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.