1. IPPAI
Asia Energy Security Summit 2012
Energy-maritime security nexus:
Threats facing Asia’s maritime domain
Chietigj Bajpaee
King’s College London/
Vivekananda International Foundation
February 29, 2012

2. Key points
 Maritime security integral part of energy security
domain
 Non-state security threats represent prevalent
threat to the maritime domain in Asia but lasting
threat will emanate from traditional, state-to-state
rivalries
 Sustainable solution contingent upon developing
an integrated, holistic and cooperative regional
approach to regional maritime security concerns

3. Maritime-energy security nexus

4. Strategic importance of maritime domain
 Vulnerability of chokepoints:
 Over half of the world’s annual merchant traffic
by tonnage passes through the Malacca, Sunda
and Lombok Straits
 15 million bpd of oil and petroleum products
transit the Strait of Malacca, accounting for half
of world’s oil exports
 Asian dependence on maritime trade
routes:
 80% of China’s oil imports transit the South
China Sea and Indian Ocean
 Almost 90% of India's oil imports come via
maritime trade routes
 Asia meets three-quarters of its oil demand
through imports, which is expected to increase
to 90% by 2030
 Sea as resource
 South China Sea holds an estimated seven
billion barrels of oil and 900 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas

5. Non-state threats receding in
South/ Southeast Asia
 Southeast Asia
 Political stability in Indonesia
 Peace in Aceh
 Regional cooperation – Malacca Straits Patrols
 South Asia
 LTTE defeat removes most potent maritime
terrorist threat
 Reduced piracy threat in Bay of Bengal/ primarily
armed robbery

6. Non-state threats persist in

Indian Ocean
Number of successful attacks down
 Coordinated approach between regional
multilateral joint command operations
EU-led Operation Atalanta
NATO-led Operation Ocean Shield
US-led Combined Taskforce-151
 Ship protection measures
 Private security companies
 Prosecuting captured pirates in regional
states with functional judicial systems
 Piracy threat mutating
 Attacking softer/ onshore targets
 Increasing ransom demands
 Using captured merchant vessels as
pirate ‘mother ships’ to broaden range of
attacks – ‘balloon effect’
 Piracy-terrorist nexus?

7. Sustainable solution to non-state
security threats
 Collaboration and coordination between
local, regional and international
stakeholders
 Developing rules of engagement for
armed guards defending commercial
vessels
 Combating root causes of piracy onshore
 Poverty and environmental
degradation from commercial
overfishing
 Ungoverned spaces arising from
absence of a stable functioning
government in Somalia
 Strengthening Puntland police force
in north-eastern Somalia
 Clear demarcation of Somali EEZ

8. Inter-state threats re-emerging
 Growing strategic importance of the maritime
domain as economic lifeline to the region
 Renewed claims to disputed maritime territory
fuelled by
 Protecting freedom of navigation
 Accessing offshore energy resources
 Power projection ambitions
 Defending sovereignty and territorial
integrity
 Growing military capabilities
 Growing inter-linkages between local,
regional and global levels of security

9. Continental vs. maritime disputes/
state vs. non-state actors
 Sovereignty in the maritime domain is more fluid or fungible
 Players in the maritime domain more diverse, creating multiple levels of
interaction/ misunderstanding
 E.g. Destabilizing role of fishing communities

10. Maritime boundary disputes between major powers
• Takeshima/ Dokdo (Japan vs. South Korea)
• Senkaku/ Daiyutai (Japan vs. China)
• Paracel (China vs. Vietnam)
• Spratly (China vs. Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei)
• Northern Limit Line (North vs. South Korea)
• Southern Kurils/ Northern Territories (Russia vs. Japan)

11. Role of external actors
• Adoption of more coordinated regional approach (Vietnam, Philippines, Japan)
• Growing engagement with extra-territorial powers (US, Russia, India)
• A shift from de facto to de jure recognition of sovereignty over disputed territories
would signal clear grounds for escalation of tensions

12. Road to cooperation
 Areas of mutual interest in the maritime domain
 Maintaining freedom of navigation along SLOCs
 Joint exploration of offshore oil and gas resources
 Combatting non-traditional security threats, including maritime piracy,
terrorism and arms, narcotics and human trafficking
 Overcoming regional trust deficit through
 Addressing root causes of regional rivalries, including historical, cultural
and power considerations
 Moving away from informal codes of conduct toward institutionalized
mechanisms
 Multilateral solution and more open regionalism that takes account of the
views of extra-territorial, non-claimant stakeholders

13. Conclusion
• Over short-term inter-state maritime rivalries unlikely to manifest in the form
of armed conflict between the region’s major powers.
• No major regional power is in a position to exercise unilateral maritime
dominance over the Asia-Pacific while the United States remains the
region’s predominant military power and maritime hegemon
• As most countries remain focussed on internal growth, development and
the consolidation of political power, any rivalry is likely to manifest itself
in the realm of rhetoric, economics, military modernisation and a
competition for allies
• But climate of mistrust pervades the region amid persistence of underlying
inter-state rivalries
• State and non-state security threats in the maritime domain maintain a
symbiotic relationship
• Need to follow Malacca Straits Patrols model
• Functional cooperation built upon pre-existing confidence-building
mechanisms (e.g. ASEAN)
• Multilateral, inclusive and multi-level model of confidence building

14. Thank you
Questions?