues than piracy are on the agenda, but that we're also seeing the geopolitical importance of both of these bodies in handling the militarization dilemma, but quite obviously also in ensuring that maritime insecurity is being reduced in the region. So I really would like to encourage all of the listeners to have a look at Shade and the contact group, because it tells us that even in the difficult situations, global powers can cooperate. China, Russia, India, everyone is contributing to both of these institutions. and they are core instruments for achieving a global consent on what to do and what to agree on. Thanks a lot to both of you for these fascinating insights and for having deployed the main challenges that you tackle in your article that encourage the listeners to look at and to read

because it gives a lot of insight both for research but also it is very operational. so now my last question to conclude i think we cannot ignore the current situation and i am wondering about how the current conflict between russia and ukraine could further affect the region complexify the relations between actors and further destabilize maritime security so maybe could you give us your perspective on the challenges so russia is obviously like a really important actor globally but also in the region both military and diplomatically economically i think like we should not expect any russian military

adventures into the western indian ocean right the russians have their hands full in ukraine right the navy is currently bottled up in the in the black sea because turkey has closed the so don't think about it the Russians will come into the western Indian Ocean it's not going to happen in the near future but I think Russia is still a really important actor

it can have an impact on maritime security in the region I think we should really pay attention to the Iran nuclear deal if Russia derails the reestablishment of that deal, that could have really major negative implications on maritime security in the western Indian Ocean

After all, the suspected Iranian attacks on shipping in the region in 2018 were part of the response to the Trump administration's pressure tactics and sanctions against Iran. If Russia managed to undermine the deal, it could have really negative implications for maritime security. I think another thing to really watch out for is food. Russia and Ukraine are like, I think, 30% of the global wheat exports come from these two countries. At the moment, already, food prices are increasing all over the world. Plus, of course, oil prices and energy prices more generally. Many countries in the region already face food shortages, right? They're at the brink of famine, basically.

And, you know, especially countries like Somalia and Yemen. If they are now faced with food shortages and increasing price for oil and gas, this could lead to more instability, right? And if there's more instability in these countries, this could have like really negative impact on maritime security right if you don't piracy you know spillover of conflict into the regional waters and all kinds of other issues right so this i think is really something we have to watch out for right so it's about russian navy no russian diplomatic efforts yes food prices big problem very clear thank you this was a fascinating

talk but that's all the time we have for today i'd like to thank my guests christian burger and where can we find you online and what are you working on next thank you for today's conversation that was very enjoyable i'd like to invite you to to read the article visit the website of safe seas at safe seas.net where you'll find this study but also many other interesting studies on maritime security in the western indian ocean the gulf of guinea and the broader Indo-Pacific. We'll keep on working on the militarization dilemma as it is quite important.

And part of our research is indeed also to look into the importance of institutions in the Indo-Pacific. So more to follow there. Thank you for today. Thanks a lot. And you, Jen? Yeah, first off, thank you so much for having us here. This was a really, really fascinating conversation.

Yeah, I'm working with Christian in the next couple of months on this paper on broader Indo-Pacific and security institutions. But we're also working on a new project on ocean governance more generally that, you know, we hope will kick off very soon. So there will be lots of stuff coming out of us on maritime security, maritime competition, ocean governance, and especially on what kind of institutions we need to better govern the oceans in the contemporary challenging times that we are facing. Thanks a lot again and to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time. © transcript Emily Beynon So help me, Bob, I'm pulling in the alley. Why am I pulling in the alley? Help me, Bob, I'm pulling in the alley.

Pulling out the shimbo now.