“I think the Navy is going to be
recognized as building relationships
and partners with countries and
entities that are entirely new for
the government. That might be
a story that isn’t going to mean
anything for most American
citizens, unfortunately, but it will
be a significant accomplishment
because you share information,
you build trust, you build relation-
ships. You’re sharing information
LISA NIPP
with countries you’ve never really
worked with before.”
and greater national cooperation, but we have the
Virtual Regional Maritime Traffic Center of the
Americas [a regional system with the ability to detect,
track, identify, display and share information on shipping and maritime traffic]. … We have something
called Regional Maritime Awareness Cooperation. We
see just a tremendous international effort.
The Singaporeans are a great success story. Not
only do they reach out internationally, but their
whole-of-government approach is phenomenal.
They’ve got their maritime police, their customs, their
coast guard — all the services — they’ve got everyone
in a dedicated building with dedicated spaces. They
bring them together using all their different approach-es. It’s kind of like what we’re shooting for. I think
they’ve achieved it.
Do you work more with one particular military
agency?
STUBBS: The Navy is the big dog. The Navy operates at
sea. They have a great interest in MDA and yet the integration of the MDA with the air domain security —
we’re increasing our work with the air staff as we
progress on this. We do military work with the Coast
Guard a lot, too.
What security threats do you see in the coming
decade?
STUBBS: MDA is an enabler to national security. These
threats that we constantly call “emerging threats,”
they’ve emerged before and they come and go in
emphasis. There are not new threats, in my estimation,
but rather they are new ways of misusing the ocean.
The ocean is basically a highway, and DoD is concerned about the oceans being used as a highway to
deliver harm to the United States or to deliver harm
elsewhere.
[Government agencies] are concerned about the
oceans being harmed — overfished, polluted, not regulated and overmined. [They] have always been concerned about that. … What I think will occur … is that
because of the fact that the oceans can [be used to]
deliver harm and can be harmed, we’ll have more governance and regulation of people using the oceans,
[more regulation] for their vessels and their cargo, etc.
And so, we’re going to have a greater need for maritime domain awareness. And because the Navy is
global and because the United States has global interests — this is a little bit of a prediction — the Navy is
going to have to, perhaps, consider how it’s going to do
maritime security on a global basis.
