U.S. NAVY
Members of a visit, board, search and seizure team and a U.S. Coast Guard maritime safety and security team from
the guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin approach a dhow during a maritime security operation in the Gulf of Aden Jan. 1.
The Coast Guard now has a “piracy action team” to more efficiently and effectively collect, package and disseminate
information to mariners about potential trouble spots on the high seas.
Because the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa are the
top high-risk areas for travel, up-to-date, accurate
information about them must be disseminated quickly
if it is to be effective.
The service determined, based on intelligence
reports and vessel attacks worldwide, that high-risk
areas in Africa, Asia, Central America, Indonesia, the
Middle East, the Philippines and South America also
must be monitored.
The importance of disseminating data and information cannot be overstated, according to Claude Berube,
a historian, author and member of the U.S. Naval
Academy faculty.
Such information can “decrease the risk to commer-
cial ships transiting an area and improve the ability of
navies to deter attacks,” he said. “Ninety percent of the
world’s commerce, including the majority of oil trans-
port, is conducted on the ocean, so ensuring security
at sea has a range of importance — from global eco-
nomic stability to the safety of mariners themselves.”
Berube noted that the amount of information being
shared has increased over the years between the gov-
ernment, its partner agencies, its allies and the com-
mercial industry. This, in turn, has “increased security
at sea but in cooperating with traditional and new part-
ners,” he said.
