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| 1 |
ID:
148062
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| Summary/Abstract |
How do anti-piracy forces engage with the coast of Somalia? Several studies have criticised the navies for being ineffective and stumbling in their fight against pirates and in their engagement with local communities. Somali sentiments are reportedly coloured by considerable scepticism towards the international naval effort, not least due to a feeling of double standards towards foreign trawlers seen plundering the country's resources. This study investigates the naval–coastal nexus along the Somali coast by drawing on field research off- and onshore. It finds that anti-piracy forces’ presence have had a considerable impact on the decline in piracy. Moreover, naval–coastal engagement and cooperation run deeper than is commonly perceived. While grievances against illegal fishing are widespread, examination of the fishing sector reveals a significant amount of predation committed by local stakeholders. Competition for fishing sector rents, particularly over distribution of licences, occurs on the local, regional and national levels. Bonds between some pirates, smugglers and officials threaten coastal community development and undermine their security. This study concludes that Somalia's maritime predatory trap can only be broken when former pirate villages are engaged as equal partners in the regional blue economy.
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| 2 |
ID:
172865
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article investigates gold smuggling in the twentieth-century western Indian Ocean. It illustrates how gold, condemned as a ‘barbarous relic’ by international monetary economists and central banks in the immediate post-war period, created an economy in the intermediate zone between a retreating empire and emerging nation-states in India and the Persian Gulf. Bombay and Dubai—connected by mercantile networks, trading dhows, migrants, and ‘smugglers’—were the principal constituencies and key drivers of this trans-regional economy. Partition and the concomitant flight of Indian mercantile capital into Dubai becomes the key to unlocking the many dimensions of smuggling, including its social organization and ethnic constitution. Looked at in such terms, gold smuggling reveals a transnational side to both partition and the post-colonial history of Bombay which has drawn little critical attention from historians. Consequently, it expands the analytic space necessary to explain how Dubai was able to capitalize on the arbitrage possibilities offered by import regulations in India, tap into the global networks of trade and finance, and chart its own course of development as a modern urban space throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.
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| 3 |
ID:
191833
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| 4 |
ID:
102000
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| 5 |
ID:
103161
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| 6 |
ID:
140274
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| Summary/Abstract |
Information Sharing and Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) are at the heart of the contemporary maritime security agenda. The goal of MDA is to develop shared understandings of developments and threats at sea. It is one of the preconditions for coordination and cooperation between diverse maritime security agencies and has often been understood as “key enabler”. MDA is a major technical challenge in terms of collecting and fusing data and developing expert systems for the detection of anomalies. It is also a social, political and legal challenge. This study focuses on the latter. It asks how MDA can be organized and how the socio-political challenges can be addressed. The organization of MDA in Southeast Asia is discussed in-depth, with a focus on three major centres that are the backbone of the regional MDA structure. Although far from perfect, this regional system has become a role model for organizing MDA in other parts of the world. This article explores the functions that the three centres perform in the governance of maritime security in the region. I argue that each of the MDA centres has different strengths, and that their work should be seen as complimentary in an overarching system. The strength of the overall system is in enabling trust and being flexible and adaptable to the changing situation at sea. The conclusion outlines what lessons the system holds for the organization of MDA in other regions with a focus on the Western Indian Ocean.
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| 7 |
ID:
169473
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is now attaining centrestage in the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean. Apart from France and the US, China holds significant interests in the WIO. China’s interests with the WIO states could be divided in four categories: dual-use infrastructure building, politico-diplomatic focus, connectivity-access and military activities. All four are interconnected and facilitate China’s desire to project power. For China, activities in the WIO serve the purpose of ensuring energy supplies, maintaining economic growth and securing military interests. China’s engagement with the WIO states presents difficult challenges for major powers of the Indian Ocean like India.
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| 8 |
ID:
186140
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| Summary/Abstract |
Given various intriguing intersections between geopolitical, geoeconomic, geostrategic, and geo-ecological trends, the Eastern Indian Ocean --especially the Bay of Bengal and its immediate maritime neighbourhood-- will no doubt retain its salience on the vibrant reserach agenda of Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific studies. For reasons no less compelling, the Western Indian Ocean also demands and deserves serious engagement by both academia and policy makers. A bi-focal approach centered on the subcontinent, and one that is mindful of this intersectionality, is needed to ensure a holistic understanding of the vast and diverse Indian Ocean region; a region of interlinked yet distinct sub-regions.
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| 9 |
ID:
106400
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| 10 |
ID:
192907
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| Summary/Abstract |
With the world system moving from a bipolar to a multipolar structure,
and the world agenda shifting from narrow high-politics to lowpolitics, there is a need to critically examine the impact of emerging
countries on regionalism and the regional systems of the Global South.
Uplifted by its economic growth, India is exerting to play a more
active role beyond its immediate neighbourhood by developing critical
partnerships with regional and extra-regional players. As a result of
India’s expanding ties with the Vanilla Island countries, India has
recently been accepted as an observer in the Indian Ocean
Commission. While France has traditionally dominated this region
due to its shared history, China has also been increasingly asserting
its position here. Against the backdrop of Chinese presence continuing
to shore up as well as the mounting tension between the USA and
Iran over the Mozambique Channel, the competition between these
powers could spill over into the region and impact the peace, stability,
and ongoing constructive cooperation efforts. This essay takes India
as a case study, and attempts to determine the impact of India’s
assertive policies in the region. By examining the theoretical constructs
of regionalism, the paper examines the impact of India’s increasing
assertiveness in the region, and its impact on WIO regionalism at a
theoretical as well as empirical level.
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| 11 |
ID:
173915
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| Summary/Abstract |
Maritime security capacity-building is a growing field of international activity. It is an area that requires further study, as a field in its own right, but also as an archetype to develop insights for capacity-building and security sector reform in other arenas. This article is one of the first to analyse this field of activity. Our empirical focus is on the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Here, international actors have launched multiple capacity-building projects, initially in response to Somali piracy. We document the significance, extent and variety of capacity-building activities in this region and examine the ways in which capacity-building at sea has incorporated innovative characteristics that develop and expand the capacity-building agenda as traditionally understood. Our conclusion highlights the need to pay more attention to the maritime domain in international security and development studies and considers ways in which the maritime capacity-building experience may offer important lessons for other fields of international policy.
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| 12 |
ID:
130878
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Africa's coastal zones and ocean spaces bear certain unique features as different from those of the other zones of the Indian Ocean region. One such maritime characteristic is that the continent is virtually flanked by sea on all four sides. Such uniqueness of the region has both positive and negative consequences for the coastal countries of Africa. The adverse consequences of the maritime topography, such as piracy and illegal fishing, are rather more seriously felt by today by the regional states. The unstable and fragile political regimes of many of the African littoral countries compound the problems of managing their maritime domains. Maritime criminal and illegal operations are confined not only to the coastal states but also to the island states of the continent. The inability of these states to combat the threats regularly posed by maritime non-state actors has resulted in the enormous naval militarisation of the African waters by foreign naval forces, Western and non-Western. How far and how long the states of the region should depend on foreign countries for ensuring the safety of their coastal zones will also determine the level of independence that these states will retain to keep their maritime wealth and domain under their sovereign control.
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| 13 |
ID:
112191
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2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Indian Ocean region, being a vast geographical entity, is composed of various regional and sub-regional entities. This article addresses prominent maritime developments in the South Western Indian Ocean (SWIO) region of the Indian Ocean Rim and highlights the multi-dimensional growth of strategic maritime activities in the region. The developments, which range from security cooperation among nations to a rise in maritime piracy and regional cooperation for fisheries management, lend a distinct maritime perspective to the emerging geostrategic and economic discourse in this oceanic region of East Africa, dotted as it is with island and coastal states. The article then juxtaposes these prominent developments with the main concerns of the maritime states and their efforts to meet the challenges posed by the developments. The article also brings out the relevance of these concerns in the context of India's military maritime strategy and foreign policy goals in the region, underscoring the self-evident case for a more focused and multi-pronged engagement with the region, to harness the potential of mutually beneficial cooperation across various maritime disciplines. The likely areas of cooperation are discussed, with emphasis on the advantages that could accrue to India from these endeavours.
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| 14 |
ID:
181710
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| Summary/Abstract |
Maritime narcotics trafficking in the Indian Ocean has increasingly become a major security concern for India and other countries in the region, with the Afghanistan–Pakistan corridor being the primary conduit facilitating illegal drug trade via the sea-route in the Western Indian Ocean. However, there is a gap in understanding the extent and manner of the criminal syndicate involvement in the maritime narcotics drug trafficking in the region. This commentary looks at the emerging maritime-bound illicit drug trafficking in the region and also analyses the modus of operandi of the criminal syndicate in Pakistan to evade detection from the law-enforcement. It also examines the role of Combined Maritime Force (CMF) and regional navies in detecting and tracking the maritime narcotics trafficking in the Western Indian Ocean.
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| 15 |
ID:
185520
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| Summary/Abstract |
Ten years after the last large scale piracy attacks in the Western Indian Ocean, other maritime crimes such as illicit fishing and maritime smuggling have emerged. The spill over of conflicts in Yemen and Mozambique and maritime grey-zone activities have also become major maritime security issues. Yet, perhaps the most worrying – though largely underappreciated – trend is the surge of naval activity and strategic competition in the region. This is a major dilemma for the region: The region relies on external military actors to protect vital shipping lanes, but the presence of these actors also risks importing geopolitical tensions that could undermine regional maritime stability. How can the region address these maritime insecurities and the evolving militarisation dilemma? We investigate the regional maritime security architecture to identify institutions that can help the region manage the militarisation dilemma. We argue that only the Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) mechanism and the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) can help mitigate geopolitical competition in the region. Preparing these mechanisms to deal with the militarisation dilemma will be vital for the long-term prosperity of the Western India Ocean.
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| 16 |
ID:
089249
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| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Maritime violence off the Horn of Africa has generated immense global attention. Ships carrying cargo that included oil, military weapons, and chemicals have been attacked. More than 20,000 vessels ply this strategically important area that includes the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the western Indian Ocean every year. To confront the threat of Somali piracy, a combination of national commitment, naval force, and international action has emerged, presaging greater partnering, utilization of the rule of law to address regional instability at sea, 'out-of-area' employment of naval forces, and the integration of international organizations to facilitate repression of maritime piracy.
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| 17 |
ID:
148976
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| Summary/Abstract |
International operations against piracy in the Western Indian Ocean are due to wind down. Some major external navies will probably remain, but the region’s states will have to adjust to their new role in managing the challenging security environment. In this article, Christian Bueger and Jan Stockbruegger examine the options for cooperation in this volatile region.
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| 18 |
ID:
130642
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper examines power relations along the African coast of the Indian Ocean in terms of space and time. Spatial strategies, it argues, are swiftly emerging through zoning mechanisms which territorialise the governance of ocean space. These strategies can supplement and disrupt more traditional temporal strategies, which facilitate speed and freedom of movement for commercial and military traffic. The article focusses on the US proposition to provide maritime security sector reform to African coastal states as a form of temporal strategy designed to shape new zoning practices in favour of freedom of movement. The paper concludes by arguing that the US strategy implies a policing approach that generates maritime surveillance capacities along land-sea lanes of communication. It contrasts this surface form of knowledge with the need for African coastal states to generate the sort of oceanographic data presently undergirding the emerging blue economies of Europe.
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