‘Pakistan Navy meeting Indian Ocean security challenges’

Paper presented by Rear Adm Khan Hasham Bin Saddique at Galle Dialogue - 2011:

Pakistan being an important player and stakeholder will continue to contribute effectively and play its due role in promoting peace and stability in Indian Ocean, states R Adm Khan Hasham Bin Saddique of Pakistan Navy during the Galle Dialogue. While appreciating the conduct of forum he thanked the Sri Lanka government especially Defence and Urban Development Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the Commander of Sri Lankan Navy Vice Admiral D. W. S. Dissanayake for inviting Pakistan Navy to attend this important gathering of maritime experts.

Following is the text:

The global security landscape having undergone radical transformation following tragic events of 9/11 has spawned highly complex and multifaceted challenges. The un-abetting struggle against extremism that ensued engulfs many nation states causing huge socio-economic impact.

Rear Adm Khan Hasham Bin Saddique

The region has been in the midst of this radical transformation in global security paradigm. The region remains afflicted with six of the 23 active high intensity conflicts ongoing in the world. Many regional nations also continue to spend heavily on military resulting in massive arm build up on land at sea.

Regional maritime context

In the regional maritime context, Indian Ocean lapping the shores of three continents is the smallest but most strategic waterway in the world not to mention 2.6 billion people residing in 51 states including a few land locked ones in Indian Ocean Rim.

The Indian Ocean spanning some 69 million sq km is the home to some of the world’s most important choke points and Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs). Within Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea becomes exponentially significant due to the energy security considerations. A total of 17 million barrels of crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz every day. More than 17,500 tankers and 7,300 Cargo ships pass through the Gulf each year.

All this traffic passes close to Pakistan’s coast, which puts us in a very important strategic perspective.

Regional countries

The region with some 66 percent of world’s proven oil reserves supplies only about 30 percent of world’s oil requirement. Therefore, in future the energy supply from the Gulf and consequently its importance is bound to increase. However, owing to the presence of perennial regional conflicts and struggle for power in the Gulf, safety and security of the Sea Lines of Communication and choke points in the region is as challenging as it is strategically imperative.

Any disruption in energy flow through the Arabian Sea can have disastrous consequences for both regional and extra regional countries because of heavy dependence. Thus, maritime security of North Arabian Sea (NAS) has attained greater significance with respect to freedom of navigation and uninterrupted flow of energy.

With geo economic consideration assuming primacy in strategic thoughts no wonder this region evinces interest of all major players.

The maritime security challenges in Indian Ocean are both multidimensional and multifaceted and involve a host of non-traditional or non-military threats and challenges.

Threats like maritime terrorism, drug trafficking and piracy have acquired trans-regional dimension. Besides, narco-arms and human smuggling remain rampant in the region and are further complicating the security matrix.

Maritime security challenges

With respect to terrorism at sea maritime domain presents not only the medium by which this threat can move, but offers a broad array of potential targets that fit the terrorists’ operational objectives. Hence, maritime terrorism has emerged as a formidable threat to ships and maritime infrastructure and is now taking on a singular importance in terms of national and international counter terrorism planning.

As maritime realm is by design conducive to such threat contingencies there is a real danger of terrorists attacking high profile and relatively unguarded and vulnerable targets using busy sea routes, commercial ports and naval bases. Terrorists can develop effective attack capabilities using a variety of platforms such as suicide boats, commercial vessels as launch platforms or take advantage of a vessel’s legitimate cargo such as chemicals, petroleum, or liquefied natural gas, as the explosive component of an attack. In addition to maritime terrorism, the increase in Incidents of piracy especially in Gulf of Aden has contributed to the spectre of escalating maritime crime.

The piracy has expanded both in geographical scope and degree of violence. However, acts of piracy cannot be tackled at sea alone as borne out by the evidence over the last few years. It is a problem that essentially emanates from political chaos that prevails on land.

There is thus a concurrent need to address the problems of governance in Somalia.

The phenomenon of illegal and unregulated fishing off the Somalia sometimes referred as pirates of other kind which must also be ceased. An important adjunct to maritime terrorism is drugs and arms trafficking. Drug trafficking is by far the most lucrative means of making quick money, which is perhaps used to finance terror networks and arms trafficking. Afghanistan, supplies about 90 percent of the global market of illegal opiates. Hence, it is imperative to curb drugs and arms trafficking through the sea and to deny its trafficking to outside world. Gunrunning by sea is also the safest means for transferring arms and ammunition worldwide.

Maritime crime

Another dimension to maritime crime is smuggling of commodities such as oil, consumer goods and human trafficking which has grown phenomenally in recent years. There has been a progression over time from contraband in low value goods to high value items.

The human trafficking has led to ingress of illegal immigrants in some of the regional countries, which has been a cause of increased social turmoil and crimes. Finally a non-military but significant challenge to maritime security forces is maritime pollution and environmental disasters. Oil-related disasters at sea are a major source of concern not only for environmentalists but mariners as well.

The oil spillage incidents, which occurred in Pakistan in 2003 and on the South East Coast of Mauritius in February 2005 are cases in point, which caused considerable damage to the maritime environment.

Regional governments are deeply concerned with major oil spills or wrecks of oil tankers at narrow approaches to harbours and choke points, since such spills or wrecks can seriously affect the free flow of merchant shipping traffic.

The world today has become simply too interconnected and interdependent. This makes it difficult for any nation to single-handedly provide for its own security and economic wellbeing. We, therefore, need to develop strategies to respond and build cooperation and trust at both regional and international levels to deal with the growing maritime challenges.

Economic diversities

Accordingly, recent years have seen an increasing realization of the utility of maritime security cooperation among regional nations and shared commitments to safety and security have become a high priority. However, these are tempered by a strong desire to carefully guarantee national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. Thus, such cooperation can only be developed through the process of mutual respect and confidence building.

The Indian Ocean Region has extreme economic diversities, where some of the fastest growing economies live in close proximity with some of the poorest countries of the world. The maritime security related problems that confront the region are not ‘small’ by any standards.

To be continued