Transnational Threats and Maritime Responses

Kimberley L. Thachuk and Sam J. Tangredi

Transnational threats are activities perpetrated by nonstate actors that not only transcend national borders but also have global impact. Yet—at least prior to September 11, 2001—they seemed easy to overlook because they are so varied in nature and scope. Further, their effects are obscured by the fact that many are somewhat insidious with gradual and long-term consequences rather than immediate ones. With the exception of global terrorism, most transnational threats clearly have a lower overall profile in global security considerations than do big-power geopolitics, regional wars, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. But while some transnational threats are not direct threats to U.S. national security, they are threats to the U.S. economy and the quality of life of its citizens and therefore threaten U.S. national interests. The combined effect of transnational threats such as drug, military hardware, and human trafficking, piracy, and acts of terrorism—along with their critical enablers, corruption and money laundering—cannot be overlooked for their seriously damaging long-term consequences for global political and economic stability and thus for U.S. security.

All transnational threats are not the result of contemporary globalization. Indeed, most of the underlying activities—such as smuggling, corruption, and uncontrolled migrations—have occurred throughout history. Many have been enduring concerns for national governments. But globalization has increased both the range and effects of these activities by providing the physical means to transcend even the most surveilled borders and to move across ever-increasing distances. At the same time, the increasing globalization of national economies now means that the effects of these threats on any one country (based on the level of integration with the global economy) can have devastating effects on all.

The U.S. Government dedicates considerable resources to combating transnational threats but usually deals with each threat individually or in a stovepipe fashion. This is not an optimal approach. Not only are resources potentially wasted by duplication of overhead functions, but also it inhibits the flow of information, lessons learned, and best practices across the teams and agencies that focus on individual threats.

With that in mind, this chapter begins by identifying and analyzing transnational threats according to collective categories. The value of this method will be to uncover some of their common traits and therefore discover the vulnerabilities they share. Further, many international criminal groups have begun to diversify their activities, and hence, a law enforcement organization that directs its limited resources and energy at fighting drug trafficking might be tempted to overlook a parallel activity—such as trafficking of human migrants—that is being conducted by the same group or one that has a relationship with that group. Such related criminal groups often employ the same routes, launder their money using the same schemes, and conduct multiple parallel activities. Overlooking or simply passing the information to an agency that deals with a different, parallel threat does not provide for a synergistic use of countercrime resources. Also, many lessons have already been learned in combating some of the threats. These lessons might successfully be used if applied to other threats. The solution is to analyze and understand transnational threats in terms of collective categories and to organize to deal with them in a collective fashion.

Following the analysis of these threats, the chapter suggests ways in which maritime forces might be used, in coordination with other agencies, to combat them. This effort is not to imply that naval and other maritime forces would be capable of taking the primary role against any specific threat, nor to suggest that collectively these threats be the sole focus of naval operations. But it is meant to point to the fact that in a globalized world in which traditional major theater wars have become increasingly rare, it makes sense to use America’s overwhelming maritime power to deter or defeat our most likely and insidious enemy: the cumulative effects of transnational threats. In effect, that is what we are now doing in conducting a war against global terrorism. Maritime roles in combating terrorism will be discussed in detail in the following chapters. This chapter examines the aspect of terrorism in general but focuses primarily on the parallel transnational threats that facilitate some of the activities of the terrorist networks.

In the context of the future security environment outlined by chapter 2, the transnational threats discussed can be viewed as part of the asymmetric challenge to U.S. and global security but also as a backlash of a sort against the beneficial aspects of globalization—the aspects that promise to mitigate the environments in which transnational threats can flourish. It should also be noted that many of the technological advances postulated in chapter 2 can be used to further transnational criminal activities.

The Actors

Transnational threats originate primarily from two types of nonstate actors: terrorist groups and organized criminal groups. Both groups can be classified as international criminals because they commit acts that are prohibited by most domestic laws, international criminal laws, and international agreements. While the actors themselves are often conceived of as the threats, it perhaps more accurate to state that their actions are what constitute the threats.

In previous decades, terrorists were viewed largely as directed by foreign governments and focused on a particular set of political motivations. This made them easier to identify and monitor. While some terrorist groups still benefit from state sponsorship, many of today’s terrorist groups have not only lost their more comprehensible ideals but also are increasingly turning to smuggling and other criminal activities to fund their operations. For their part, organized crime groups were considered domestic law enforcement concerns until fairly recently. However, as their activities have increasingly become more international in scope and perhaps more intense, the recognition that they pose threats to national security has gradually developed. Certainly this is the case for drug trafficking, the smuggling of military hardware, money laundering, market manipulation and other financial fraud, international prostitution rings and the smuggling of aliens, and the smuggling of contraband. Further, there are numerous links between the two types of actors that, while mostly ad hoc, are increasing as the line between terrorist motivations and criminal enterprise become gradually blurred.

While these criminal groups are ever more transnational in scope, they still have to conduct their operations from within sovereign states. But globalization has facilitated their activities with modern communications systems, technology, and rapid travel. They now have considerable coercive political and economic leverage from largely unknown vantage points in cyberspace. The use of electronic transfers, unfettered Internet access, and high-tech communications equipment such as encryption devices, cellular phones, and satellites has permitted international criminals increasingly to commit faceless crimes that erode states’ authority and to develop vast virtual networks that span multiple regions. While these activities can take place anywhere, criminals find it much easier to operate from states that are either unwilling or unable to detect and disrupt their activities. Countries that have weak institutions of justice and traditions of corruption and personalized rule are faced with a myriad of economic and governance issues, making them unable to designate resources for countering international crime and susceptible to the financial benefits that the latter can bring. They thus suffer from a certain degree of collapse and are unable to govern effectively. As a result, increasingly weak states have become safe havens for criminal groups to conduct international operations with virtual impunity.

Some scholars speculate that countries such as Russia and China will begin to sponsor criminal activities for profit, thereby providing crime groups the political support that they need to operate unfettered. While this remains to be seen, the truth is that the larger criminal groups are very difficult to control. They often undertake campaigns of corruption and extortion against governments to safeguard their operations or resort to armed opposition in alliance with other armed groups. In countries such as Colombia and Russia, the attempts to bring organized criminal groups to justice have met with little success. As their activities become increasingly transnational, criminal groups will not only be more difficult to apprehend, but also beleaguered governments may use jurisdictional arguments to avoid addressing the problem. That is, much of the criminal activity is dependent on demand in other countries, and thus—as the impact of the crimes are felt elsewhere—some states feel it is not incumbent on them to be the ones that must not only attempt to apprehend and try criminals but also pay the economic and social costs for such an endeavor.

The Facilitators

The two main factors that sustain criminal actors’ ability to continue operations are their reliance on the corruptibility of officials and the ability to launder the proceeds of their criminal activity.

Corruption. Corruption is the main vehicle, and likely the most socially damaging activity, by which criminal groups achieve their aims. To protect their business interests, organized crime has engaged in large-scale subornation rackets that help to grease the wheels of illicit commerce. Such campaigns often involve the use of bribery, graft, collusion, and/or extortion of officials and political leaders in numerous countries simultaneously. One of the more dire consequences of corruption has been that organized crime has infested and virtually overrun entire criminal justice systems in some states. This formula efficiently and effectively attacks the very order of society by paying off or threatening officials to alter charges, change court rulings, lose evidence, and not try cases at all. From there, criminal largesse is distributed among members of political parties and the various offices of government as well as the staffs and politicians of local administrations in an attempt to alter policy considerations.

Money Laundering. The purpose of money laundering is to lower the risk of being connected with the crimes from which the money derived and, further, to allow international criminals to integrate operations in the legitimate business world. The fact that somewhere between $300 billion and $500 billion are laundered annually means that international criminals are exploiting significant weaknesses in international financial systems.¹ Illicit capital can be moved through several different countries in one day to disguise its origins and to confuse authorities. Further, the sheer volume and complexity of such transactions, which might have averaged a few hours to complete, usually requires a year of investigation to uncover. Thus, not only do such vast sums of money bankroll illicit transactions of all forms, but they also practically guarantee anonymity and bolster the ability of organized crime groups to be ruthless with impunity.

The Threats

For the purpose of analysis and organized response, transnational threats can be broken down into three collective or functional categories: smuggling, trafficking, and piracy, which are functionally dependent on the transportation of illicit or stolen goods or the interdiction of legally transported goods; acts of terrorism, which are functionally dependent on the acquisition of weapons (both primitive and complex) by nonstate actors; and nascent ecological/social threats, which involve nonstate activities that may not necessarily be under the control of an organized group that benefits from them in any fashion. An obvious relationship between these parallel activities can be discerned: for example, smuggling allows for the transport of weapons acquired by terrorist groups into a target country. Likewise, the trafficking in illegal human migrants can inadvertently spread the nascent transnational threat of infectious diseases.

Smuggling, Trafficking, and Piracy

Drug Trafficking. The illegal narcotics business is estimated to be the second largest industry in the world, meeting the demand of between three and four percent of the world’s population.² The glut of profits that flow from it not only rivals the gross national product of many countries but also is sufficient to undermine legitimate commerce and countries’ balance of payments, monetary systems, and international bank cooperation. Such sums have enabled drug traffickers to become increasingly adept at suborning, undermining, and threatening entire governments and thereby to elude law enforcement efforts and continue their activities with relative freedom.

Trafficking in Military Hardware. Much of the world’s small arms trade is conducted illicitly.³ With the end of the Cold War, a number of countries desperate for foreign exchange are selling their large stockpiles of machineguns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, ammunition, and explosives on the black market. Theft of military hardware and/or the corruption of the officials guarding the stockpiles also account for many of the components available for sale to buyers from insurgent and terrorist groups.

Military hardware and drugs are often exchanged by a number of criminal groups depending on their needs. The net result is that the proliferation of small arms perpetuates situations of civil unrest and encourages militancy rather than negotiated settlements of violence. Populations and governments alike are often held hostage to armed insurgents, which ultimately results in both weakened democracies and regional instability. Conversely, what began as a political revolution in Albania in 1990 was transformed into criminal enterprise in Kosovo and elsewhere after the 1996 economic collapse and the plundering of the national arsenals. Seeing the opportunity presented by the approximately 1 million pilfered small weapons, organized crime quickly developed a network of small arms sales, using previously established drug trafficking routes and contacts, that extended throughout Europe and to the Middle East and the United States.⁴

Smuggling and Trafficking of Humans. The global traffic in humans has become the fastest growing criminal business in the world.⁵ It is often a more attractive business prospect than other highly profitable enterprises such as narcotics and smuggling of military hardware, as it does not require technical expertise or a distribution network. Further, in many countries, the penalties for trafficking in persons are significantly lower than they are for narcotics, for example (which in states such as Malaysia carries the death penalty). The illegal immigrants make payment prior to departure, and the smugglers have no obligation to return the money if the operation is a failure.

The darker aspect of this trade involves the abduction or fraudulent recruitment of women and children for the purposes of the sex industry, domestic servitude, and sweatshop labor, which means that the activity both contravenes international criminal law and is a human rights issue. This activity is usually conducted in concert with other criminal enterprises such as extortion campaigns, racketeering, money laundering, the subornation of public officials in both the target state and the country of origin, and gambling rings. For example, the Wah Ching, an Asian organized crime group, not only smuggles Asian women for the purposes of prostitution but also is engaged in loan sharking and drug trafficking. Such an operation involves conspiracy, forgery of official documents such as passports and visas and even social security numbers, and mail and wire fraud.

Piracy. Piracy has made an alarming comeback in Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Malacca Straits, the South China Sea, India, Ecuador, and the Red Sea, with a reported 469 attacks in 2000.⁶ Most pirate attacks are perpetrated by organized criminal groups among whose number are experienced sailors. While many incidents likely go unreported, ships are attacked while at anchor as well as at sea. Most often, the target is a container ship carrying valuable cargo. Often, the entire ship along with its cargo is taken after its crew has been killed or set adrift. The cargo is then sold using false documents, and the ship is sometimes painted and given a fake registration and its identification numbers changed so that it too may be sold. (Piracy is discussed in greater detail in chapter 8.)

Acts of Terrorism

Terrorist activities are discussed in detail in chapter 5. Discussed below are two of the emerging means that facilitate the conduct of terrorist activities on a transnational scale.

Biological, Chemical, and Nuclear Proliferation. Biological weapons use living or viral organisms or the toxins produced by them to kill or incapacitate members of an opponent’s population. Toxins cause death within minutes or hours, while bacteria and viruses usually require an incubation period of at least 24 hours before symptoms appear. Chemical weapons comprise such agents as nerve, sarin, and cyanide gases and other toxic industrial chemicals such as chlorine. The proliferation of both chemical and biological weapons has increased since the termination of chemical/biological programs in a number of countries, most significantly the former Soviet Union.

With the economies of the states of the former Soviet Union tenuous, some stockpiles of nuclear materials are also at risk of being smuggled to terrorist groups for quick profits. The number of smuggling cases involving highly enriched uranium and plutonium to date has been limited, but security is lax at the over 1,000 nuclear facilities that store these materials. To date, there have been 14 confirmed seizures totaling 15.3 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium at various levels of enrichment and 368.8 grams of plutonium—fortunately, far less than what is necessary for a nuclear weapon.⁷ Borders are also porous, and nuclear materials are difficult to detect. These problems allow for the possibility that sufficient nuclear materials will eventually fall into the hands of terrorists, although it must be noted that highly specialized knowledge is required to successfully cause mass casualties using all three forms of weapons.⁸ Unfortunately, countless unemployed scientists from the former Soviet Union have such expertise.

Cyberthreats. In most states, the once fairly independent five main pillars of critical infrastructure—financial institutions, transportation, communications systems, electric power, and oil and gas supply—are now, as a result of vast technical advances in the past few decades, almost completely automated as well as interconnected. This presents a great target of vulnerability for terrorists to threaten many states’ individual national security as well as to possibly destabilize entire countries and regions.

The easily accessible Internet is the greatest source of vulnerability in this regard. Not only can criminal groups successfully commit a number of faceless crimes and launder the proceeds largely anonymously, they also can launch cyberattacks against government, business, and social infrastructures that can take weeks or months to trace. Issues of jurisdiction then arise. Because criminals are so adept at weaving the attacks through a variety of countries, the fear of being apprehended and eventually tried is minimal. It would not be in the best interests of organized crime to target Internet and communications infrastructures, which serve their business interests, but not so for terrorists. Terrorists bent on causing mass disruption and misery might stage cyberattacks on any of the five main critical infrastructure nodes with potentially drastic consequences.

Nascent Environmental/Social Threats

Infectious Diseases. Despite tremendous public health progress during the 20th century, numerous infectious conditions have grown harder to control, and some 30 new infectious diseases have emerged in the last few decades, such as Ebola and a number of hemorrhagic fevers. Increased global travel, the deployment of armed forces overseas, changes in human behavior and diet, changes in land-use patterns, the breakdown of public health systems due to war or economic decline, microbial adaptation and resistance to antibiotics, climatic changes, and accelerated world trade have all exacerbated the spread of infectious diseases.

Infectious diseases also pose obstacles to U.S. efforts to help countries develop and may have the effect of destabilizing entire regions as is the case with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome/human immunodeficiency virus epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization reports that infectious diseases like malaria and tuberculosis account for approximately half of all premature deaths in the world and nearly two-thirds of deaths among children under 5 years of age.⁹

Environmental Threats (including resource depletion). Understanding that environmental problems are a security threat is somewhat difficult in terms of the more traditional definitions of national security. Easier to understand might be the fact that the political and ideological questions that dominate the international agenda are being increasingly linked to environmental problems and resource scarcity. Such issues as population growth and mass migrations are often linked to inadequate natural resources such as potable water. These demographic shifts, in turn, place demands on other regions for resources and often lead to conflict and social unrest.

While there are a number of cases of resource scarcity and environmental degradation that may pose long-term security threats, the example of water is perhaps the most illustrative. In recent decades, the watersheds of some of the largest rivers such as the Ganges, Nile, Colorado, and Yangtze have been severely polluted or overused to the point that little of their flow now reaches the sea. The number of people worldwide without sufficient access to potable water now stands at approximately 1.2 billion.¹⁰ Because great volumes of water are required to irrigate land, the pressures of increased population (translated into demand for food) will create great competition for that resource. Security issues will only increase as competition mounts between states to provide water for their populations. Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, for example, all share the Tigris-Euphrates River, while India and Pakistan share the Ganges. Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt share the Nile River in what Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned would be the cause for the “next war in [the] region.”

Mass Human Migration. Humanitarian crises and disasters, ethnic cleansing, and wars and insurgencies have also become opportunities for organized crime. Smugglers have found that desperate people fleeing their states are an easy target. The illegal boat services between Albania and Italy in the early 1990s, for example, soon extended to smuggling of Kurds and migrants from South Asia, Eastern Europe, and many African states.

At least 22 million people worldwide are currently displaced by war, violence, and human rights violations. Of those, 12 million are refugees, and the remainder are internally displaced. The problem has been further complicated by the recent involvement of warlords, militia, child soldiers, foreign mercenaries, and other maverick groups who are flagrant violators of humanitarian norms.

Naval Responses

Smuggling, Trafficking, and Piracy

Drug Trafficking. For the past 20 years, the U.S. Navy has had a well-defined support role in drug interdiction. With the perception that posse comitatus laws prevent direct law enforcement by naval units, U.S. Navy vessels and aircraft have served as surveillance platforms, as well as adjunct forces assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard—a law enforcement agency—through the command mechanism of two standing Joint Inter-Agency [antidrug] Task Forces (JIATFs), one operating on the east coast and one on the west.¹¹ Each JIATF, commanded by a Coast Guard flag officer, controls the maritime drug enforcement activities in its area by coordinating the efforts of U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), other Federal agencies, and sometimes the U.S. Marine Corps and other armed services. While other Federal agencies focus on local ground interdiction, JIATFs focus primarily on sea and air smuggling. U.S. naval ships and aircraft are routinely “chopped” (assigned) to JIATFs for counterdrug operations lasting from days to months. Often these operations are performed during the inter-deployment training cycle while the unit is preparing for its real overseas deployment to the Western Pacific or Persian Gulf. During the Cold War and immediately afterward, selected ships whose capabilities were perceived by the Navy leadership as dwindling in respect to an increasingly sophisticated potential wartime threat were assigned to counterdrug operations as their prime operational deployment. However, this is now done infrequently due both to the shrinkage of the U.S. naval fleet after Operation Desert Storm (from over 560 ships to 316) and the decommissioning of vessels considered less capable to face front-line threats.

Naval counterdrug activities include both deployments to the Caribbean and off the coasts of Latin American countries, particularly Colombia, and operations within the normal fleet exercise areas off the coasts of the United States. Operations include monitoring both airspace and sea by radar and reporting the operational picture to the JIATF so that law enforcement units could be directed to further investigate suspicious activity, as well as actual boarding and searches of suspicious vessels in both U.S. and international waters. Often the U.S. Navy vessels involved carry a small Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET) of 5 to 6 members to train and direct naval personnel in these boardings. In the case of counterdrug activities in U.S. waters—where the U.S. Navy does not have law enforcement authority—Coast Guard personnel lead the actual boarding and the Naval warship hoists the Coast Guard flag onto its signal halyard in a fashion observable by the target vessel (even illuminating the Coast Guard flag at night). If an arrest is to be made, the Coast Guard LEDET personnel conduct it. On the high seas, international law allows for direct U.S. Navy apprehension of drug trafficking suspects for further turnover to local law enforcement authorities (in the United States or, by previous agreement, to another country).

Other naval and Coast Guard personnel, along with Army Special Forces and Air Force support, participate in training counterdrug forces of foreign militaries, from the maintenance of military equipment to the techniques of interdiction. These efforts are complementary to the extensive law enforcement and intelligence training provided by other U.S. agencies.

But even with such relatively extensive participation, there is always tension involved in naval support for the counterdrug operations. It is not the tension of posse comitatus—despite the public musings of civil libertarians—since many of the concerns about militarizing law enforcement have been or can be satisfactorily addressed. Rather, it is the tension between counterdrug operations and the training and preparations for major warfare operations. Counterdrug operations are usually seen as a competitor (for time and resources) to warfighting training. From this perspective, the more time a military unit spends on counterdrug operations, the less time it is spending on preparing for major war—since the skills for both are perceived as largely exclusive.

To what extent should preparations for major war be sacrificed to fulfill the counterdrug mission? Answers to that question are largely premised on one’s expectations of the future. Many would argue that a major regional or theater war is unlikely, while the threat of drug trafficking is immediate and very evident. Since it would be logical for military forces to focus on the immediate rather than the unlikely, putting significant time and resources toward counterdrug operations makes sense—in fact, such logic argues for putting more resources toward the problem until drug trafficking is significantly curtailed (to a level that it is more easily managed by law enforcement agencies). But the opposite viewpoint, based on the premise that the whole point of having military forces is to deter wars and fight them if necessary, argues that counterdrug operation must be secondary to warfighting training and in fact should be conducted by non-frontline units or during gaps in the usual deployment training cycle.

However, naval crews operating in the counterdrug missions utilize the same general surveillance, reconnaissance, seamanship, and targeting skills that they would employ in actual combat. With the exception of actual weapons release, counterdrug operations can be seen as excellent real-world training for individual crews. From this perspective, the mission enhances rather than takes away from predeployment readiness. This both creates a different perception between the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army as to what activities contribute to force readiness and contributes to a lesser degree of reluctance to involve naval units in the drug enforcement effort at sea (and in the air).

Viewing transnational threats as national security issues rather than simply law enforcement issues argues for the significant involvement of national security forces—that is, military forces—to counter these threats. In the Pentagon, this was not a popular conclusion before September 11. But, ironically, the launching of the current counterterrorism campaign has reduced the percentage of military assets assigned to counterdrug operations. The Coast Guard has reported a significant shift of assets away from drug interdiction and to other aspects of homeland defense, particularly port security.¹² However, this trend may later reverse with greater recognition of how much terrorist funding is received via drug trafficking.

From a functional standpoint, the role of naval forces in counterdrug operations falls under three general categories: detection, interdiction, and deterrence/channeling. Used in a surveillance mode, naval units can detect potential trafficking vessels and aircraft, providing intelligence or real-time information to law enforcement agencies. This can often be done within the normal training areas of the fleet, such as Fleet Operating Area Southern California, which sits astride (or close to) a potential drug smuggling route. Detection of potential targets (which would include potential smugglers) is a normal part of at-sea training. In contrast, actual interdiction requires the specific assignment of naval units, usually at the expense of other missions. But the global forward presence that is the normal feature of the naval deployment cycle—no matter what the actual mission being conducted—can be thought of as providing a deterrent or channeling effect on overt drug trafficking at sea, forcing smugglers into narrower corridors that can be more effectively patrolled by police or drug enforcement agencies.

Trafficking in Military Hardware. Interdiction of illegal military weapons transfers is primarily the result of international sanctions brought against an outlawed movement or rogue regime. Any state has the legal authority to interdict illegal weapons entering its own territorial waters, whether headed to insurgents or criminal organizations. Indeed, modern international law requires states to interdict weapons bound for terrorist organizations that may be passing through their sovereign territory, whether or not the particular receiving group poses an internal threat (as opposed to simply a threat to another state). Such action would be considered part of national/international law enforcement even if military forces are used for the task. Seizure of a freighter carrying weapons to Palestinian groups is a recent example.¹³ But much of the trafficking in military hardware transits the open seas, where international law normally allows for the free flow of trade—military goods included.

The interdiction of weapons to Iraq and the former Republic of Yugoslavia has been a part of sanctions regimes imposed by United Nations (UN) resolution.¹⁴ The point of such sanctions is to deny weapons to states that are conducting aggression (or are threatening to) or are carrying out a brutal civil conflict that could be characterized by war crimes. In other circumstances, blockading weapons bound for a legitimate government would itself be considered an act of war. The legality of interdiction is bound to treaty enforcement or to UN action. Prior to the founding of the United Nations, interdiction of trafficking in military hardware also relied on international cooperation (primarily by the major powers), although such efforts—such as the League of Nations sanctions during the Spanish Civil War—seemed at best partially effective.¹⁵ Effectiveness, even today, is largely determined by the overwhelming strength of the force conducting the interdiction—which today means that the U.S. Navy or the collective naval forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are the prime enforcers of international sanctions. The U.S. and NATO navies use the term maritime interception operations (MIOs) to describe these activities.

Under UN sanctions or international treaty enforcement, any state may seize weapons (or other contraband) bound for a sanctioned state or materials whose transfer violates international treaty—such as the transfer of nuclear weapons material in contradiction to the nonproliferation or weapons control regimes. The seized shipment is subject to confiscation or destruction and the transport vessel subject to disposition (such as forfeiture or fine) at an assigned admiralty court. In the case of Iraqi sanctions, the U.S. and allied/coalition navies maintain a tight blockade of contraband trafficking both in and out of Iraq (including oil and dates, as well as weapons). All vessels transiting the northern Persian Gulf are subject to search. Those carrying contraband to or from Iraq are seized and turned over to admiralty courts in the United Arab Emirates (although critics have charged that these courts have been arbitrary and have functioned merely as a “tax” on smugglers). However, smugglers have used Iranian territorial waters to avoid the blockade. The United States routinely deploys two to five warships as a Mid-East force to conduct sanctions enforcement, bolstered by additional capabilities from forward-deployed carrier battlegroups operating in the region. Traditionally, destroyers and frigates have carried out the interdiction operations; however, since 1997, amphibious warships have also been assigned to the task. Additionally, marines and Navy sea/air/land (SEAL) troops deployed on the amphibious warships have been specifically trained for conducting takedowns of vessels that refuse to stop to be boarded and searched.

The role of naval forces in counterweapons smuggling also falls under the three general categories of detection, interdiction, and deterrence/channeling. Sources suggest there is considerable public support for the use of force in preventing the smuggling of nuclear materials and other potential weapons of mass destruction; this should be considered the highest priority in the prevention of weapons smuggling and leads to a fourth naval role: direct action. Direct action (the direct use of force) is also appropriate for the prevention of weapons shipments by terrorists.

Smuggling and Trafficking of Humans. The suppression of smuggling was the founding mission of the U.S. Revenue Marine, the forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard. Historically, naval forces have supported this mission wherever possible, even when it was not viewed as a primary task. Smuggling has been considered a law enforcement issue, with naval and other military forces supporting civil authorities when requested. Naval forces encountering potential smuggling would take appropriate action as the circumstances require; most frequently this means promptly alerting civilian law enforcement agencies or the Coast Guard.

Interdicting the trafficking of humans, however, actually is a traditional mission of the U.S. Navy. In the 1820s, Congress made international slave trading by American flag vessels an act of piracy and thereby punishable by death (this act was later repealed).¹⁶ U.S. naval warships were expected to enforce this prohibition, although the general agreement of that time was that naval personnel would only board and inspect vessels of their own flag, which effectively allowed for slave trade smuggling by foreign ships.¹⁷ In 1843, an Africa squadron was established specifically to suppress the slave trade by U.S. flagged vessels; it was joined in this effort by warships assigned to station off Brazil.¹⁸

Since the abolition of slavery in the United States, interdiction of human trafficking has become a secondary concern to naval forces and has rarely in itself been an assigned mission. Interdiction of trafficking on the high seas has been the result of inspections and boarding directed at other contraband (that is, drugs) or as the result of the UN sanctions enforcement regime. However, it is a continually significant mission for the U.S. Coast Guard in its law enforcement role in protection of U.S. maritime borders. Volume of traffic has focused Coast Guard attention on boat people from Haiti and Cuba and on smuggling in vessels from Asia. Since smuggling and human trafficking are still considered law enforcement issues, the role of naval forces today involves detection, interdiction, and deterrence/channeling.

Piracy. Suppression of piracy is a more obvious naval tradition, but one (like the suppression of the slave trade) associated with an era long past. Until relatively recently, the press had little interest in the routine piratical attacks being carried out at poorly policed locations such as the Malacca Straits. Recent attention has focused on the apparent increase in ferocity of such attacks and the use of automatic and heavier weapons by pirates. Since piracy is considered by international law to be an attack on the global community, all naval forces are empowered to take action wherever piracy is encountered.

However, current debate revolves around the issue of whether U.S. and allied naval forces or the U.S. Coast Guard should be specifically assigned to patrol for and protect merchant traffic against attack in remote waters rather than simply carrying out such functions (and providing a deterrent) when available or as part of other forward-deployed missions.¹⁹ Patrolling against piracy is essentially a police function and is heavily resource-dependent in order to provide complete security. Like the number of cops on the beat in a city, the number of vessels and aircraft assigned has a direct effect in the suppression of nautical crime. The U.S. Navy has been reluctant to take the lead in counterpiracy, since that mission is seen as siphoning resources away from the primary missions of deterring war and conducting combat operations.²⁰ Police and private protection measures are perceived as being more cost-effective. Whether public concerns will increase the perceived importance of the counterpiracy mission and what effect that would have on the size, structure, and deployment patterns of the U.S. fleet remains to be seen.

Although there are suggested linkages between piracy and global terrorist activities, international law defines piracy as being very distinct from terrorism—which complicates the legal aspect of linking counterpiracy to the overall counterterrorism effort.²¹

Acts of Terrorism

Naval and other military roles in the war on terrorism will be discussed in detail in chapter 5. However, suppression of biological, chemical, and nuclear proliferation and cyberthreats are two aspects of counterterrorism that could benefit directly from naval interdiction efforts.

Biological, Chemical, and Nuclear Proliferation. Military roles in defending America against weapons of mass destruction are obvious. The Bush administration emphasis on developing a national missile defense (NMD) and theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD) is a primary indication of the seriousness with which this threat is perceived (see chapter 24). However, the extent of the military role in counterproliferation prior to the conduct of or potential for an actual attack is fiercely debated. Key defense officials during the Clinton administration suggested that military preemption might be an acceptable response to WMD proliferation—particularly by a rogue state or criminal enterprise to a terrorist group. Indeed, the attack using naval launched cruise missiles against a suspected Sudanese chemical/biological weapons plant in 1998 was just such a use of naval forces. The term counterproliferation has been defined as actions involving military forces, as opposed to nonproliferation, which relies on diplomatic means.

Cyberthreats. Defense against cyberthreats is considered a joint military and interagency activity. Of the military services, the U.S. Air Force has concentrated the most resources toward the effort, with the former U.S. Space Command (now combined into U.S. Strategic Command) taking the lead in computer network defense (CND) operations. More controversial efforts involve the development of computer network attack (CNA) capabilities. Naval forces have considerable information technology expertise and can play a substantial role in these joint activities. Some have suggested that the “fluid nature” of the infosphere is such that naval forces should devote the resources necessary to take a leading role in CND/CNA.²²Public perception of the threat will also play a factor in the overall military resources devoted to all aspects of infrastructure protection.

Nascent Environmental/Social Threats

By definition, nascent threats are those toward which military responses have not been directed or against which force is not the most effective response. However, naval forces have historically played a secondary role in responding, generally through the capabilities of specialized services.

Infectious Diseases. Historically, the military role in defending against infectious diseases has been through research. Prompted by the exposure of troops in Latin America during the early 20th century, noted U.S. Army doctor Major Walter Reed discovered the source of yellow fever. Navy doctors have made similar—though perhaps not as famous—medical discoveries. With organized and rigorous hygiene standards and inoculation programs, military and naval forces have had considerable success in protecting deployed service members from infectious diseases, which ultimately protects the overall U.S population from being infected by returning service members.

Military efforts to develop vaccines and protective regimens against biological weapons have become well known and, in some cases, controversial. No one doubts the seriousness of the military-led effort in developing protection of both service members and the American public against biological weapons. The results of this effort would logically improve protection against non-weaponized infectious diseases as well.

As a part of ongoing operations, naval and other military medical units routinely provide inoculations and assistance in lesser developed countries to the population encountered by U.S. forces. Naval units such as the hospital ship USNS Comfort have conducted extensive assistance programs in conflict areas such as Haiti.

Yet all of these efforts are byproducts of other military missions and are dwarfed by nonmilitary governmental and civilian efforts to provide protection against infectious diseases. Ultimately, the primary naval role is to support this effort, lead (along with other joint forces) the research and development of defenses against weaponized diseases, and provide support for security and personnel control to National Guard forces in event of a pandemic. It is hard to conceive of the potential for direct application of military force against this threat, with the exception of the elimination of chemical and biological weapons and laboratories or in responding to a deliberate biological attack.

Environmental Threats (including resource depletion). Many environmental activists would consider naval operations themselves to be environmental threats. Ships are either nuclear powered or fossil fuel-driven, and as with any human interaction with nature, there is always the chance of environmental accidents. Nongovernmental organization (NGOs)—most notably Greenpeace—protested the participation of naval units in Operation Desert Storm under the “logic” that any war (or in this case, response to war) represents an environmental disaster. This sentiment was drowned out by Saddam Hussein’s deliberate strategy of environmental damage (oil well fires and oil pipeline spillage into the Persian Gulf), and it has became quite evident to even the greenest of activists that a lack of response to armed aggression leads to far worse disasters for the human environment. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon underscored this realization. However, disputes over the effect of low frequency sonar on marine mammals and the potential for open-ocean whale strikes by transiting warships still characterize the collision between security and environmental interests—which, in turn, has effects on the scope of permissible naval training in peacetime. Obviously, the first role of naval forces in the face of environmental threats must be good stewardship of resources and routine prevention of any deliberate or accidental environmental damage while conducting operations. The prime combat role would be the use of force against regimes that would use ecological damage as a weapon in wartime.

As a byproduct of its peacetime operations, naval forces have provided routine research support for scientists involved in studying ecological damage, particularly in the Arctic and Antarctic or other areas difficult for civilian infrastructure to reach.²³U.S. Navy oceanographers—a specialized community in the Naval Service—have themselves conducted considerable oceanographic and meteorological research involving environmental issues, and Department of the Navy civilian scientists supported by Arctic submarine operations have taken the lead on environmental research in the Arctic seas.²⁴(See the extensive discussion in chapter 9.) Such research can perform an early warning function concerning growing ecological threats in the environments in which naval forces operate.

Resource scarcity—particularly access to water rights—as a source of conflict among lesser developed countries is a potential aspect of globalization effect 4 (military and naval/maritime intervention in locations not previously considered of vital interest), which could necessitate the use of naval forces for peace enforcement/peacekeeping functions (or even direct actions).

Mass Human Migration. Primary response to mass human migration at sea belongs by law to the U.S. Coast Guard, and, as noted, the Coast Guard expended considerable resources in handling the periodic waves of boat people from Cuba and Haiti.²⁵ U.S. naval vessels and aircraft have supported this mission when available. Along with other members of U.S. joint forces, sailors and marines have been used in support of humanitarian and peacekeeping missions in areas of mass human migrations, such as Rwanda. The Marine Corps has had considerable experience in protecting the personnel of humanitarian NGOs in dealing with such crises; infrastructure is often provided by U.S. Naval Construction Battalions and medical assistance by the U.S. Naval Medical, Dental, Nurse, and Medical Service Corps. Navy chaplains have often assisted in counseling, morale, and religious support to refugees and those involved in humanitarian aid. It is difficult, however, to envision a primary (as opposed to support) role for naval forces in countering mass human migrations.

Force Structure Requirements

Questions regarding the extent to which naval forces should be utilized to counter transnational threats inevitably involve force structure decisions. This is mainly because countering transnational threats—piracy, for example—is numbers-intensive in terms of platforms and personnel. To patrol all areas potentially threatened by piracy, ships and aircraft must be diverted from other deployment areas or missions, or there needs to be a substantial (some would say unaffordable) increase in the U.S. fleet. This is true for the U.S. Coast Guard as well, whose prime focus has become homeland security, not the interdiction of transnational threats at their source.

It has been stated that transnational threats require multinational responses, which might imply that greater interoperability with foreign naval forces might eliminate the need for a larger number of U.S. ships and aircraft. Foreign navies—notably British, Dutch, and French ships—have indeed taken greater roles in Caribbean counterdrug operations, allowing U.S. assets to focus on counterterrorism missions. At the same time, other allied navies (including naval forces from Germany and Japan) have helped in counterterrorism patrols in the Indian Ocean.²⁶ However, world naval strength has been shrinking precipitously since the end of the Cold War, and most navies would require considerable budget increases to achieve truly effective interoperability with U.S. naval forces. Dealing with transnational threats in a manner that is significantly different from today’s use of multipurpose forward naval presence (in which responses to transnational threats are but one among numerous missions, and generally not the priority) inevitably requires an increase in naval force structure. The promise of greater network-centricity of platforms might mitigate this somewhat—but would not necessarily affect the deterrence of transnational threats, which appears to require a cop on the beat approach.

A force structure increase to deal specifically with transnational threats might not be completely unaffordable, however. This is because dealing with such threats may not require as sophisticated, well armed, or large units as would high-technology warfighting. Aircraft carriers, AEGIS cruisers and destroyers, and nuclear attack submarines would be most effective in almost every conceivable detection, interdiction, and deterrence/channeling role, but much smaller, less costly units could perform these missions adequately. Countering transnational threats would seem a likely mission for the proposed littoral combat ship or the Coast Guard’s Deepwater project platform.²⁷However, this raises the question of creating a two-tiered Navy in which a substantial portion of the fleets would be perceived as unsuited for high-end warfighting, particularly in an antiaccess environment (see discussion in chapter 25). This is a force structure solution toward which the U.S. Navy leadership has been opposed since the early 1990s.²⁸

Another implication of an increase in maritime transnational threats is the need for an increase in maritime patrol aircraft. With the end of the Cold War and near-collapse of the Russian submarine force, U.S. Navy maritime patrol squadrons (flying the P–3 Orion) took perhaps the greatest force structure cut of any naval community. Choosing a replacement aircraft for the venerable P–3 has been a much lower priority for naval aviation than acquiring the F/A–18E/F carrier-based strike aircraft (see discussion in chapter 18). However, maritime patrol aircraft, which have great range and much greater speed than surface ships, would appear to be among the most useful assets in tactical detection and surveillance of transnational threats. Focusing on transnational threats may require a reprioritization in naval aviation force structure in order to make more maritime patrol assets available.

But, at least initially, force structure changes may not be as important as systems acquisition. If, in fact, the primary naval roles in countering transnational threats fall under the categories of detection, interdiction, and deterrence/channeling, as well as interagency support, the top acquisition priority would be the development of an interagency-capable tactical data information system that could produce a common operational picture for all agencies and units involved.

Development of a common operational picture has been mastered to some extent in counterdrug operations on the JIATF level. However, the ability to transfer data between and beyond naval forces has barely scratched the surface of the current information revolution. In order to harness this revolution, the Department of the Navy has focused on acquisition of the cooperative engagement capability (CEC) system under development by The Johns Hopkins Advanced Physics Laboratory and Raytheon Corporation. CEC promises to be a great improvement in the effective integration of tactical data among naval units—although some critics claim that competing systems such as the tactical component network are even more promising.²⁹ The British Royal Navy has committed to support the development of CEC and utilize it as their data network—a milestone for allied interoperability. U.S. Air Force sources have also suggested that CEC may be a system of significance for their operations.³⁰ However, there has thus far been no agreement on the integrated development of a joint forces common operating picture, a limitation that has perhaps the greatest impact to practical interagency responses to the emerging transnational threats. A logical first step in defeating transnational threats remains the development of a real-time, interagency-accessible common operational picture.

Conclusions

Because transnational threats are both symptoms and causes of a number of underlying problems, a better understanding of them as they pertain to national security is of utmost importance. One of the main strategic challenges facing the United States will be to preempt these threats rather than react to them incrementally. As the literature on crisis decisionmaking amply demonstrates, under conditions of adverse circumstances or crisis, public policy tends to be made disjointedly and badly. Important and often irreversible decisions are made during crises that can be portentous to the future of a country. Hence, in order to avoid this contingency, the U.S. Government faces an incentive to make a concerted effort to proactively address transnational threats.

Suitable coordination and adequate resources will be key in this effort—hence the need for a common operational picture. Coping with these threats in the regions in which nonstate criminal actors base their operations will be important, but as these threats are a global phenomenon, transit and target states must be included in the planning and implementation phases. Integrated multilateral cooperation for finding global solutions to global problems will be crucial. In the United States, interagency cooperation will continue to be valuable with increased sharing of information and areas of responsibility. The Department of Defense may gain a more important role, perhaps to the point of pursuing new missions and purposes that lie outside its traditional domain or taking a greater lead in interagency responses (including leading the development of a common interagency operational picture).

Naval forces are particularly critical in protection against transnational threats during the actual transit of dangerous goods, much of which is conducted by sea. Trafficking in drugs, weapons, and illegal migrants all have major sea components, and MIOs founded on effective intelligence information remain a front line of protection.³¹ Terrorists have also used the sea for transit in persons and weapons—currently coalition naval forces are conducting intercept operations in the North Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean to prevent the flight of al Qaeda fighters from Pakistan. Piracy is primarily a seagoing threat, with navies and coast guards as the prime suppressant. Since many transnational threats can approach the United States only by or over the sea, naval forces would also be feeding tactical information throughout interagency information networks, including proposed port security information systems. Naval forces—operating under the freedom of the seas—may be the most unobtrusive means of detecting and surveilling transnational threats beyond what is available to our satellites. Likewise, they may be the most effective first responders in situations where preemption or retribution is warranted.

Arguably, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps were created in 1794 for the specific purpose of countering what were then transnational threats (such as Barbary piracy). The future world of globalization may find the naval services returning to their operational roots.³²

Kimberley L. Thachuk is a senior fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, where her research focus is on countering terrorism and international crime, particularly in the Latin American region. She has lectured throughout the National Defense University and at the Inter-American Defense College and is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Captain Sam J. Tangredi’s operational experience includes participation in maritime counterdrug and United Nations sanctions-enforcement operations in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and the Persian Gulf.

Notes

¹ “Money Laundering and Financial Crimes,” in International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (Washington, DC: Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, March 1999), 1. BACK

² For recent trends, see United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Global Illicit Drug Trends 2000 (Vienna: United Nations International Drug Control Programme, 2000). BACK

³International Crime Control Strategy (Washington, DC: The White House, May 1998), 21. BACK

⁴ International Crime Threat Assessment (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Interagency Working Group, 2000), 32. BACK

⁵ See, for example, U.S. National Intelligence Council, Growing Global Migration and its Implications for the United States (Washington, DC: National Intelligence Council, March 2001). BACK

⁶ International Chamber of Commerce, Crime Services, Weekly Piracy Report, May 22–28, 2001, 1. BACK

⁷International Crime Threat Assessment, 32. BACK

⁸ In Senate testimony, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld stated that terrorists will “inevitably” obtain weapons of mass destruction. See Bill Miller and Christine Haughney, “Nation Left Jittery By Latest Series of Terror Warnings,” The Washington Post, May 22, 2002, A1. BACK

⁹ See Gro Harlem Brundtland, “Global Health Challenges and the Question of Sovereignty,” paper presented at the Academic Council on the United Nations System, June 16–18, 2000. BACK

¹⁰ Richard E. Benedick, “Human Population and Environmental Stresses in the Twenty-first Century,” Environmental Change & Security Project Report No. 6 (Summer 2000), 11. BACK

¹¹ Recent interpretations on U.S. posse comitatus laws suggest that they were originally intended to restrict the actions of the Federal army, and that—in consonance with the fact that the Constitution directs that Congress raise armies when necessary but to maintain a navy—such laws do not have an actual legal effect on the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Steven J. Tomisek argues that “ The specific provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act (U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 1385) are applied to the Navy and Marine Corps as a matter of DOD policy,” not as a matter of law. See Tomisek, Homeland Security: The New Role for Defense, Strategic Forum 189 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, February 2002), note 4. BACK

¹³ See details in “Arms Seizure Backfires, Wounds Israel,” January 8, 2002, accessed at <http://www. stratfor.com/MEAF/commentary/0201082120.htm>. BACK

¹⁴ Currently the best published study on the law and practice of maritime interception under UN resolutions is Lois E. Fielding, Maritime Interception and U.N. Sanctions (Bethesda, MD: Austin and Winfield, Publishers, 1997). BACK

¹⁵ For an excellent recent summary, see Adam B. Siegel, “International Naval Cooperation during the Spanish Civil War,” Joint Force Quarterly (Autumn/Winter 2001–2002), 82–90. BACK

¹⁶ Kenneth J. Hagan, This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 154. BACK

¹⁷ John B. Hattendorf, “The Nineteenth Century Forward Stations,” unpublished paper prepared for the U.S. Navy Forward Presence Bicentennial Symposium, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, VA, June 21, 2001, 17. BACK

¹⁸ Assessment of the effectiveness of this effort is mixed. The best short summary is chapter 4 of Peter Duignan and L.H. Gann, The United States and Africa: A History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 32–40, which is a generally positive assessment. A more negative assessment is found in W.E.B. DuBois, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1896, reprinted Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1970), 160–193. BACK

¹⁹ On U.S. Coast Guard role, see Dean Visser, “U.S. Helping Asia Combat Sea Piracy,” Associated Press, July 5, 2001, accessed at <http://wire.ap.org/public_pages/WirePortal.pcgi/ us_portal.html>. BACK

²⁰ However, since September 11, at least 2 U.S. Navy warships—diverted from Persian Gulf deployments—have been assigned to escort vessels through the Straits of Malacca. See William H. McNeil, “Navy on Lookout For Pirates in Indonesia,” Navy Times, January 24, 2002, 10. BACK

²¹ See discussion of this distinction in chapter 8 of this book and in Maritime Terrorism and International Law, ed. Natalino Ronzitti (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990). BACK

²² See Sam J. Tangredi, “Space is an Ocean,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 125, no. 1 (January 1999), 52–53; and Tangredi, “Beyond the Sea and Jointness,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 127, no. 9 (September 2001), 60–63. BACK

²³ Though in recent years much of this support—particularly in the Antarctic—has been contracted to civilian firms as cost-saving measures. BACK

²⁴ The leading personality in the field of arctic undersea research was long-serving Department of Navy scientist Dr. Waldo K. Lyon, who ran the world’s only arctic submarine laboratory. See Richard Boyle, “Waldo Lyon: A Legacy of Dedication,” Submarine Review, July 1998, 115–117; and CAPT George B. Newton, USN (Ret.), Chairman, U.S. Arctic Research Commission, “Don’t Forget the Arctic,” Submarine Review, April 2001, 91–100. BACK

²⁵ A primary issue in this effort is whether the migrants are refugees from oppressive governments and therefore deserving of asylum and refugee status, or whether they are simply seeking greater economic opportunity through illegal migration. BACK

²⁶ Marc Lacey, “Hunting For Elusive Terrorists Off Somalia’s Coast,” The New York Times, April 2, 2002, A13. In fact, the U.S. Government requested in late April 2002 that the German Navy assume command of the coalition task force operating off the Horn of Africa. See Michael Nitz, “Germany to take command of task force,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, May 22, 2002. BACK

²⁷ Implied in Tom Canahute, “U.S. Coast Guard Tweaks Requirements For Deepwater Program,” Defense News, December 17, 2001. See discussion of interdiction platform requirements in chapter 20. BACK

²⁸ Note also the concern of Coast Guard officers as reflected in Michael R. Kelley, “The Shoal Water of Homeland Defense,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 128, no. 5 (May 2002), 65–70. BACK

²⁹ See Greg Schneider, “Scuttled By the Process: Navy Likes Md. Firm’s Ideas for Battle System—but Won’t Use Them,” The Washington Post, August 29, 2001, E1; Terry C. Pierce, “Sunk Costs Sinks Innovation,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 128, no. 5 (May 2002), 32–35. BACK

³⁰ “U.S. Air Force to Test Navy’s CEC,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, August 1, 2001, 6. BACK

³¹ Lois Fielding notes: “The maritime interception itself is one of the best examples of the creative ideas fashioned by the forces of the immediate post-Cold War period. It is flexible, limited, controlled, and humanitarian. The maritime interception is an assertion of the rule of law in an age of law.” Fielding, 338. BACK

³² According to Lt. Cmdr. Pamela Warnken, a U.S. Navy spokesman in Singapore, “Fighting piracy is nothing new to the U.S. Navy, which was formed in the 19th century to battle marauders who pillaged merchant ships off North Africa’s notorious Barbary Coast. Here it is 200 years later and we’re in the same situation in the Straits of Malacca.” From Visser, “U.S. Helping Asia Combat Sea Piracy,” Associated Press, July 5, 2001. BACK