The United States has recently pledged to strengthen the nature of it’s military relationship with the Philippines in order to increase the country’s “minimum credible defense posture.” This move is in support of the Philippines territorial claims to what they know as the West Philippine Sea, but China has aggressively claimed as their own– deeming […]
Asia’s pirates target marine fuel
February 2013 The Zafirah, an oil tanker that was recently raided by pirates, should serve as a serious warning to any shipping vessels traveling across Southeast Asian waters. The cumbersome tanker was in South Vietnamese waters travelling at a crawl ing pace when it was boarded by a group of 11 armed pirates, who quickly set the 9 member crew […]
Much at Stake
Maritime security in Southeast Asia has recently become one of the foremost areas of geopolitical intrigue and is the breeding ground for several issues that could be potentially explosive in the region. As always, economics and resources play a big factor– recent discovery of enormous gas and oil reserves in the South China Sea has […]
Maritime security concerns grow
The deputy foreign ministers and other senior foreign ministry officials of several Southeast Asian countries met in the Philippines on Wednesday to try and solve several maritime disputes which have ignited tensions and threaten regional stability. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will host a three-day maritime forum that will focus on maritime security, piracy, […]