Maritime challenges are being fundamentally transformed by new technological and geopolitical realities, shifting trade and energy patterns, and the rise of unconventional threats. The fact that about 50 percent of the maritime boundaries in the world are still not demarcated accentuates the challenges.
Water covers more than seven-tenths of the planet's surface and, therefore, it may not be a surprise that 90 percent of the world's trade uses maritime routes. In fact, almost half the global population lives within 200 km of a coastline. With countless freighters, fishing boats, passenger ferries, leisure yachts, and cruise ships plowing the waters, a pressing concern is maritime security — a mission tasked to national navies, coast guards, and harbor polices.
Given the ongoing global power shifts, the maritime order has entered a phase of evolutionary change. Maritime-power equations are beginning to alter. The shifts actually symbolize the birth pangs of a new world order. Emerging changes in trade and energy patterns promise to further alter maritime-power equations.