ABSTRACT
A distinct feature of the political region of Southeast Asia is its maritime entrails. The coming of modernity with the advent of Portuguese, Dutch, British, Spanish, French, and subsequently, Soviet and US power continued to underline the importance of the naval bases of imperial control. A survey of existing literature concerning the subject of maritime security at the time of writing did not supply the present work with any consensual definition of exactly what it is to be secured for or against. Traditional approaches to strategic studies would invoke the naval discourses of generating force projection assets for the twin roles of advancing conquest and policing trade routes vital for the politico-economic vitality of empire. The Straits of Malacca, and its adjoining Straits of Singapore, have generated no small amount of rival claims of sovereignty ever since its littoral states gained independence from their respective colonial masters.
