ABSTRACT
Naval warfare encompasses all the activities conducted during peacetime and in war by maritime forces (military and paramilitary/law-enforcement agencies) at and from the sea with the aim to defend and/or advance a country’s security interests. This chapter investigates how, compared to other components of the national defence apparatus, maritime forces offer unique advantages to statecraft, especially in their contribution in seeking to secure the peacetime objectives of defence policy. Within this context, the chapter expands the explanatory power of the framework originally developed by Ken Booth by integrating in it new military, diplomatic, and constabulary activities that are often conducted in ‘peacetime’. These activities include ‘minor’ military actions such as maritime strike and sea-lift; the inclusion of HADR, previously considered as a type of expeditionary mission, within the spectrum of ‘diplomatic’ missions; and the use of non-lethal force to enforce contested sovereign and maritime claims as a way to widen the currently too narrow understanding of constabulary roles as pre-eminently cooperative actions aimed at securing maritime governance.
