The protection of critical maritime infrastructures is a global concern. During a stay in Hawai’i I participated in a two day workshop on subsea data cables in the Indo-Pacific organized by the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, University of Hawai’i. I had also the pleasure to meet the staff of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies for a discussion of maritime security and capacity building in the region.

At the workshop I was drawing on our research on critical maritime infrastructure protection to argue for the need to rethink maritime security in the light of the growing density of maritime infrastructures. While there is increasing awareness for the importance of subsea data cable, it is important to recognize the inter-dependencies between maritime infrastructures, in particular energy and data.