This article attempts to expand the scope of inquiry into “the market for force” as an important area of study in international relations by focusing on the privatization of aspects of maritime security governance in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) in West Africa. Over the past two decades, the GoG has been described variously as “the new flashpoint of piracy in Africa,” “the world’s most dangerous seas;” and thus “a playbook example for maritime insecurity.”

The article focuses on a trilateral naval exercise called "Mosi 2," involving China, Russia and the South African Navy. Topics include the exercise took place in the Indian Ocean; it faced criticism from local political opposition due to its timing after Russia's invasion of Ukraine; and its objectives were to counter maritime security threats and maintaining peace and stability.

The article focuses on the Royal Swedish Navy's efforts to counter growing threats in the Baltic region. Topics include Sweden's plans to strengthen its operational capability, the significance of the Baltic Sea in the Russo-Ukraine conflict and Sweden's application for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership.

The article focuses on the maritime security challenges faced by the world's polar regions. Topics include it discusses the operational requirements and security threats in the Arctic and Antarctic; the collective interests of the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) in addressing these challenges; and possibility of energy cooperation between China and Russia.

The article presents an interview with Rob Bauer, Chair of the Military Committe of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He discusses agreement of NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain to adapt posture and enhance battlegroups in the East. He mentions digitalisation of battlefield along with driven information. He also mentions credible deterrent posture projected by maritime forces of NATO.

The present article pleads for the development of a Romanian security strategy that should take into account the importance of the Danube and of the Black Sea for the security of the region. It is mainly a descriptive type of research, aiming to identify subject-related characteristics and categories, based on the study of real data and observation. Moreover, the article highlights the fact that the development of a Black Sea strategy to include the Danube River and the Delta has been a constant concern for Romanian decision-makers for a long time. In addition, it is shown that, in the current context, such a strategy could be integrated into any Black Sea strategy developed in NATO or the EU, guiding the future integrated modernization of the Romanian Naval Forces.

Achieving maritime security is challenging due to the vastness and complexity of the domain. Monitoring all vessels that use this medium is humanly impossible but is needed for law enforcement. This paper proposes a machine learning solution based on HDBSCAN+ to classify the movements of vessels into 'normal' or 'abnormal'. This classification reduces the number of vessels that have to be monitored by law enforcement agencies to a manageable size. To date, AIS is the primary source of information that can represent vessel movements and enable the detection of maritime anomalies. The proposed model uses latitude, longitude, type of vessel, course and speed as features of the AIS data for analysis. The performance of the proposed model is validated against the marine incidents reported by Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR). The proposed model has successfully detected the incidents reported by IFC-IOR.

This article addresses the hybrid challenges to the maritime security of the European Union. While hybrid threat issues are generally extensively reported in scientific literature, the authors point out that their integration with EU maritime safety issues represents a novel study strategy. The article contends that the maritime space is crucial for the prosperity and safety of EU Member States. The authors suggest potential applications for using the maritime environment as a site for hybrid impacts. The results of the conducted research are essential in determining the directions in which EU security and safety policy and those of the various Member States will develop. Attention to the possibility of using maritime spaces for hybrid warfare is a necessary condition for an effective response. Proper threat identification requires monitoring and cooperation of many actors.

Indonesia and India have been enjoying a long-standing relationship, rooted in cultural, historical, and economic ties. In recent years, the two nations have increasingly cooperated in the maritime sector, recognizing the potential of their vast coastlines and maritime resources. This paper examines the implications of Indonesia-India maritime cooperation on Indonesia's maritime security from a cultural dimension. The study adopts a qualitative approach, analyzing existing literature, reports, and policy documents to provide an in-depth understanding of the cultural dimensions of Indonesia-India maritime cooperation. The research highlights the shared cultural heritage of the two nations, including their maritime traditions, customs, and practices, which have enabled them to build trust and cooperation in the maritime domain. The paper explores the impact of Indonesia-India maritime cooperation on Indonesia's maritime security, examining the challenges and opportunities that arise from such cooperation. The study argues that cultural factors, such as shared values, beliefs, and norms, have played a crucial role in facilitating cooperation between the two nations, resulting in a positive impact on Indonesia's maritime security. The paper concludes by offering recommendations for strengthening Indonesia-India maritime cooperation from a cultural perspective, emphasizing the need to recognize and leverage the cultural dimensions of this cooperation to enhance maritime security in the region.

The article focuses on the European Union's efforts to become a global maritime-security provider and examines the strategic challenges influencing its maritime-security strategy process. It highlights the EU's significant investments and naval missions in various regions, and raises questions about the coherence of its approach and how it should address evolving maritime challenges.

Africa’s marine environment and resources that lie beneath it are central to the continent’s sustainable development and actualising the ambitions set out by the African Union in its Agenda 2063, where the oceans are described as the frontier of Africa’s development. The continent’s maritime domain and resources are also attractive to foreign partners relying on its oceans to enhance their economic development and geostrategic interests. Serving the interests of all parties, especially the 38 coastal states and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and land-linked countries on the continent that benefit from the maritime sector, comes with challenges, some of which manifest as threats to the sustainable resource extraction and safety of those that use the maritime domain. We explored the literature, policy documents and maritime security reports database, together with our experiences as African maritime governance and security experts, to critically examine maritime security in Africa and unravel how extra-regional actors have securitised maritime threats. We show how the selective framing of what constitutes threats and associated resourcing of responses to counter them, often dictated by foreign interests, is an elite project that undermines a holistic notion of maritime security that would benefit the African people.

This article assesses the role of maritime law-enforcement (MLE) vessels in an apparent trend of heightened competition in the South China Sea and identifies patterns in the maritime policing by MLE vessels of the disputing South China Sea claimants during unplanned encounters at sea.

This article proposes that Southeast Asia is an ideal space for cooperation between Japan and South Korea, given that both countries share strategic priorities in the region.

As the initial Maritime Security Strategy from 2014 pointed out, member states' navies are explicitly encouraged to "play a strategic role in providing global reach, flexibility and access" for the interest of all the European Union. On March 10, the EU published its new Maritime Security Strategy - an updated and enhanced version of its first maritime strategy from 2014. Without a standing naval force of its own, the EU relies on the navies of its member states for physical presence, on its technical know-how for the management of functional maritime security issues, and on its regulatory power to uphold the rule of law at sea whenever possible.

The article presents information related to Aman 2023 naval exercises conducted by Pakistan Navy from February 10-14, 2023 in Karachi. It highlights the objective of these naval exercise to address maritime security concerns to improve interoperability between regional and extra-regional navies. It describes the challenges for Pakistan Navy regarding the monitoring of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The article analysis the reports given by Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the use of assets and personnel by the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to ensure maritime security and safety, including coordination with the Department of Defense to counter the flow of illicit drugs. It discusses the challenges have been identified in managing these assets, such as determining appropriate allocation across locations and response to emergencies.

Is the EU raising its political and security profile in the Indo-Pacific solely because of China’s assertiveness or US–China strategic competition, as often posited? On the basis of official documentation and elite interviews, this article advances a more nuanced view of the rationale behind the EU’s engagement there. Aside from increased European naval involvement the EU and its member states are fostering the capacity building of Indo-Pacific countries concerned with their maritime safety, maritime security and to uphold the rules-based multilateral order. Yet, this article demonstrates how mercantile goals lie behind the EU and its member states’ politico-security engagement.

Contemporary maritime security challenges such as maritime piracy, Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing and fisheries crimes, significantly affect communities and individuals. Utilising a gender lens and a more holistic approach that highlights the land-sea nexus in contemporary maritime insecurities, this article transcends existing stereotypes and prevailing assumptions surrounding the masculine character of the maritime domain, to examine how both women and men are affected in this context. The article conducts a gender analysis and mapping of women’s and men’s roles as (maritime) security providers, as well as victims and crime perpetrators through two developed case studies, namely of maritime piracy in Somalia and IUU fishing and fisheries crimes in Indonesia. Key findings of the analysis indicate that a clear relationship and established links exist between gender and maritime security studies. Both women and men have a role to play as security providers, victims and crime perpetrators in the context of contemporary maritime security challenges, but geographical spaces and maritime zone delimitations largely define the ways in which they are currently affected. It finally identifies the need to better integrate the land-sea nexus in contemporary maritime security to improve our understanding of existing challenges and inform / change prevailing cultures and stereotypes surrounding the role of gender within this context.