The maritime domain is facing increasing uncertainty. There is a need to look at the larger strategic picture of how maritime order is changing.
Yesterday, we discussed the Arctic and the Strait of Hormuz as two vital and strategic maritime regions at a public event organized by the Academy of International Affairs NRW in Bonn.
Key takeaways:
The maritime domain is increasingly becoming a contested and ever more politicized space. Contestation over Greenland, the Panama Canal, but also the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are indicators.
Grey-zone and hybrid threats are prevailing and challenge interpretations of the rules and laws of the sea.
Geopolitical fragmentation and new uncertainty provides opportunities for maritime crime syndicates, as seen in the recent resurgence of Somali piracy.
The Strait of Hormuz exemplifies how the proliferation of low-cost weapon systems challenges conventional understandings of naval dominance and control of waterways.
It is vital to look beyond the immediate and maintain a strategic outlook on how multilateral mechanisms can strengthen maritime order in the light of these challenges.
Given the gridlock at the global level, regional and minilateral initiatives will be key to ensuring maritime security.
What are the larger strategic consequences of the Strait of Hormuz crisis? During my visit to Geneva last Friday, I had the opportunity to discuss this question at two events.
I gave a presentation on the Strait at a maritime roundtable organized by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. I highlighted that we are facing long-term instability, not only in the Gulf region but also across the maritime domain more broadly. Grey-zone warfare, lawfare, and attempts to exert political control over key waterways are becoming increasingly common patterns.
It is important to start thinking about long-term political solutions for the Strait of Hormuz, including a formal, legally binding transit regime. The discussion also underscored that international law relevant to this situation remains underdeveloped, particularly with regard to straits and naval warfare. Also, questions of environmental security and the situation of seafarers currently do not receive sufficient attention.
One Ocean Week in Bergen, Norway, was a great gathering of ocean entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and policymakers. I had the pleasure of presenting the opening keynote at the One Ocean Summit and participating in two panels. Here are my key takeaways:
While the oceans have received unprecedented political attention, discussions on peace and security, ocean health, and the blue economy remain disconnected.
We should move beyond current discussions of dual use and instead develop multi-use systems—ones that support security while also benefiting the economy, conservation, science, and people.
To improve maritime security governance, global (UN), regional seas, and national responses need to be better coordinated.
The everyday, often quiet work of coastguards is essential to strengthening ocean governance. More efforts are needed to build coastguard capacity and enhance cooperation in Europe and beyond.
Global maritime security depends on effective regional institutions. In the Western Indian Ocean, a major building block is the Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC) — a platform connecting 21 countries from the Eastern African shore, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Gulf.
What’s the state of play of this grouping of states? Over the last few days, I participated in a seminar in Mombasa, Kenya, organized by the U.S. Africa Center for Strategic Studies to find out.
How does DCoC operate?
The DCoC continues to serve as a platform for maritime law enforcement professionals and maritime authorities, facilitated by the International Maritime Organization — the United Nations’ shipping regulator. Created in 2009 to contribute to the fight against piracy, its mandate was later expanded to cover maritime crime more broadly. Over the years, the platform has matured institutionally, developing a steering committee and three working groups.
In essence, the DCoC has two main purposes:
To set standards for how member states organize their maritime security governance and to enable coordination among them,
To coordinate the delivery of capacity building.
The organization has clearly progressed in developing standards, yet national implementation remains limited. Capacity-building coordination is important but highly intricate, given divergent donor interests and political considerations.
What are the challenges?
The DCoC continues to pursue ambitious plans, yet regional meetings alone will not be enough to realize them. National politics, resource constraints, funding limitations, and diverging priorities remain difficult hurdles to overcome.
Another persistent challenge is how the DCoC interacts with other regional platforms. The interfaces between the DCoC and the Regional Maritime Security Architecture — a well-functioning, smaller cooperation framework between seven Eastern African states led by the Indian Ocean Commission and funded by the European Union — are becoming increasingly well organized.
However, linkages to other regional maritime security entities, ranging from the Gulf Cooperation Council and India’s regional information-sharing center to the Nairobi Convention, the Combined Maritime Forces or the Indian Ocean Rim Association remain ambiguous and underdeveloped.
Will geopolitical fragmentation impact the partnership?
While not yet immediately visible at the meeting I attended, the DCoC will not escape broader geopolitical fragmentation. This includes relations among member states and their neighbors, dynamics involving India and Pakistan, South Africa’s geopolitical positioning, and the evolving role of the United States in the region — not least in light of the recent Gulf War.
Stewardship by a United Nations agency will remain important to move this platform forward. At the same time, it raises the question of whether the region might benefit from smaller, more functional cooperation frameworks — potentially decoupling Red Sea and Gulf security from the distinct challenges and needs of African coastal states.
Another pathway would be to continue the process of institutional maturation and begin treating DCoC agreements as a form of regional customary law. Whether national legislatures are ready to move in that direction remains uncertain.
Back from maritime security discussions in New York. Some key observations:
The situation in the Persian Gulf is unsurprisingly dominating the agenda at the UN. The historic consensus around Security Council Resolution 2817, co-sponsored by no less than 136 countries, documents that the UN and the Security Council have to play a major role in resolving the war.
Bringing shipping back to the Strait of Hormuz is a top priority, but will be tricky. The Secretary-General’s new initiative to establish a humanitarian mechanism for shipping fertilizer is a beacon of hope. It could be a starting point for restoring trust and confidence and provide the seeds for a more sustainable arrangement.
Planning for post-conflict scenarios for the Strait of Hormuz is under way. Several scenarios are discussed at high levels. The first UN maritime peace operation is one option on the table. All of this can only start once a ceasefire is in place.
Importantly, the current crisis feeds the momentum that the UN system requires a more sustained and strategic approach to maritime security. The strong consensus to act became visible during the two high-level debates last year. Delighted to learn that Bahrain will drive the debate forward during its April presidency.
I had the pleasure of briefing the UN Task Force on Security Sector Reform on how UN-level maritime security work can be better coordinated. For the task force, the sea is one of its eight priorities. Small steps so far, but very important and promising. I hope we will see more from the taskforce.
Thanks to the delegations that took time out from their busy schedules to meet me. Special thanks to Thomas Tödtling and Christophe Pradier for their leadership in pushing forward the agenda.
Looking forward to visiting the city again soon to feed in ideas for this important debate.
Southeast Asia has long been a region of maritime security innovation. A key driver was the maritime piracy crisis in the late 2000s.
A key regional governance mechanism originating from that time is the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) and its associated Information Sharing Centre (ISC). ReCAAP is one of the few legally binding and well institutionalized regional maritime security frameworks that has served as a role model for arrangements such as the Djibouti Code of Conduct in the Western Indian Ocean and the Yaoundé Code of Conduct in the Gulf of Guinea.
ReCAAP’s main function is to provide a clearing house for piracy-related information and to analyze available incident data. It’s key strength is to ensure high level of awareness and understanding of piracy in the region, even if threat levels are low. The centre’s work is moreover important in capacity building and the exchange of lessons across global ocean regions.
Held annually in the first week of March the EU Ocean Days are the EU’s spectacle showcasing its work related to the sea. It is, moreover, an opportunity for the EU institutions to engage in stakeholder dialogues.
My visit to the 2026 edition confirmed: the attention to the oceans by the various EU institutions is impressive. Yet, the focus is multi-directional. As we have discussed in a recent book chapter, the flurry of initiatives risks fragmentation. Indeed, the thicket of programs, policies, and strategies is nearly impossible to navigate. It is hard to imagine that anyone has a complete picture.
Particularly encouraging was the emphasis on data collection, sharing, and fusion for ocean health, the blue economy, and maritime security. The announcement of significant funding for the OceanEye initiative was a clear highlight. For the first time the event also featured sessions on maritime security, led by by the dedicated team in DG Mare.
As part of the week, I organized a side event together with Paul Trautendorfer of JPI Oceans. Continuing my work on information sharing, at this stakeholder dialogue event we investigated how the EU’s approach to ocean observation and maritime domain awareness can be better harmonized and streamlined. Our background paper showed that more than 15 platforms are currently funded by the EU.
The discussion highlighted the need for stronger efforts in
ocean data meta-governance,
greater awareness of the different platforms and their strengths and weaknesses, and
better bridges between the scientific, conservation, safety, and defense communities.
It was a pleasure to contribute to an innovative EU-Indonesia track 1.5 dialogue this week.
Track 1.5 dialogues are a conventional tool in diplomacy. In Southeast Asia they are even one of the main modes of diplomatic negotiations – known as the ‘ASEAN way’. Mixing participants from ministries of foreign affairs, governmental research organizations and independent think tanks, their primarily objective is usually trust and confidence building, developing interpersonal networks, but also epistemic alignments: open exchanges on problem interpretation, current and planned policies, recent developments and plans. Chatham house rules are usually applied and participants are asked to make frank remarks or ask critical questions, which could otherwise violate diplomatic conventions. If and how such events are effective and trickle down to formal track 1.0 diplomatic negotiations is often debated, but in the end very difficult to measure.
This week I participated in the EU-Indonesia track 1.5 dialogue. Mainly concerned about the implications of the recent comprehensive trade treaty, the event was noteworthy as the EU tried out a new format: strategic foresight. In what might be described as “foresight diplomacy”, the focus of the event was on exchanges on foresight expertise.
Strategic foresight is a planning approach that has become increasingly popular in the defense sector, economic policy making, but also the commercial sector. As a methodology it is focused on the management of risk by identifying mega trends and scenarios. Contrary to forecasting, multiple futures are anticipated and evaluated for their plausibility in participative processes. The goal of planning is preparedness and resilience. Both the OECD and NATO have developed important guidelines for carrying out such analyses and the EU and Indonesia, but also many others, have developed foresight capacities in their diplomatic services.
Foresight diplomacy is focused on the systematic exchange not only of experience, but also the outcomes of foresight exercises. Comparisons between meta trends, scenarios and resulting gaps and planning priorities serve as the basis for not only epistemic alignment, but also identifying common interests and collective action space.
According to the organizers the event that I attended was one of the first in which the EU, led by the foresight unit in the European External Action Service and its partner – Forward Global –, tested this approach. While there’s a risk that foresight diplomacy dialogues become methods driven and technocratic, they might be extremely useful to overcome the short-termism and news focus that too often prevails at track 1.5 dialogues. I look forward to following how the EU continues to advance this innovative form of diplomacy.
Back in New York for a discussion on the UN’s role in global maritime security.
In 2025, the UN Security Council has held two general high level meetings on maritime security as well as an Arria formula meeting on seafarers. Additionally, dozens of smaller informal meetings were held in New York. The current momentum and the strong consensus of nations to improve maritime security responses, expressed at these events, is unprecedented. It reflects the rapidly evolving maritime challenges, including armed attacks on shipping, substandard shipping to evade sanctions, persistent piracy and smuggling.
At an event co-organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) New York Office and Greece, we discussed what the UN could do better and more effectively. In my intervention, I laid out the challenges:
The oceanic disconnect: Discussions on blue economy and marine conservation, e.g. within the framework of the UN Ocean Conference, are largely disconnected from maritime security debate.
Too many agencies, too little coordination. As identified in our 2024 UNIDIR report, a high number of UN agencies address maritime security through different mandates, with no coordination processes between them.
Capacity building traps. We lack solid understanding of who is training whom in what, and what types of capacity building are lacking.
Data gaps: We are far from a comprehensive global picture of maritime security incidents, trends and patterns. While maritime domain awareness centers provide this on a regional level, no one ensures global data.
Analytical void: There is too little analytical expertise within the UN to ensure that we make sense of patterns and trends, act preventively, and identify the norm deficits of emerging issues.
Following up on my intervention in the Council in May this year, I called for an office dedicated to maritime security. This would act as a clearing house and develop an annual report on the state of maritime security for the Council and General Assembly to consider. It could ensure sustainability, reduce waste of resources, and enhance efficiency.
Other speakers highlighted the need to mainstream maritime security across UN activities, including, e.g. in peace operations, stressed the importance of inter-regional cooperation, and flagged the need for preventive action. Newly emerging challenges were also discussed, including nuclear-powered ships and floating sea mines.
In 2026, countries with strong maritime interest, including Bahrain, Colombia and Liberia, will join the Council. This is likely to generate further momentum for maritime security. Whether the P5—notably Russia and China—will agree to a Council resolution that paves the way to a more structured and sustainable approach remains to be seen.
Yesterday, I attended the 20th Oslo Maritime Security Seminar – the Nordic’s major industry event on the topic.
With more than 300 attendees, highlights included discussions on grey zone strategies, the shadow fleet, and the challenges linked to growing incidents of GNSS spoofing and jamming. I was invited to discuss the state of maritime security governance and presented six observations. Here in brief:
The agenda is evolving rapidly—from terrorism to piracy to smuggling to today’s grey zone threats (cyber, infrastructure attacks, state provocations).
Maritime security is now multidimensional—we’re thinking beyond surface and include subsea infrastructure, space, and cyber. That’s creating new governance complexities.
A new wave of privatization is underway, driven by robotics, new sensors, AI and data fusion. It’s democratizing maritime domain awareness but also creating new dependencies.
There’s a “coastguard revolution”—navies are stepping back from constabulary work, coastguards are stepping up, and this has major implications for maritime investment.
Regional cooperation is intensifying as neighbors work closer together. But so is the risk of fragmented regional governance.
The UN is gaining real momentum on maritime security—three high-level meetings this year, 120+ states in agreement.
