Christian Bueger


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Italian Seapower Symposium focuses on the seabed as new frontier

Italy hosts the most important European gathering of navies every two years. The 14th Transregional Seapower Symposium took place in Venice last week. 🚢

🌍 67 navies and over 50 heads of navies from across the globe attended and were joined by representatives from industry, academia and international organizations.

📅 The symposium started in 1996 as a meeting for the Mediterranean but soon assumed its current global profile and has been growing into a major global dialogue and agenda setting event.

🌊 This year’s iteration, which I had the pleasure to attend, was focused on the seabed as a new strategic frontier. For a number of years, and specifically since the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, Italy and its navy has been spearheading much of the discussion of how to respond to the new uncertainties at sea.

📺 The recording of the events is available on Youtube.

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Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue in New Delhi – Special Address

The Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) is one of the major strategic dialogue formats in India. Organized as a collaboration between the Indian Ministry of Defense, the Indian Navy and the National Maritime Foundation it focuses on the maritime domain.

One of the key purposes of the forum is to discuss the Indian maritime policy of SAGAR – Security and Growth for All in the Region – and advance its related action plan known as the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI).

NMF Leadership

I had the pleasure to attend the 2024 dialogue in October and to deliver one of the special addresses at the event. Here is the script of my talk which investigated the future of maritime security in the region:

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Navigating complexity in Western Indian Ocean maritime security – new article

My latest analysis, published with the Center for Maritime Strategy, highlights the intricate web of maritime security challenges in the Western Indian Ocean. From piracy to drug trafficking, the region faces diverse threats requiring coordinated international response. Despite numerous initiatives, a cohesive security architecture remains elusive due to competing visions and priorities among stakeholders.

I emphasize the crucial role of the Contact Group on Illicit Maritime Activities (CGIMA) as a neutral platform for strategic dialogue. While a unified structure is unlikely, CGIMA offers hope for better coordination and inclusivity. The goal: navigate complexity through open communication and collaboration, ensuring a safer Western Indian Ocean through collective action.


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Building regional maritime security expertise – event in Singapore

Maritime Security depends on effective national capacities for law enforcement and surveillance as well as regional networks. Different approaches are used to help states to develop capacities and networks, including short term training courses and exercises.

This week I had the opportunity to participate in a seminar of an Australian capacity building initiative – the ASEAN Maritime Security Research Program.

✎ This program works with senior officials and allows them to conduct a 3 months research stay at the Australian centers for Sea Power and Air and Space Power. Participants develop a supervised research project on maritime security, participate in military interrelationship activities, such as base visits, and attend Australian multi national military gatherings. Many of the results of the research projects are published.

✎ Announced in 2018 at the Australia-ASEAN summit, 38 military officials from 8 ASEAN nations have participated in the program. Its main objectives are to develop national maritime security expertise, but also build trust, open channels of communication, share best practice and learn lessons, identify innovative solutions, and form a robust network of maritime security experts.

💡The program is noteworthy in the way that it emphasizes longevity and sustainable networks, but also for its focus on developing analytical and research skills, which is often undervalued in capacity building.

Australian organizers, Singapore, 28.8.2024
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Inside Naval Exercises: SEACAT in Singapore

Enhancing maritime domain awareness (MDA) is one of the corner stones of maritime security. Yet, it only works if countries develop a culture of sharing and collaboration across agencies and regional seas.

Practicing MDA through multi-national exercises is a key component of developing such a culture. As part of my ongoing research on the international practice of exercises, last week I had the opportunity to get some first hand experience of how the U.S. navy aims at advancing regional MDA . I participated in the exercise SEACAT 2024.

SEACAT is one of the oldest MDA exercises. Starting as a counter-terrorism exercise in 2002, it was focused on MDA through the 2016 Maritime Security Initiative, and was broadened to the Indo-Pacific in 2019. Over that history it has grown in size, with 2024 seeing more than 200 participants, including many from outside Southeast Asia. What happens at such exercises? What can be learned from them?

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Publication roundup: Maritime Security, the Atlantic and Climate Change

In addition to our book Understanding Maritime Security that had been in the making for a long time, several shorter pieces have come out in the last months. Here is a short roundup (all open access).

In three publications I explore features of the critical maritime infrastructure protection agenda.

✘ The chapter Maritime Security in an Age of Infrastructure argues that we have to re-adjust strategy to deal with the fact that the seas are increasingly becoming a crowded and industrialized infrastructure space.

✘ The article Maritime Security and the Wind with Tim Edmunds uses the framework of our book and investigates what threats and risks are linked to the expansion of offshore wind farms around the world. Incorporating the security of such installations will become more and more important.

✘ In an article with Tobias Liebetrau, we explore how critical maritime infrastructure protection can learn lessons from counter-piracy and cyber security responses in order to design institutional set ups.

Other articles explore features of the global ocean politics agenda:

✘ A recent working paper takes me to the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic will be of increasing importance in global ocean politics, and I discuss how maritime domain awareness can become an important tool for strengthening regional cooperation under the recent Declaration on Atlantic Cooperation.

✘ I have had also the pleasure to contribute to an article on the pressing question of how we can reduce the climate impact on shipping, lead authored by Jan Stockbruegger. The article explores the question of why policy-makers continue to struggle to reduce the emissions of the maritime transport industry.

✎ Interesting things in the pipeline include a discussion of grey shipping, an exploration why the global maritime domain awareness architecture is so messy, an argument for why the UN needs a more coherent maritime security approach, and a review of the EU’s approach to the oceans.


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Visit to the Information Fusion Center Singapore

The Information Fusion Center (IFC) of the Republic of Singapore Navy has been a pioneer in regional maritime domain awareness. It’s information products and fact sheets influence regional responses, it’s information sharing system connects agencies of the region, and the its international liaison officer system provides an important way of making sense of incoming incident data and triggering responses. With this architecture the IFC provides an important standard for how regions can advance their maritime surveillance, information sharing and maritime security cooperation.

Participants at the 2024 RMPP, Changi Naval Base, Singapore.
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Book Launch in Singapore

My recent visit to Singapore, provided the opportunity to officially launch Understanding Maritime Security in the country. I presented the book at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). Professor Geoffrey Till (King’s College London) provided comments, and Jane Chan (RSIS). Kindly acted as a chair.

Professor Geoffrey Till, Jane Chan and I after the book launch

At the book launch I gave a quick overview of Understanding Maritime Security and how it provides a new compass for navigating the complexity of security at sea. I then focused on the last chapter which investigates how challenges such as cyber security, climate change and the industrialization of the sea will impact maritime security. The discussion revolved around questions of what makes the maritime security specific if compared to other fields of international security, the relation to naval strategy, and how the future of security at sea


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New article on climate change and shipping

In a new article that i had the pleasure to contribute to Jan Stockbruegger and I investigate the debate on the reduction of emissions in shipping.

We draw on problematization methodology to show that the growth of discussion on the issue is informed by divergent understandings of what is at stake and what prospective solutions could be. The goal is to derive a better orientation, cross-fertilize debates, and ensure better translation into policy.

The article is out with WIRE Climate Change. Here is the abstract:


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International Studies Conference in Croatia

The main gathering of scholars in International Relations from Central and Eastern Europe takes place in Rijeka, Croatia this year. Organized in collaboration with the International Studies Association, the event features a large numbers of panels reflecting the breadth of the discipline.

During the event I will participate in a workshop on Ritual Theory, where I am presenting a new paper on multi-national military gatherings and exercises. This draws on my recent visits to several naval symposia and exercises in the last year.

Scholars from the University of Copenhagen at the conference, photo credit: Francesco Ragazzi.

I am also presenting a paper co-authored with Jan Stockbruegger which reflects on the importance of the oceans for international theory. Drawing on the idea that the oceans have been a prominent theme at several times in the discipline, we are argue against claims that the field is seablind.

I am also participating in a roundtable on infrastructure theorizing, and a celebratory panel that looks into the importance of the Journal of International Relations and Development. In addition I am chairing and discussing at panels on knowledge production and expertise.