Christian Bueger

Category Archives: News


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The EU’s progress in maritime domain awareness – demonstration in Rome

🔎 The backbone of maritime security are information sharing systems. These are important for sharing information, such as suspicious vessels of interest, between agencies and states and to facilitate joint operations.

⚓ To get a better understanding of what happens in European seas, the European Union is developing two systems. The Common Information Sharing Environment, known as CISE connects civilian authorities, coast guards, fishery protection and police. The MARSUR system provides such services for the military and aims at sharing also classified, secrete information.

🌍 Yesterday I had the pleasure to attend an operational demonstration of MARSUR at the EUNAVFOR headquarters in Rome. Key insights:

➡️ MARSUR is based on an agreement between 22 European states, which includes the United Kingdom and Norway. Its development is led by the European Defense Agency (EDA) since 2005. The system has for long been under development and only recently gained full operational capability, now in a version known as MARSUR 3.

➡️ The event, attended by representatives of European navies, the European Commission and the European External Action Service, showcased how MARSUR can be used to share information and provides rules based threat detection capabilities. Most importantly it allows to gain a shared cross-European picture of the sea.

➡️ The system now also includes a direct link to the civilian CISE system and a link to NATO information sharing tools is under development.

➡️ The demonstration in Rome was an invitation to participating states to start using the system and connect to it, as only five states so far have a working link. The system will be particularly useful for joint operations by the European Naval Forces.

➡️ MARSUR continues, however, to be in development. For now it is too reliant on AIS data, does not directly integrated data from satellites or live feeds from cameras for instance. Working towards standardized European-wide risk profiles of vessels moreover would be an important step of the process. Ensuring that the CISE integration works well and information, including from databases such as customs, will be vital in making MARSUR effective.

⚓ The half day event also featured a review of the current EU maritime security system, included the Coordinated Maritime Presences, the Maritime Area of Interest Coordination Cell, and the three current naval operations Atalanta, Aspides and Irini.

🙏 I had the pleasure to address the audience in the opening panel and introduced some ideas of what the big upcoming challenges for MDA are, including the need to integrate critical maritime infrastructure protection, cyber security and ensuring better application interfaces between platforms.


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First events in 2025

A wonderful start into the new year.

Kicking off, I had the pleasure to discuss the state of maritime security in the western Indian Ocean with Brendon J. Cannon, Jhinni Awotar, and Myriam Blin in a panel organized by Charles Telfair Centre – Mauritius’ leading think tank.

I had the pleasure to attend and contribute to a major meeting on the future of Maritime Domain Awareness organized by The Australian National University. Over a week we discussed how MDA can get stronger using new technologies, platforms and sensors. While our understanding of maritime activities and threats is improving, there is also a range of new challenges: threats to critical infrastructure or cyber security incidents need to be integrated into MDA and states in the Indian Ocean region need to pay more attention to them.

My thoughts from the MDA meeting and what it means for Sri Lanka, are covered in an interview that I did with the newspaper The Morning.

It was also fantastic to meet the 2025 class of my maritime security course. This year’s cohort will train maritime security analysis by developing recommendations for regional maritime security architectures.

Finally, ‘Understanding Maritime Security‘ is now available as Asian edition with Oxford University Press India. I hope the new edition (and reduced price) will make it more accessible to readers in India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere.


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The year in review

🔊 What a year! 2024 has been a whirlwind of maritime security developments, research, and engagement.

🔎 The Red Sea crisis and unprecedented attacks on shipping, the rising threat to critical maritime infrastructures we all depend on, the return of piracy activities off the coast of Somalia, environmental degradation, and the continuing need to build stronger maritime security governance institutions across regional seas.

🔝 The numbers tell part of the story: I’ve given 45 talks across the world, published 14 commentaries, a book and 9 research articles, appeared 40+ in media across 13 languages.

Two major milestones stand out:

✅ The publication of “Understanding Maritime Security” with Oxford University Press (with Tim Edmunds) – which first reviewers have described as a “go-to resource” and a “must-read one stop shop”.

✅ and our comprehensive report “Securing the Seas”, marking the beginning of a new partnership with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research to upscale expertise on collective maritime security challenges.

✳️ On the theoretical front, delighted to see two key contributions appear in Global Studies Quarterly: our work on the interaction of communities of practice in ocean governance (with Maren Hofius & Scott Edwards), and a piece rethinking objects and infrastructures in world politics through the lens of modern piracy (with Jan Stockbruegger). Both articles push forward how we think about global governance, the oceans, and materiality in international relations.

🌍 It was a privilege to contribute to major maritime forums: the Trans-Regional Seapower Symposium, the Indian Navy’s MILAN Exercise, the UK First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference, Shade Med and SHADE 52. These gatherings highlighted how maritime security continues to be at the heart of global affairs, particularly as we grappled with critical infrastructure protection challenges and the evolving Red Sea crisis.

🧶 In 2025, I will continue to comment on the evolving maritime security landscape, and I look forward to expanding the partnership with UNIDIR and develop a maritime security program that can make a difference.

🎢 But it is also time to finish our new book on the implications of the Age of Infrastructure for Global Ocean Politics, watch out for more soon!

🙏 Thank you to all friends, collaborators, partners, and the broader maritime security community for all the support and inspiring conversations, and another remarkable year of working towards safer seas. Here’s to more collaboration in 2025


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New UNIDIR report: Securing the Seas

I’m thrilled to share our new report: ‘Securing the Seas: A Comprehensive Assessment of Global Maritime Security’, written with Tim Edmunds and Jan Stockbruegger in collaboration with United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Here’s what makes this report unique:

  • We’ve mapped 20 emerging challenges that will reshape the future of security at sea.
  • We’re giving you the first-ever complete and detailed map of global maritime security governance.
  • We’re highlighting critical threats you need to know about, e.g.:
    • Critical maritime infrastructure protection
    • Dark fleet operations
    • Maritime cyber security
    • Naval mine proliferation
    • Green defense challenges
  • We call for better calibrating formal and informal and regional and global responses and new forms of coordination.

This is just the beginning of our work with UNIDIR on maritime security, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the report. What are the challenges that we should prioritize? How can we tackle them?

Download the report here


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On tour – Upcoming talks on maritime security

📢 Exciting News: Upcoming Talks on Maritime Security and Book Launch! 📚🌊

I’m thrilled to announce a series of talks I’ll be giving on maritime security as part of the launch of our new book, “Understanding Maritime Security.” Here’s where you can catch me in the coming weeks:

🇺🇸 28.10. – The Future of Maritime Security, book presentation, U.S. Naval War College, Newport
🇺🇸 29.10. – ‘Shadow Fleets and Critical Infrastructure: Maritime Security in the Baltic and North Sea’, Maritime Security Regime Roundtable, NATO Center of Excellence Combined Joined Operations from the Sea, Norfolk
🇵🇹 31.10. – The Environment on the Collective Maritime Security Agenda: Fighting Fishery Crime, VI Atlantic Centre Seminar, on “Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUU Fishing) in the wide Atlantic”, Atlantic Center, Portuguese Navy, Lisbon.
🇵🇹 31.10. – Understanding Maritime Security, book presentation, University of Lisbon and online.
🇩🇪 6.11. – Understanding Maritime Security, book presentation, University of Hamburg.
🇨🇭 8.11. – ‘Securing the Seas: A Comprehensive Assessment of Global Maritime Security, report launch, UNIDIR, Geneva and online, register here.
🇬🇧 22.11. – The Future of Maritime Security, Book Launch and Roundtable, RUSI, London.
🇲🇺 26.11. – Pirates, Smugglers and Oil Spills: Maritime Security in the Western Indian Ocean, book launch and roundtable, Charles Telfair Center, Mauritius. register here.

Join me as we explore critical issues in maritime security, from shadow fleets and critical infrastructure to environmental challenges and the future of our oceans.

If you’re interested in maritime affairs, international relations, or environmental issues, I’d love to see you at one of these events. Let’s connect and discuss the future of our seas!


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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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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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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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