ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a sketch of the global maritime domain, examines salient security issues affecting the oceans, and considers current and future challenges facing policy makers and societies as they attempt to reduce maritime insecurity. There is increasing awareness of the shared dangers complicating maritime security. The changed nature of security brings together the nontraditional partners. Because navies provide necessary presence and logistical capabilities, their governments and various nongovernmental groups are merged together to address the specific sources of maritime insecurity, which include illegal, unreported, and underreported fishing; piracy; illicit trafficking of people, drugs, and weapons; and maritime pollution. Illegal fishing and piracy only recaptured international attention in 2008, but illicit trafficking of drugs by sea has provoked a maritime security response for decades. Further, the accident emphasizes that governments, including the United States, lack adequate prevention, regulation, and accident response capabilities to safeguard the maritime security of the US Gulf Coast.
