There’s more demand for maritime security than supply can meet. Maritime security’s a growth area, and not only because of the much-publicised Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Peter Cook, one of the founders recently of the Security Association of the Maritime Industry, spoke at a seminar at the University of Portsmouth.
Maritime security, Peter Cook – a former Royal Marine – stressed is not like security done on land, except the sea is blue. He began by warning: “It’s a different environment, and anybody who under-estimates the power of the sea … comes a cropper.” Maritime security takes in commercial shipping; chemical and oil and gas tankers; bulk carriers, taking dry products such as coal or iron ore; and container ships, carrying perhaps 15,000 containers, each of which can carry 20 tons. The contents of one container – carrying for example consumer goods – may go from port to many distributors and retailers. The container ship, and its cargo, may each be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And the UK depends absolutely on energy and other imports coming by sea. There are besides international passenger ships; cruise liners, that may carry 2500 paying passengers and crews of 1800. They will usually travel from port A to B at high speed at night, and at sea are, in Peter Cook’s words, ‘a daunting target’. The security angle, in that case, is the need to protect those 2500 passengers, typically north American, when ashore. Last but not least there are ‘super-yachts’, more than 100 feet long, and designed for pleasure. The world has more than 4500 of them; 200 able to take helicopters. (Could that be the next method for a pirate to seek to capture a vessel?!) Each sort of ship, Peter Cook pointed out, has its own security requirements; as do off-shore oil and gas platforms, vulnerable because they stay in one position. The world has besides 8000 ports; some very large, such as Rotterdam and Mumbai; and there are ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ ways of entering.
Raising the question of whether maritime security is the new growth area, Peter gave some recent history; the collapse of the Soviet Navy and the reduced sizes of western navies. That’s the equivalent of taking ‘bobbies off the beat’ on the seas, which cover most of the world. It’s left a vacuum, in fact, which could be filled by smugglers (of drugs and people) and other criminals; and terrorists. Peter made the point that the threats are asymmetric; giving the example of the USS Cole, a massive and well-equipped vessel that was however attacked and holed by a terrorist speed-boat. Peter recalled that the Mumbai suicide attackers of 2008 entered the city by sea, ‘a classic amphibious operation’. Added to these threats – and the modern trend of seeing ‘pirates of the Carribean’ as romantic – the volume of world trade is to rise; cruise ships are being built even larger; and cargos, of oil and gas for example, are becoming more valuable as their prices rise. The threat, in that case, may be of criminals seeking to steal those commodities before or after they are loaded on a ship. Peter stressed the global market forces of the maritime business; and how anyone seeking to offer maritime security has to understand the nature of the business. For instance, unlike on land, there may well be different jurisdictions – one country running the port, others the coast a vessel is sailing past, and another country that’s the ‘flag state’ that may not have any navy. There may be five sorts of insurance (plus re-insurance) – for cargo, crew, war risk, and kidnap and ransom, for example. There is the weather – extremes can kill, and may force a change of course or a stay in port, which may have commercial results if electronic consumer goods are late for market (and marketing). The charterers of the vessel arrange for the filling of the thousands of containers.
It was an appropriate place for the security and risk management masters students at Portsmouth to hear about maritime security. Not far from the campus is the Gunwharf Quay shopping centre and apartments, once part of the naval dockyard. The Royal Navy is a fraction of what it was; the Ark Royal aircraft carrier was recently mothballed at Portsmouth. While the police of the seas have shrunk, world trade – and its necessity for Britain – are obvious on the Solent, as ferries and cargo ships pass. That said, piracy in the Indian Ocean will not be resolved by activity on the sea, Peter Cook argued; it has to be resolved on land, ‘because pirates don’t live on the sea’. In other words, there has to be a political move to close the pirates’ bases. The maritime world has the IMO, a London-based body that draws up rules such as SOLAS (safety of life at sea). Prompted by 9-11, the regulation of port and ship security is evolving, rapidly. There is, Peter warned, a great difference between good and bad security companies in the field, and no way to measure competency in this specialism. Thinking of the private military companies in Iraq, Peter spoke of the commercial shipping industry afraid of its reputation being harmed by ‘wild eyed mercenaries’. That said, shippers do not want their crews taken hostage or otherwise having to put their lives in danger because of pirate attack. Likewise, cruise liners want accredited security teams for their vessels, for their good reputation.
Hence in May Peter Cook and Steven Jones, a former Merchant Navy officer who was attacked by pirates, launched the Security Association for the Maritime Industry, in London. SAMI is talking with the maritime trade, people such as underwriters (who decide what the risks are) and bodies such as BIMCO, rather than governments. The National Security Inspectorate (NSI) is accrediting SAMI; the idea there is that SAMI would make accreditation reports of private maritime security contractors (PMSCs), that clients such as charterers can pay to view. SAMI would do due diligence and a ‘headquarters audit’ on the contractor, and on-site checking of a maritime security team about to embark or disembark. The plan is that the first contractor would be accredited by the second quarter of 2012. Some 58 PMSCs have joined, more than half from the UK (32) followed by five from Greece, three from the United States, and others from the likes of Sri Lanka. Why the UK so prominent in maritime security? “Because Britain seems to be quite good at it.” And to repeat, it’s a growth, even a boom sector. Peter Cook spoke of one firm with a turnover growth this year of 350 per cent. The reason; so far, armed security on board ships crossing the Indian Ocean has proved a guarantee of safety from piracy. Set against the cost of the security there is the saving on taking less time (and fuel) to cross the ocean, rather than follow the coast from India, and maybe take three days longer. Arming ships is not the solution for everything, Peter added. There is an argument, as Peter acknowledged, that putting armed people on a ship may escalate the risk. Depending on risk assessment, a ‘slow and low’ chemical tanker may require armed guards; a fast container ship that can make it impossible or difficult for any pirates to board, less so. He likened pirates to the common criminal; if a ‘target’ is ‘hardened’, pirate and burglar alike will move on to the less-defended alternative. A pirate will ‘size up’ a ship by firing (inaccurately) at it; and seeing what the response is.
SAMI, then, seeks to professionalise the sector; and plans a masters course in maritime security, through the University of Greenwich. The association – and maritime security – is not only about east Africa, Peter Cook added. He mentioned also west Africa; and the South China Sea. The pirates do not have it all their own way, as Peter made clear during a question and answer time. While governments around the Indian Ocean may not want the trouble of bringing to justice and imprisoning pirates, and under the SOLAS rule a ship is required to stop and offer help to a stricken pirate, it’s reckoned that a pirate’s life – if only because of the monsoon and other extreme weather – is risky too.
For more details
The SAMI is based at HQS Wellington, at Victoria Embankment on the Thames.
About Peter Cook
An officer in the Royal Marines for 24 years – who served in Portsmouth several times – he then managed the London office of a hedge fund company. He then moved into the security sector, and after a short time into maritime security.
Pictured: the University of Portsmouth business school building, the venue for the risk and security management workshops.
