Strengthening Cooperative International Maritime Law Enforcement in the Indo-Pacific

Transcript

Eric Cooper, Senior Policy Researcher

In this testimony, I focus on developing an international partnership of like-minded nations that can create a concerted effort to establish rule of law in the Indo-Pacific, in what has become an ungoverned and sometimes misgoverned space.

I offer that one way to close the gray zone gap is to reduce ambiguity by better defining the rule of law and reinforcing the same through a coalition of partners. Defining the law is one step, but it only works if there's enforcement. And to do that, you need presence. Nations in the Indo-Pacific would likely be interested in joining this kind of group if properly built. Primarily, it will provide an opportunity to build partnerships, push back against the hegemony of China, and focus on other key issues. Finally, my recommendation is that the U.S. Coast Guard lead this for several reasons. The Coast Guard obviously does a lot more than just security, right? They do the environmental response. They also have the ability to project defense operations. They do port, waterway, and coastal security. They do aids to navigation. So, it's a multi-pronged capability that the Coast Guard brings to the table.

The Coast Guard has written an unmanned system strategy. In my opinion, it needs to be implemented much more quickly. If you look at the Indo-Pacific, similar to what Captain Sadler was saying, I think there's a lot of potential to include unmanned systems to help with the maritime domain awareness specifically. Also, a lot of those partner nations are fairly weak in their maritime capability and not as, don't have as much, funding as the United States. And so these cheaper systems would be useful in allowing those countries to actually use them for maritime domain awareness and to be able to control their own sovereign waters.