Maritime Private Security

Market Responses to Piracy, Terrorism and Waterborne Security Risks in the 21st Century

Patrick Cullen, Claude Berube, Patrick Cullen, Claude Berube

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415724241
• eBook ISBN: 9781136457180
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book examines the evolution, function, problems and prospects of private security companies in the maritime sector.

The private security industry continues to evolve after its renaissance over the past few decades, first in Africa, and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite this, little academic work has been done to date on the role of private security in the maritime environment. This lacuna has become more pronounced as the threat of piracy, terrorism, and other acts of maritime political violence have caused littoral states and commercial entities alike to consider the use of private security to mitigate risks.

Maritime Private Security is an edited volume specifically dedicated to combating the absence of academic research in this area. The discussion of this multi-faceted subject is organised into four key parts:

• Part I: The Historical and Contemporary Market in Maritime Private Security Services
• Part II: The Emergence of Private Anti-Piracy Escorts in the Commercial Sector
• Part III: The Privatization of Coast Guard Services
• Part IV: Private Security Responses to Maritime Terrorism

This book will be of much interest to students of naval policy and maritime security, private security companies, piracy and terrorism, international law and IR in general.

Part I

The historical and contemporary market in maritime private security services

1 Editors’ introduction

The emergence of maritime private security

Claude G. Berube and Patrick Cullen

On the day that Barack Obama was being inaugurated as President of the United States, Interstate 495, commonly known as the “Beltway” which rings Washington, DC, was practically barren. One of the few cars heading away from that area was driven by one of this volume’s two editors on his way to Norfolk, Virginia to conduct a series of interviews with the captain, crew and owner of a unique ship. Away from the inauguration festivities, this group was taking part in a far quieter event—the fitting out of a privately owned ship for the Gulf of Aden in the prospect of serving as a security escort to protect commercial shipping from Somali pirates. If President Obama’s inauguration was characterized by an enthusiasm that the world might be a safer place because of his ascendancy to power, the fitting out of the escort vessel MV McArthur—owned and operated by the private security company (PSC)¹ Blackwater Worldwide²—represented an entirely different set of future expectations about the changing nature of maritime security risks facing the world, the inability or unwillingness for sovereign states to adequately respond to them, and the degree to which PSCs might increasingly be considered as a tool to mitigate them.

In particular the continued growth and evolution of the risks associated with Somali piracy, despite the multinational naval efforts to check its expansion, has provided a key contemporary backdrop through which the private security industry has sought to expand its services into the maritime sector. Long considered a relatively minor risk by the international shipping community and one that could be successfully alleviated by insurance coverage and basic ship countermeasures, the rapid expansion, sophistication and violence of Somali piracy in recent years has forced the shipping industry to change its perception of the nature of this threat.³ In geographical terms, Somali piracy now extends well beyond the coastline of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, with pirates now operating down the majority of the East African coastline and well out into the Indian Ocean itself. In operational terms, whereas in the past pirates could not operate during monsoon seasons between May and September and November and February due to rough seas, they have now increased their capabilities and have the potential to attack ships year-round. Turning large seaworthy vessels they have captured into mother ships,⁴ pirate syndicates now operate for months at a time looking for unprotected ships to attack in sea lanes over 1,000 nautical miles out to sea off the west coast of India. With this newly expanded operational range, in 2010 pirates took nearly 1,200 sailors hostage, and were responsible for attacks against at least 445 ships. While the latter of which constituted a 10 percent increase in the number of attacks from 2009, the former is the highest number of hostages taken by pirates since the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) began keeping statistics on this crime in 1991.⁵ More worrying is the fact that an expert consensus has emerged that without a multilateral effort from the international community to engage in a land-based solution to piracy centered on a state-building effort in Somalia—an effort that does not appear forthcoming in the near future—Somali piracy will continue to grow. 2011 has continued with the trend of increases in pirate activity, with the IMB recording a 36 percent rise in the number of piracy attacks from the same period in 2010. In economic terms, one study estimates that this heightened level of piracy is now costing the global economy between US$7 and US$12 billion per year.⁶

Growing state and commercial acceptance of armed self-protection at sea

The rise of Somali piracy has also acted as a catalyst for a series of significant public and private sector shifts in the security debate regarding the appropriate type of response to this maritime threat. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the change in attitudes and norms regarding the use of maritime private security companies (MPSCs) providing armed anti-piracy services to the commercial shipping industry. Although in the past commercial shipping associations and trade unions have been adamant that keeping the sea lanes safe and open for commerce is the exclusive job for states and have been reluctant to accept the additional costs and liability associated with armed self-protection, for the first time in over a century, this is now changing. In February 2011 the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the primary international trade association for shipowners representing about 80 percent of the world’s merchant fleet, offered its public support for the use of private armed security aboard ships. The ICS Chairman, Spyros Polemis, stated

ICS has had to acknowledge that the decision to engage in armed guards, whether military or private, is a decision to be made by the ship operator after due consideration of all the risks … and [that] many shipping companies have concluded that arming ships is a necessary alternative to avoiding the Indian Ocean completely….⁷

Summarizing an increasingly popular opinion amongst shippers that would have been unheard of as recently as 2008, the Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Shipping Association publicly stated that “there is still no vessel that has armed guards on board that has been taken. It seems to be the only way we can feel relatively certain.”⁸ Other shipping associations had reluctantly come to a similar conclusion that armed private security has become a necessity. For instance, the Association of German Ship Owners (VDR) has called the use of armed MPSCs a “second best solution” in the absence of a German government willingness to accept commercial shipping subsidization of an increased German security forces presence on their vessels.⁹ The insurance industry is also increasingly willing to accept the presence of armed private security on board commercial shipping. At least one major maritime insurance association, the Norwegian Shipowners Mutual War Risks Insurance Association (DNK), has even issued public guidance to assist shipping companies considering the use of armed MPSCs to protect their assets and personnel from pirate attacks.¹⁰

In an incremental fashion, the formal position of states and other various public bodies has changed on this issue of weapons on board commercial ships as well. In June 2010 the third iteration of the Best Management Practices (BMP3) document co-sponsored by a host of government and commercial organizations recognized the existence and potentially positive role that maritime PSCs could play on board commercial ships by stating that “the use of additional private security guards is at the discretion of the company, but the use of armed guards is not recommended.”¹¹ Only one year later, the lead international public body dealing with maritime issues, the International Maritime Organization of the United Nations (IMO) also reversed its long-term policy on the possession and use of firearms by commercial shipping and issued a set of interim guidance to flag states as well as to shipowners, ship operators and ship masters on the use of privately contracted armed security personnel.¹² Though the IMO was careful to state that its “… recommendations are not intended to endorse or institutionalize the use of PSCASP” (i.e., private security company armed security personnel), this move has nevertheless signaled a significant new and widespread public sector acceptance of armed security at sea, and with it, the growing number of PSCs in the maritime sector that provide armed security services to the shipping industry.

At the level of the state, individual countries that have traditionally been unwilling to allow the use of armed actors on board ships sailing under their flag are also moving towards acceptance of an armed MPSC presence. In some instances this has been driven by industry pressure on governments to allow for a greater level of self-protection. The shipping firm Dockwise, for instance, told the Dutch government that it might stop sailing its fleet under the Dutch flag if the government did not allow the transportation company to place armed guards on board its ships.¹³ In other cases, governments have legalized the private provision of armed security teams at sea after admitting to being overwhelmed with requests by private shipping firms for on-board deployments of government security forces. The German ministry responsible for maritime affairs publicly stated that the level of calls from shippers requesting soldiers or armed police to accompany their vessels in transit reached a threshold where it was no longer capable of adequately addressing this issue on its own. In a decision that has recently been taken by a growing number of countries around the world, there has been an official government acceptance of the use of armed private security on board German flagged ships, reversing a long-standing position of rejecting this proposal.¹⁴ Though statistics on the percentage of commercial shipping using armed MPSC services do not exist, these industry norm shifts have indisputably caused a significant growth in their use. In 2009, some industry experts estimated that only one out of every 100 vessels transiting known piracy hotspots used MPSC services to protect their ships. Two years later, 27 out of 100 German shippers surveyed admitted to using armed private security guards to protect their fleets.¹⁵ Other media reports also reflect that this shift is occurring globally. For instance, the Chinese shipping company Cosco reported that it had allocated $12 million to pay for British MPSC armed security services and other anti-piracy measures for its fleet of 80 ships.¹⁶

The rise of MARSEC and the maritime private security industry

Today there is a growing body of independent security contractors working primarily or exclusively on maritime private security contracts who understand themselves as maritime security (MARSEC) professionals, and these individuals and the private security companies employing them are self-consciously attempting to gain recognition as maritime security professionals within the broader government and commercial maritime communities. At the same time that states, international organizations, insurers and shipping clients are looking to create recognizable standards and best management practices for MARSEC professionalism, so too has this maritime subsector of the global private security industry begun to proactively create standards for itself. The nascent institutionalization of the MARSEC industry can be seen in the growing expectations from state and non-state clients of MPSCs that their security personnel have a number of maritime and/or security certifications (SSO, STCW95, Sea-man’s card, etc.) and that the MPSCs themselves have internal mechanisms set up to enhance their professionalism.¹⁷ On another level, it can also be seen in the creation of professional associations designed specifically for maritime private security companies. The newly created Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI) which has explicitly stated as one of its main goals the creation of a set of an “… independent, robust, thorough and transparent mechanism to set standards and verify its members to ensure that the IMO guidelines are met …” is a key development in this respect.¹⁸ Today, as a diverse set of MPSCs based around the world in places such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Yemen, Kenya, Djibouti, Singapore, Greece, Malta, Spain, Israel, Australia, the Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles and elsewhere seek to professionalize and standardize MARSEC anti-piracy and other maritime security services to government and private sector clients, this industry is continuing to expand and evolve.

Piracy and maritime private security in a broader maritime security context

Piracy is not the only waterborne security risk facing government and private sector actors in the twenty-first century, and private security’s provision of anti-piracy teams to commercial shipping is only the most visible, and most recent, example of a truly global private security industry that is continuing to evolve and seek to penetrate a new maritime market after its explosive growth in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, piracy sits along a spectrum of security issues ranging from illegal commercial fishing to sophisticated offshore guerrilla assaults against oil platforms and even the risk of synergized piracy-terrorism attacks against ships, ports, and the global supply chain they support. In the current post-9/11 security environment, the risk of maritime terrorism in particular has had a strong resonance with the United States and other governments around the world.

Though the dual literatures on private security and the violent maritime risks associated with piracy and terrorism have kept pace with the recent growth of these phenomena themselves, to date, very little academic work has been done on the point at which private security and maritime security overlap. This lacuna within the private security and maritime security literatures has become more pronounced as the threat o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• PART I The historical and contemporary market in maritime private security services
• PART II The emergence of private anti-piracy escorts in the commercial sector
• PART III The privatization of Coast Guard services
• PART IV Private security responses to maritime terrorism
• PART V Conclusions and future directions
• Bibliography
• Index