*The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the policies or position of the Japan Defense Agency or the Japanese Government.
　

Sea lane Oil Tanker Commerce and the International Framework for Coping with Potential Naval Incidents

Tetsuro Doshita

Amid the post-Gulf euphoria resulting from the overwhelming victory by the Multinational coalition force, expectations that the UN could play a meaningful role in conflict resolution grew dramatically. UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali further heightened expectations by emphasizing the UN's role in peace enforcement and preventive diplomacy in his Agenda for Peace. However, high-profile billion-dollar missions, including UNOSOM II in Somalia and UNPROFOR in former Yugoslavia produced disappointing results. Not surprisingly, these failures have refocused attention on preventive diplomacy (i.e., before a conflict starts) as a more effective avenue for multilateral efforts at building security.

The evolution of the maritime security environment in the post-Cold War era has made the traditional peace-time naval mission of gunboat diplomacy more difficult. This evolution, along with the new emphasis on preventive diplomacy, suggests the efficacy of naval preventive diplomacy. To meet this challenge, naval forces are expected to conduct multi-layered and mutually complementing preventive activities that entail various forms of non-military maritime cooperation, including multilateral cooperation. This is particularly true for the constitutionally-restricted Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF), tasked with protecting the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) that Japan depends upon for her survival.

1 The Emerging Environment

1.1 Evolution of the Maritime Security Environment in the Post-Cold War Era

The maritime security environment, especially as concerns the navies of neighboring states, has evolved in several ways since the Cold War ended. First, at the system level, the Cold War ended at a time of deepening interdependence among states; with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the only hegemonic power. The United States has been providing a precious international common good, maritime security. However, America's position as hegemonic sea power is gradually eroding.

At the level of international cooperation, or the regime level, the signing of UNCLOS III in 1982 was both product and cause of surging resource nationalism among coastal states. This surge gave rise to the so-called ocean "enclosure" movement. The expansion of national sovereignty ratified by UNCLOS III has become a significant motive for smaller regional navies to modernize.

At the level of economic interest, the most significant change has been the shrinking shipping business of OECD countries. During the 1980s, the rapid loss of competitiveness vis a vis developing countries lead to a significant contraction in developed nation's merchant marine and increasing "flagging out." Related to this trend is the rise of "floating multilateralism," by which ships are built in one country, owned in another, insured by a third, registered in a fourth country, and crewed by nationals of a fifth. The commercial and technical management of these ships is provided by multinational companies; they carry cargoes of a truly international character. This multilateralization of the merchant marine complicates naval operations to protect the SLOCs.

At the regional level, the end of the Cold War and sharp reductions in the Soviet navy have corresponded to significant modernization by small and medium-size navies. This change in the distribution of naval capabilities has shifted potential operational scenarios from high-intensity open-ocean operations to low-intensity and broad-spectrum operations against smaller navies or pirates. The relative ascendance of smaller navies is also diminishing the expected utility of traditional gunboat diplomacy.

1.2 Implications of Environmental Change

What are the implications of these changes in the maritime security environment for naval missions?

1.2.1 A Case of the Japanese Oil Route

The Japanese oil route offers an appropriate case for analyzing the implication of the new environment. Protecting Japan's oil route from the Middle East to Japan requires more than ensuring the physical safety of tankers at sea. Instead, it is necessary to approach terminal, choke point, and open-sea lane defense as separate tasks that require political as well as military measures.　

1.2.2 Threat to the Oil Route

With the Soviet collapse, the high-intensity monolithic threat to the SLOC has disappeared, and it has become difficult to assume large-scale guerres de course. Instead, various and dispersed factors of instability, posing direct or indirect threats, have become the major concern for naval planners.

Examining the case of direct threats first, we can hypothesize SLOC interference by rogue states. However, these states often lack sufficient naval infrastructure for this purpose. Conversely, a major sea power could try to blockade coastal state(s) at choke points or terminals. However, in the present environment, coercive behavior will illicit negative responses from third states. Although a low-intensity threat, piracy, at the sub-national level, also poses a direct (paramilitary) threat. In 1995, over 60% of recorded acts of piracy occurred in East Asia.1

Turning to indirect threats, we can hypothesize spill-over effects from armed conflict near SLOCs. In the case of short-term effects, ships could simply detour around affected areas. However, if these spill-over effects are long-term, or if they affect choke points or terminals, they have the potential to cause enormous losses for trade dependent states.

We can identify several sources of instability that may produce indirect threats to the SLOCs; these are presented in Figure-1. First, there are several potential flash points along the SLOCs, including unsolved territorial disputes and the China-Taiwan dispute. Second, the naval buildup in Southeast Asia has become a regional concern. However, if we view this buildup as the product of several nation-building processes and as contributing to enhancing national resilience, then it becomes difficult to determine whether this regional buildup is a source of instability, or possibly a source of stability over the longer term. Third, the balance of sea power in the Indian Ocean has shifted significantly since the end of the Cold War. In this context we can note that the PLA Navy is building a permanent naval installation in the Andaman Islands. Fourth, as for the Gulf States, instability and uncertainty remain a real concern. To improve transparency in this region, Canada has been promoting the MEPP-ACRS process. Finally, advanced conventional weapons, including submarines, anti-ship missiles, and fast missile boats are proliferating all along Japan's oil SLOC. This trend complicates maritime operations and increases the possibility that armed conflict will spread to the seas.

In addition to these military threats, it is also important to consider the potential for blockage of straits or other choke points, or the destruction of the marine environment due to a maritime accident. Two major causes of accidents are the structural fragility of tankers and human error; over 80% of maritime disasters are attributed to human error. It is safe to conclude that maritime disasters will remain a significant constant when calculating threats along the SLOCs.

1.2.3 Implications

Given the broad spectrum of threats, and the various factors of instability (even a in single country), it is extremely difficult to ensure the security of long SLOCs, even for the United States. Hence, the necessity of multinational cooperation for SLOC protection has emerged. Considering the vulnerability of heavily sea-borne dependent trading states, multilateral efforts must be complemented by efforts at preventing armed conflicts. To this end, various approaches that transcend traditional naval operations ought to be implemented vigorously. In short, the new maritime security environment has several implications for peacetime naval missions.

First, preventing all armed conflicts has become a paramount objective for the interdependent world community where even local conflicts potentially affect the global economy. This is particularly true for a trading state like Japan that finds itself dangerously dependent on long SLOCs. Such a trading state is very vulnerable to even a remote conflict, particularly when the conflict occurs near choke points or lasts for prolonged period; the state's vital interests could be endangered. This reality has elevated the conflict-prevention role of peacetime navies to a new level of conspicuousness.

Second, the international community's recognition that preventive diplomacy has a vital role to play has created an opportunity for navies to demonstrate their conflict-prevention potential. During the Cold War, the naval confrontation between the two bipolar powers served to deter maritime conflict. Although the Soviet collapse deeded a unipolar position to the United States, Washington has experienced growing difficulties legitimizing naval intervention in overseas conflicts. The collapse of the bipolar deterrence structure has encouraged national navies to focus individually on deterrence as a form of preventive diplomacy. This process has encouraged individual navies to consider a broader spectrum of oprions for contributing to conflict prevention.

Third, recognizing that individual navies cannot effectively counter unconventional threats has encouraged navies to engage in various forms of maritime cooperation that depart from traditional naval operations, yet complement the traditional missions. Conventional naval operations can handle most threats to commerce on the high seas. However, to deter or repel unconventional maritime threats at choke points or terminal requires various unconventional measures. For example, the domestic stability of coastal states is indispensable for ensuring the security of terminals; accordingly, the naval role in this is complementary. Providing navigation safety infrastructure and training to improve navigation skills can reduce maritime accidents at choke points. To this end, determined political initiative is needed to realize international cooperation in these areas.

Fourth, many coastal states have recognized the necessity of multinational cooperation to counter the wide spectrum of threats. For example, because many piracy attacks happen inside the territorial waters of coastal states, the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of states means that it will be difficult to repel pirates without the cooperation of coastal states. Moreover, it is obvious that trading stakes require coastal states' cooperation to ensure the security of long SLOCs. International cooperation in this area should be sponsored by an overarching multinational framework; ideally by the United Nations. Until a UN framework is in place, ad hoc naval cooperation is a natural necessity.

2 Peacetime Naval Roles After the Cold War

2.1 The Limits of Gunboat Diplomacy

"Gunboat diplomacy" has been one of the major roles of the peacetime navy. However, in the post Cold War naval environment, the definition of Gunboat diplomacy developed by James Cable might not prove effective. Gunboat diplomacy has been used as a form of coercive conflict resolution by which warships have been used as diplomatic tools of influence. However, the expected utility of gunboat diplomacy has been diminishing because of the improvement of national resilience and the expansion of small and medium navies. As Cable puts it, the political application of limited naval force has become more difficult for two reasons: most governments are better organized than they used be; and relatively cheap weapons for coastal defense have become widely available.2

Given that the major mission of navies in the post-Cold War environment is the prevention of armed conflict through multilateral cooperation, with other forms of maritime cooperation constituting a second mission, we need to create a theoretical framework that contains experimental maritime confidence building measures, diverse forms of maritime cooperation, and conflict prevention diplomacy.

This framework could also contribute to promoting the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). The second stage of ARF evolution, preventive diplomacy, has not yet been conceptualized. This second stage is very important because it connects the current first stage, confidence building measures with the third and final stage, conflict resolution. Therefore conceptualizing preventive diplomacy and deriving concrete policy options for the ARF context are critically important for maintaining ARF's momentum.

2.2 Maritime Preventive Diplomacy

The preventive diplomacy debate sparked by Secretary General Boutros-Ghali offers a useful framework for developing a notion of naval preventive diplomacy. In An Agenda for Peace, Boutros-Ghali defines Preventive Diplomacy as follows.

Preventive diplomacy is action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur.

Naya advocates the following typology of preventive diplomacy, quoting former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans.3 In the first stage, an outbreak of conflict is expected shortly, or a conflict has already broken out, but has not yet escalated to armed conflict. At this stage, "late preventive diplomacy" can be implemented, including peacemeking, warning measures, preventive deployment, and demilitarized zones. In the second stage, clear signs emerge that point toward the emergence of a first stage situation in the near future. At this point, many measures remain to prevent armed conflict. "Early preventive diplomacy" at this stage focuses on fact-finding and analysis, confidence-building, and early warning measures. At third stage, specific conflicts cannot yet be predicted. However, the elimination of obvious sources of instability are desirable to prevent future conflicts. At this stage general diplomacy and various forms of development assistance (in the case of developing regions) should be conducted. This stage, different from the former two, is not called preventive diplomacy.

Calling these stages as crisis stage, indication stage, and stability stage respectively, a framework of maritime preventive diplomacy consisting of three stages as shown in Figure-2 is outlined when we apply the original idea to preventive activities for maritime disputes.

Maritime preventive diplomacy:

1 Crisis stage:

Mediation and negotiation by an international consultation/ cooperation mechanism

Preventive deployment

Establishment of demilitarized zone

2 Indication stage:

Maritime confidence building measure(MCBM) in Indication stage:

Various MCBMs to prevent armed conflict triggered by misunderstanding or lack of communication between the parties when a specific conflict cause become clear.
These include more contentious and coercive measures such as prior announcements of naval exercises and activities, exchange of naval activity schedule, and INCSEA agreements.

Fact-finding by a investigating mission:

International cooperation and an agreement of the party countries are indispensable.

Establishment of Maritime conflict prevention center:

Data collection, data base building, and early warning

International cooperation for navigation safety:

For example, cooperation in minesweeping operation in an important water

3 Stability stage:

MCBM in Stability stage:

Less contentious MCBMs such as security dialogues for improvement of transparency in general, high-level contacts, and exchange programs between naval institutions.

Diplomacy in general:

Inherently, diplomacy is to prevent any conflicts.

Various maritime cooperation:

For example, International SAR cooperation, frameworking of maritime data exchange, maritime environment study, and maritime scientific study cooperation.

Various international assistance for navigation safety:

For example, installation of navigational aids in an important waters

Although these three stages are not differentiated each other and there could be considerable overlapped area, this theoretical framework offers concrete multi-layered and mutually-complement approaches while overarching broad maritime cooperation area.

2.3 An application to Japanese oil route

For further discussion, it is worth applying this framework to a concrete maritime problem, again, Japanese oil route protection shown in Figure-3. Geographically the oil route is consist of six parts as shown in the figure. The oil route is predominated with Indication stage and some area could be very close to Crisis stage.

Among other areas, the two choke points, namely, Southeast Asia and Persian Gulf are very important and our major goal is the improvement of regional resilience and stability. In the foreseeable future, the achievement of this goal would be the function of development of regional efforts, that is, ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) process and Middle East Peace Process (MEPP).

For the success of the former, deeper engagement and discussion on maritime cooperation in CBM-Intersessional Support Group (ISG) and SAR/ PKO-Intersessional Meeting (ISM) should be encouraged. Along with ARF process, Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) is becoming very important forum for further regional naval cooperation, while it is achieving various MCBMs. On the latter, it is still too early for Japan to embark on substantial engagements including MCBMs, it would be meaningful to seek to support Canadian efforts and achievement4.

Another ambitious idea, namely, maritime conflict prevention center is still in a stage of concept building. However, it is realistic to begin with less contentious information exchange such as Regional Piracy Center in Kuala Lumpur run by International Maritime Bureau. A consultation mechanism that can function effectively in Crisis stage could be established on a basis of accumulation of numerous low-level successful measures.

For JMSDF, based on these politico-military efforts, it is necessary to promote various MCBMs both in Stability and Indication stages in addition to the traditional defense efforts near Japan. It is also important for JMSDF to prepare for future international cooperation for SLOC security including minesweeping to promote multilateral naval cooperation.

One important drawback of maritime preventive diplomacy could be the lack of adequate coercive power when prevention efforts fail. To hedge this risk we should ensure the naval commitment of the United States. The efforts shown in the figure are expected not only to complement constitutionally-restricted JMSDF's action to protect SLOCs but also to ease the U.S. Navy's action in a crisis to some extent. As shown in this example, the concept of maritime preventive diplomacy offers a comprehensive framework of preventive activities by navies.

3 Future involvement

To conclude the discussion, we should look at future agenda.

First, to develop and realize this concept, substantial involvement of each country and multilateral cooperation are essential. In addition to the deep commitment by the U.S. Navy is indispensable as a hegemonic sea power, several regional blue/ green water navies' cooperation is also important. The multilateral cooperation are to be observed in ARF, WPNS, and MEPP-ACRS. To this end, the Multinational Maritime Operation Procedure (MMOPS) under development serve a very sound basis for cooperation.

The second agendum is how to hedge the lack of coercive power in a crisis. As discussed above, the U.S. Navy's commitment will remain sole credible coercive power. However, considering that the deterrence is a outcome of psychological effect, building a credible and substantial naval force while improving a transparency would be immutably important for naval planners.

The last agendum is that the concept of preventive diplomacy per se has potential problems with existing international norms. These problems include potential conflict with the principle of non-intervention of domestic affairs, possible internationalization of domestic problems, and complication of the problem caused by the bad feeling of the party states against outside interference. Perhaps there is no panacea to these problems and the only realistic solution would be to react to the conflict promptly with combination of various measures of early preventive diplomacy and prevent the conflict to worsen.

So far, we have been trying to apply symptomatic treatment to realized conflicts, but now we are entering a less known area, prophylaxis. To meet this challenge, the traditional naval role should be expanded and an extensive cooperation with domestic and international institutions are needed. Considering the need of maritime preventive diplomacy is not future one but present one, navy planners are to recognize that these elaboration would give their navies broader horizon and more opportunities.

(END)

References

1. 103 piracy attacks were reported in South East Asia and Far East out of 170 incidents in 1995. ICC, International Maritime Bureau PIRACY ANNUAL REPORT, January 1996, p. 3.

2. James Cable, "Gunboat Diplomacy's Future," Proceedings, August 1986, p. 39.

3. Masatsugu Naya, "A concept of Preventive Diplomacy in Asia Pacific Region," Yobou Gaikou (Preventive Diplomacy), (Tokyo: Kokusai-syoin, 1996), pp. 153-155

4. Canada has been contributing as a mentor state in MEPP-Working Group on Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS). Peter Jones, "Maritime Confidence-building Measures in the Middle East," Maritime Confidence-Building in Regions of Tension (Washington: Henry L. Stimson Center, 1996)