A UN maritime policing role in the Gulf?

I’ve just been writing a sidebar text on “Outcomes in Iraq and the Gulf” for my new book. The book is about the big-picture, slightly longer-term global fallout from the US’s ongoing debacle in Iraq, so that’s why in Chapter 1 Iraq and the Gulf get only a sidebar.
Anyway, I was thinking in particular about the possible range of outcomes that the US’s notable overstretch-and-later-defeat in Iraq might have on the geopolitics of the Gulf region. And the more I think about it, the more likely it seems to me that the outcome for the US’s until-now strategically dominant position in the Gulf will be analogous to the outcome that ensued there (albeit in a long-drawn-out way) from Britain’s notable similar (strategic) defeat in Egypt, in 1956.
Regarding Britain, until 1956 it seemed generally uncontested by any other significant world powers that Britain would keep a sizeable naval presence “east of Suez”, including its bases in Hong Kong, Aden, etc; and also that it would keep its position as the dominant naval power in the strategically vital Persian/Arabian Gulf.
In 1956, Anthony Eden notably overplayed Britain’s hand and joined with France and Israel in the tripartite invasion of Egypt’s Suez region. Those invasion/occupation forces were not driven out of Suez (and Sinai and Gaza) primarily through by the national liberation actions of the local people. But they were forced to withdraw completely from those areas under US pressure, in the broader global context of the US muscling into many third-world areas to displace the previous European colonial hegemons (and also, in the context of the US placing huge pressures on the Soviet Union to withdraw the troops it had sent into Hungary against the locally-based uprising there.)
Be that as it may… Eden’s participation in the Suez affair marked the beginning of the end for Britain’s ability to maintain its own robust naval presence east of Suez. Over the 14 years that followed Britain was able to conclude political arrangements with the local leaders of the city-states along the southern coast of the Gulf who had previously supported Britain’s naval presence there: these “emirs” were given “national independence” over their city-states, and thus we saw the emergence of the “states” of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and for the seven even smaller local emirs, who banded together in something called the United Arab Emirates…
The US Navy was meanwhile increasing its abilities to maintain a strong naval presence in the Gulf; and essentially what happened was that as the exhausted crews of the Royal Navy steamed home, the bigger ships of the US Navy glided into the waters they had left.
That all took quite some time to happen, though. 14 years to be precise. The Gulf’s littoral (coastline) states had very little say in the matter.
So now, what might be the range of things that we see in the Gulf in the years after the exhausted US ground forces exit from Iraq?
I’d like to underline here something I think I should start stressing a bit more, namely that the longer the US government delays its withdrawal from Iraq, the worse– from the point of view of “the US national interest”, as it has traditionally been conceived, though not necessarily from the viewpoint of the actual, longterm interests of the US citizenry– will be the general strategic terms on which it is able to undertake this withdrawal.
That is, after all, the nature of quagmires, imbroglios, and imperial overstretch in general.
So I think we should all look rather seriously at the idea that the UN should plan to build and deploy a maritime policing capacity for the Gulf, and that that may well be the very best outcome. It seems highly anomalous that the US– which is half way around the world from this Gulf– should arrogate to itself the “right” to police the whole Gulf area. The only other current even near-contender for this role is Iran, which is overwhelmingly the most strategically weighty of the littoral states. Actually, though, looking at my copy of The Military Balance, I see that the Iranian Navy looks fairly puny. It has three Kilo-class submarines, three frigates, three corvettes, and few much smaller vessels…
More to the point, though, there would be numerous significant states, both in and far beyond the Gulf, that would strongly distrust Iran’s commitment to running a fair and safe maritime security regime in the whole Gulf. Hence, my suggestion that we should think of building the UN’s capacity to do this job.
I’ll just note here– as I noted in the sidebar I wrote this morning– that the littoral states of the Gulf, as well as everyone else around the world who is connected to the world oil market, all have a shared interest in the Gulf and its approaches being well policed. The Gulf states need to export their oil and to import the many other necessities of daily life on which they have become dependent– and the oil-importing countries need those sea-lanes open, too. So from one point of view, thinking of the UN having the maritime policing responsibility seems like an obvious solution.
On the other hand, the UN has never done anything like this before. So the capacity would have to be built up over a number of years. Who could contribute? All the littoral states should have some good contribution, according to their capacities. Beyond there, South Africa has quite a lot of experience in this field. So do a number of European and Asian powers.
(I just saw this piece in Asia Times in 2004, in which Eric Koo was suggesting a very similar UN maritime-policing role in South East Asia. He was wrong, though, I think to describe the UN as “a centralized, neutral body with considerable naval capabilities”. Neutral– arguably so. But centralized? Having considerable naval capabilities? I don’t think so!)
I also saw this entry on Maritime Security Regimes in Wikipedia. The author gives a little bit of good basic background. But s/he concludes, “the dearth of literature on Maritime Security Regimes, particularly maritime policing, International Agreements and Interstate Maritime Cooperation suggests more research is required.”
Indeed.

64 thoughts on “A UN maritime policing role in the Gulf?”

  1. I’m not sure why Helena uses scare quotes to describe Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, as states.
    As for “something called the United Arab Emirates…” It too, is a state. And a rather prosperous one.

  2. The point, surely, is that the status of these emirates was, and still is, something less than full sovereignty whilst beng much more than protectorates.

  3. Well, Joshua, if you’d been around in 1970 you might also have found it slightly strange that these small trading cities on the Gulf should all suddenly become full members of the UN.
    Since then, of course, they’ve had massive infusions of oil riches and have done extremely well at building all the appurtenances of modern welfare states. (Though they all except Oman did so overwhelmingly through the exploitation of contracted, non-citizen labor… a matter of great, quite legitimate, and continuing concern to people in the human-rights movement.)
    H’mm. I wonder why “Joshua” likes to hang around this blog and make always diversionary and often ad-feminam remarks about me in the third person? Might it be because he doesn’t actually know enough about the subjects at hand to contribute anything substantial but feels driven (or paid) to hurl a few verbal brickbats at me, anyway?

  4. have found it slightly strange that these small trading cities on the Gulf should all suddenly become full members of the UN.
    There is no wonders here Helena, of course the Britt’s strategists and consultants who worked hard with local made Sheiks in those “trading cities on the Gulf” to come new become full members of the UN.
    If we like to blame any one in all that, it’s not hard or rocket sciences to find to put the blame on.

  5. Helena, there is only one comment in this series which contains a personal attack, and it ain’t mine! I responded directly to what you said in the diaries. If you think such things are “diversionary” then perhaps you shouldn’t make such offhand comments in the first place!
    The Gulf states became states largely by the same way that other states have become states, that they had an organized leadership and society at some level that was able to convince those around them and in power that they deserved to be sovereign.
    I suppose one can point to some states and show that they have a more storied historical pedigree than others. But the Gulf States, although not as historical as, say, Egypt, are no less natural a candidacy for statehood than, say “Palestine.” Though no one dare question the latter’s legitimacy.
    As for why I “hang around” here? I think it’s necessary to point out the factual misrepresentations, prejudices, and one sided biases that you and some in your “amen corner” resort to way too often. For a while, I got sick of it and told you why I was no longer going to visit your site, but you did ask me to come back. So frankly, I’m perplexed as to why you think I might be paid to point out your fallacies and errors. I know you like to think that there is some great organized conspiracy out to “censor” you, but sorry, it’s not the case.

  6. What Joshua says about the Gulf states is certainly true of Oman, for example, whose history is long and well known and whose influence in Asia and Africa has been enormous. In terms of modern history the nature of the Gulf states was largely determined by British influence in the nineteenth century, generally exerted through the Bombay Presidency.
    In the 1950s and 60s Britain and Egypt fought a series of proxy wars in Arabia as Britain determined to cover its withdrawal by leaving friendly Royalist regimes behind it. British influence was thus critical in the process of forming these Gulf states which were left in the hands of selected emirate candidates, (well screened to keep out any Nasserites) many of them young men educated at British public schools and Sandhurst, the Military College. Where, as in the Yemen,(by far the oldest state in Arabia) popular Nasserite elements came to power Britain, with assistance from the usual suspects, fought a long guerrilla campaign, using mercenary and SAS cadres against the Egyptians who employed as many as 50,000 men in the war. Yemen in the sixties became something of a quagmire for the Egyptian army whose heavy involvement there in 1967 is one of the factors which made the idea that Nasser was about to attack Israel, while his best soldiers were fighting wetern led terrorists in the Yemeni mountains, most unlikely.
    The United Emirates idea is an old Colonial Office favourite: some will remember the Federation of the West Indies, then there was the Malay, and later the Malaysian Federations, the Nigerian Federation etc ad nauseum.
    Palestine is a rather different story but still much connected with Britain at least since General Allenby marched into Jerusalem. But then Palestine which is in all my old atlases (and most Victorian Bibles of the de luxe kind) appears to have been wiped off the map.

  7. Hang in there, Helena. And as regards those occasional commentators who insist on “correcting” the so-called “amen corner” — i.e., those of us who find your reporting and analysis invaluable — well, just remember what even the credulous Condoleeza Rice said to their neocon archetype Douglas Feith: namely, that “if we want the Israeli view, we’ll call in their ambassador.”

  8. Palestine is a rather different story but still much connected with Britain at least since General Allenby marched into Jerusalem. But then Palestine which is in all my old atlases (and most Victorian Bibles of the de luxe kind) appears to have been wiped off the map.
    Long after Viscount Allenby retired to his Suffolk country house there in fact remained a “Palestinian” footprint…like the Palestine Post, Anglo-Palestine Bank, Palestine Philharmonic, Palestine Electric Company, etc…indeed all these institutions have survived until this very day (with slight name changes).

  9. RE: Joshua, et. al, I detect an ideological opposition to anything you have to say, HC. The smarmy tactic is meant to evoke a response from you, rather, let all post, and ignore bad behavior-you are a mom, yes?

  11. Thanks for the nomination. I’m sure I can speak for my fellow-South Africans in saying that we don’t want the job, thanks very much.
    I find you have written an awful lot about marine policing without any argument as to whether such a thing is required, or what is required. An Imperial Navy is one thing. A Coast guard service is a completely different thing. On that basis, talk of replacing the US Navy with the Iranian Navy is cloud-cuckoo-land talk, surely.
    What is this all about? The whole thing seems full of red herrings. What value does the phrase “East of Suez” really have, except as an antiquarian curiosity, as meaninglessly redolent of sixties British politics as “Rhubarb, rhubarb!” or “What about the workers, indeed!” It’s as if you were waiting for a born-again bunch of satirists to send you up, Helena.
    The Royal Navy, the “wooden world”, once ruled all the seas and was the first truly, or at least physically, “global corporation”. At the time, and for a very long time, it was the only literally global network of communication, under a single command.
    That position was already long lost before the end of the 19th century, and long before the fall of Singapore, let alone Suez. “East of Suez” was the last wishful fart of a dead whale, something neither here nor there, only mistaken for a bugle-call by the geriatrics of the British Conservative Party. How have you managed to forget this?
    Never mind “policing the littoral”. Rather look at different parallel. Look at the first Imperial Airways route to India, and the RAF bases along that sandy route (notably in Iraq). Imagine another sandy air corridor to the South, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, along the line of the “Sahel”, and then check where the Imperial focus now is. Check the line between Mauretania and Djibouti, and what has been happening there over the last five years, and the interest shown by the likes of Wolfowitz and Bolton.
    If you have a mind to, you might care to dig up the story of the Anglo-French military confrontation on the Nile in the late 19th century, and the competing schemes of the British Cape-to-Cairo versus the French East-West axis. But don’t overdo it, even if it does look like the US is keen to revive the old French dream, and spatchcock it on to an old British dream of a direct route to India, under Imperial control all the way. These were both schemes that were always going to fail, and any revival of them will also fail (but not without bloodshed, I am afraid).
    All this may only serve to prove what great fantasists there are in your tiny pool of “geo-politics” wonks in Washington, DC. The fantasy is that politics can be about place, and not about people. Your book must not lead your readers into that snare and delusion.

  12. I don’t feel at ease with the idea of the UN taking a role in the Gulf.
    1) The UN in the region is seen as a tool in the hands of the US and the West in general.
    2) The UN has already a lot of other commitments in the world and often not enough ressources to achieve them.
    3) The UN has to be reformed before we think of new tasks for it.
    4) Why isn’t it possible to see a consortium of all the borders countries taking care of the Gulf waters ? Why do they need the tutelage of some external powers ? especially those of the UNSC who are too often biased toward the West in their actual composition ?
    If we are now sure that the US can’t win alone in Iraq, there are still a lot of uncertainties surrounding what will occur after a US withdrawal. It doesn’t follow that US will be completely defeated in the Gulf region, that she won’t be able to achieve some of its goals in Iraq (after all, it seems that the Iraqi parliament has just passed a law concerning the privatization of oil refineries).
    Also : it doesn’t mean that the US all of a sudden become a “small power”, that she can be thrown out of the Gulf if she doesn’t want to be thrown out of it. Same for all the other bases she manage all around the world.
    I think that what we have is a nobody-win situation, where the US can’t win in Iraq (aka install there a US friendly government accepted by all Iraqis in a pacified environment), but at the same time, the US can’t be thrown out of the Gulf Region and her power, although probably diminishing, will remain there for a long time.
    So, realists will have to imagine a solution taking these power relationships into account. As much as I’d hate to see the outcome suggered by Kissinger , as much I think that there is a real probability of an accord between Iran and the US : the US would give security insurances to Iran, while Iran in exchange recognizes the US influence in Iran and pressures its main allies in Baghdad to compromise with the Sunnis. It would be a completely amoral outcome, where the US is rewarded for invading a country which wasn’t a threat but possesses critical ressources; after a time of unilateralism, where she advanced a pawn on the map, the US will return to a more multilateral approach in order to secure the advance of that pawn.

  13. The Royal Navy, the “wooden world”, once ruled all the seas and was the first truly, or at least physically, “global corporation”. At the time, and for a very long time, it was the only literally global network of communication, under a single command.
    Oh Dear Dominic!
    The CEO in the white suit in Rome has been running a globalised business for an awful lot longer than the Andrew. It has had its ups and downs but it is still in business.
    I seem to remember someone asking how many divisions he has, though not how many dreadnaughts. I think there was a Papal Squadron at Lepanto.

  14. Hi Frank,
    You are right, and I had the Roman globalism in mind when I wrote “at least physically”. The high point of pre-reformation globalism, and its subsequent fall, is a very good reminder of how phoney and fragile the concept is.
    You are right in another sense, namely that the monastic, clerical and hierarchical corporation that was the church was the model for the modern corporation, even more so than the military was.
    But in this particular context, the global cadre that was the Royal Navy, based more than the church was on a uniform technology, and its unavoidable demise, are the appropriately vain comparison. For example, you write of Dreadnoughts, but these came into being when the game was already up, as the Dardanelles showed.
    The Dreadnoughts can be compared with the carrier groups of today – anachronisms even before they were built.
    Yes, and the Pope has no battalions. That remark may have been a miscalculation, or it may have been something shrewder, like a double-entendre. Because as you are pointing out, history is not in the last end a matter of battalions, but of the popular will. Uncle Joe may have been more aware of that than you suppose. We certainly should be.

  15. A few quick points to add to this:
    (1) Any changes to the naval-security status of the Gulf and adjoining waters will not be rapid; but I certainly expect the situation to be different 20 years hence than what it is now.
    (2) The balance between the US and Iran will be the major driving factor in any change. Iran because it is the clearly dominant littoral power, and the US because it plays– now that it has destroyed Iraq’s strategic weight, more than ever before– the central role in “containing” or “balancing” Iran’s role in this whole region.
    (3) From that point of view, it is important accurately to assess the status and capabilities of the small Gulf emirates… They are classic client statelets with almost zero strategic capacity of their own aside from the massive amounts of (essentially unearned, i.e. rentier) income that gushes in from their oil sales. The bottom line here is to note (a) that you can’t simply add up the total number of (Arab) states on the south coast of the Gulf and give each of them an equal strategic weight (or indeed, much at all), and (b) that we also need to recognize the v. strong incentives these small statuscules have to find and retain an outside sponsor. Hence, the basing arrangements the USN has: with Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait.
    (4) Saudi Arabia is largely a different case than that. Also Oman.
    (5) If you haven’t read them already, you might want to go back and read the 2003 posts here in JWN: “Geopolitics of the Gulf 101” and “Geopolitics of the Gulf 201”.
    (6) Ideally, I would say that the coastline states of any body of water should arrange the safety of shipping and other activities there purely amongst themselves. However, (a) the US Navy is not going to be steaming out of the Gulf any time soon (as noted by Christiane), and (b) the statuscules and Saudi Arabia will all want to retain some capability to contain/balance any growth of Iranian naval influence.
    (7) Which brings me back to the centrality to the situation of the balance between Iran and the US. As part of the broader negotiation between these powers that I certainly hope we see soon (and that will happen one day, regardless of how long it takes to get started or what happens between now and then) it may well be that assigning the UN a role– whether formal or more operational– in assuring the safety of Gulf shipping lanes would end up being the default position of both of them. And this could be a transitional point on the way to the essential demilitarization of Gulf and adjacent waters.
    (8) I am as strongly opposed to all fighting navies as I am to all other forms of militarism. However, international shipping lanes do need to be policed, which is a different form of activity… The question is, how does this policing get done effectively and supervised by a recognized and accountable governance body? This could be a single national government, or (as in parts of the northern Med) a consortium of national governments. It could also, in some shipping lanes, be a specialized agency of the UN– but nothing like that exists yet. Perhaps it should.
    (9) The UN has many faults. But it is reformable, including at the highest levels. The fact of its existence as a body embodying (even if only imperfectly) a number of key international norms is a good thing for the human race; and it gives us a good basis on which to build a better, more effective and egalitarian international system.
    (10) Time to return to writing my book, I think. Still, thinking out loud here a bit also helps the book-writing.

  16. With respect, if I may, just before you go, Helena, don’t you think you need to discriminate between several different kinds of naval force in terms of their technical nature, their purpose, and the owners whoe interests they serve?
    An Imperial Navy is not comparable to a policing unit. It is for “projecting force”, whether as “gunboat diplomacy”, invasion, or stupidly lobbing shells into a jungle. It becomes absurd when it pretends to do customs work, as the Iranians demonstrated when they arrested the Royal Navy squad that was purportedly checking for illegal imports of second-hand cars.
    A policing unit might be designed to stop piracy, or to stop “contraband” (i.e. as part of a protectionist and not a globalist national policy such as the USA used to have), or to protect national fishing or oil-drilling rights. Somebody else’s Imperial navy does not do that for you. Nor does the UN, which is an inter-state body, and not one that can contract for the protection of any state’s national interest.
    Soon after the 1994 democratic breakthrough, the new SA government entered negotiations for what is called “The Arms Deal”, which is still raining fallout politically today and looks set to continue to do so. Something like a hundred billion Rand was blown on this folly, while millions continue to eke out a pitiful existence in shacks. There was corruption involved, but the main question was why do we need this hardware? Especially the corvettes that were built in Germany.
    It is not clear. Perhaps somebody had us marked down as a potential mercenary or voluntary police force for the Persian Gulf? We would love to know. When GW Bush came here he called our President Mbeki “my point man”. It went round the country like an electric shock. “Point man” was on everybody’s lips. It was a typical bit of “frat boy” humiliation. It was a bad mistake on Bush’s part. You don’t get away with that in SA. We are now dead set against being anybody’s “point man”, or “point country”.
    There is no neutral policing in an Imperialist world. I think you are begging the question. The “security of the gulf” is not a matter of fishing rights or even of borders. These are minor matters compared to Imperial projection. The latter is the problem, not the former.
    In my opinion.

  17. Helena, I’m very interested to learn where you’re going with this section. As a thought, you might also wish to compare your ideals here w/ Ruhi Ramzani’s various essays over the years re. “hybrid security” schemes for the Gulf. (as mentioned here)
    https://vintage.justworldnews.org/archives/002473.html
    The dilemmas for any scheme to involve the UN, of course, include convincing the US & and other “great powers” to agree to a “mere” UN force for policing the PG. Yet the status quo of relying on overbearing foreign forces (British, American, etc) causes problems of its own. As such, “hybrid” security conceptions suggest locating such “policing” via supervision of the UN Security Council, where great power interests would be assured and yet local sensitivities accommodated. Actual forces in the “hybrid” ideal might still come from larger external powers, even as they’d work under a unified and/or cooperative command….
    Great to see you’re at work in these realms — and yet wonder (with anticipation) to see how your eventual constructs will win over the big boy doubters….

  18. Helena
    I was reading something on the law of the sea Treaty and it mentioned the idea that originally territorial waters was defined by the range of a coastal battery.
    As the range of the guns increased so it increased to a 12 mile limit but the advent of missile technologies makes this obsolete.
    http://www.burneylawfirm.com/international_law_primer.htm#not_to_use_it see territorial sea
    (there is also an interesting discussion of applying US laws to the rest of the world)
    The phrase shooting fish in a barrel might apply to two Carrier Task Forces sailing up and down the comparativly narrow Persian Gulf. Depending on how many missiles an opponent can get in the air at once Tom Clancy thinks some will get through. Carriers of their nature are full of fuel, explosives, a number of nuclear weapons, and a lot of people.
    They say the USN has over a hundred ships in the Gulf. I wonder if there would be the same sort of chaos if they saw 1000 inbounds as there was in Calais Roads when the Spanish saw Drake’s fireships.
    Discovery channel shows some fascinating film of what happened to USS Forestall when a misile went off by accident on deck.
    Gulf security is enforced by mutual security interest not by naval power.

  21. Interesting Youtube vids there, Frank, thanks.
    However, you’re quite wrong to say you need a “navy” to counter piracy. As Dominic indicated, the work of a navy is one thing– mainly, power projection into and then from waters distant from the homeland– and not forgetting the launching of nuclear missiles from submarines. And the work of a capable, ship-borne coastal guard force that does maritime policing is very different. Here in the US we have just such a force along our two coastlines– it’s a force quite separate from the USN called the US Coast Guard.
    That is clearly what the Somali government needs… Oops, but Somalia doesn’t have a functioning government– and hasn’t since the US-Ethiopian military assault of last December that replaced a popular movement that was trying to build a working government there with a ragtag bunch of foreign-financed warlords that is not motivated at all to deliver any actual services, including basic humanitarian aid or public security, to the Somali people.
    Meanwhile, I remain a little wary of the discourse of anti-“piracy”. It has v. frequently been used over the centuries by expanding naval powers as they muscled their way into distant oceans through violence and the propagation of mayhem… One example was the early US campaign against “Barbary pirates” who from another perspective were Ottoman-related traders plying up and down the coasts of North Africa. Also, see the role played anti-“piracy” rhetoric in the rich earlier history of privateers, buccaneers, and others as the various European navies jostled to seize control of key sea-lanes on the Western side of the Atlantic.

  22. Helena
    The trouble with a Coastguard lies in the NLP aspect of its name. Do they go out of sight of land?
    How far does their remit extend? When you look at the chains of small islands in the Pacific your premise starts to look a little shaky.
    You get into all sorts of trouble in hot pursuit situations and the pirates can take refuge in territorial waters. Entry of a Coastguard warship of another country into territorial waters cannot be classified as innocent passage, can it?
    The concept of unlawful combatants being labelled pirates despite their letters of marque is of course old as the hills
    I better stop there before Scott jumps all over me.

  23. H, I wonder if you have been in touch with Sen. Russ Feingold (W) about Somalia? He is the Chair of Senate Sub Committee on African Affairs, and he is truly one of the nation’s best-
    FYI,
    KDJ

  24. Helena,
    With all due respect of your views, I have question here for you.
    Do you care about the voice of the citizens that living on these states?
    Did any one asking them poll them what they think right or wrong for their future?
    Looks your thoughts some how holding same Britt’s colony attitude in the region 100 years ago, without any care what these people who lived their for thousand of years on their land should obey your roll of new power will to control their region and resources on baseless claims.
    What right have some to articulate and designing strategy looks smears fishy that to give the dominated power open hand of full control.
    If I can say for the last 100 years this region with a huge oil money spending on the advices that the got from their handlers now you come to slams them and find new roll for the new power.
    Do you care about those citizens in that states? Or as same as what we heard by your folks as a “Nation Building” in Iraq, in fact it’s a “Nation Canalizing” as far as we can tell today

  25. “Barbary pirates” who from another perspective were Ottoman-related traders plying up and down the coasts of North Africa.
    I wonder what you think about the Dutch and Spanish colonies when they went and “pirated” nations in that region.

  26. Do you care about the voice of the citizens that living on these states?
    Yes. Certainly.
    (And that answer also has bearing on the issues raised about “small Pacific island chains.)

  27. Helena,
    “Yes. Certainly.
    Its not just “YES I DO” as far as reading your post you slammed these states and their rulers and you articulates for US/Iran dialogue on holding the power in the region furthermore you said “that you can’t simply add up the total number of (Arab) states on the south coast of the Gulf and give each of them an equal strategic weight”
    So how then these states can stand and defend them self and be in better position with power build for their survival?
    Of course there is not equality weight for each of them due to many factors, but the total addition will be stronger and will be in a better position of the power build.
    US united 50 states were put them in a better position of the power build?
    With your answer can you direct me to paragraph that support your answer from your post?
    There are far differences Helena between Arabian Gulf nation and “small Pacific island chains” I think you understand this.

  28. To carry out the terms of the 1945 Roosevelt-Ibn Saud agreement, successive American presidents deployed an ever-larger U.S. military presence in the region and helped establish both the Saudi Royal Army and the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), responsible for internal security.
    In his State of the Union address to the nation in January 1980, Jimmy Carter said these words:
    Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

    Are there any singes of care about those who living thier?

  29. Helena
    I am sorry.
    I didn’t quite make the point about small islands in the Pacific clear.
    Would you expect the US Coastguard to patrol off Midway, the Gilberts and Marianas?
    Small countries don’t have the resources to buy patrol boats and maritime reconaissance aircraft. Mercenary bands do have the funds to buy (or steal) quite sophisticated craft as shown by the people running Coke from South America.
    You are of course up to date with your topic.
    http://www.d13publicaffairs.com/go/doc/21/165924/
    Note too that they are part of the Department of Homeland Security whose remit doesn’t run (I hope)outside US territoral waters..

  30. From the US Coast Guard Wikipedia site
    Issues
    Lack of coverage affects many areas with high maritime traffic. For example, local officials in Scituate, Massachusetts, have complained that there is no permanent Coast Guard station, and the presence of the Coast Guard in winter is vital. One reason for this lack of coverage is the relatively high cost of building storm-proof buildings on coastal property; the Cape Hatteras station was abandoned in 2005 after winter storms wiped out the 12-foot sand dune serving as its protection from the ocean.
    Lack of strength to meet its assigned missions is being met by a legislated increase in authorized strength from 39,000 to 45,000. In addition, the volunteer Auxiliary is being called to take up more non-combatant missions. However, volunteer coverage does have limits.
    Aging vessels are another problem. In 2005, the Coast Guard terminated contracts to upgrade the 110-foot (33.5 m) Island Class Cutters to 123-foot (37.5 m) cutters because of warping and distortion of the hulls. In late 2006, Admiral Allen, Commandant of the Coast Guard, decommissioned all eight 123-foot cutters due to dangerous conditions created by the lengthening of the hull- to include compromised watertight integrity. The Coast Guard has, as a result of the failed 110-ft conversion, revised production schedules for the Fast Response Cutter (FRC). Of the 40 largest navies in the world, the Coast Guard’s is the 38th oldest.
    Live fire exercises by Coast Guard boat and cutter crews in the U.S. waters of the Great Lakes attracted attention in the U.S. and Canada. The Coast Guard had proposed the establishment of 34 locations around the Great Lakes where live fire training using vessel-mounted machine guns were to be conducted periodically throughout the year. The Coast Guard said that these exercises are a critical part of proper crew training in support of the service’s multiple missions on the Great Lakes. Those that raised concerns about the firing exercises commented about safety concerns and that the impact on commercial shipping, tourism, recreational boating and the environment may be greater than what the Coast Guard had stated. The Coast Guard took public comment and conducted a series of nine public meetings on this issue. After receiving more than 1,000 comments, mostly opposing the Coast Guard’s plan, the Coast Guard announced that they were withdrawing their proposal for target practice on the Great Lakes, although a revised proposal may be made in the future. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

  31. Is it coincident Helena’s last posts in same vein with George Bush when he answering questions at a recent speech to students at the University of Kansas to voice his displeasures and concerns about small countries.
    “Take the Middle East. The biggest trouble spot in the world today, and it’s absolutely filled with dinky, little countries. But just imagine how quickly they’d all make peace if someone went there and made a Middle Eastern Union. One country, no more fighting.”
    “Iraq and Iran are right next to each other and only one letter different. Why are they two countries? If they’d have joined together five or six years ago, then we’d only have to invade once. And God Almighty knows what the world needs is less wars.”
    George Bush answering questions at a recent speech to students at the University of Kansas to voice his displeasures and concerns about small countries.

  32. SATIRE ALERT SATIRE ALERT
    Salah
    the article you link to isn’t real and is prominently headed Satire.
    When you speedread the piece and just pick up on a couple of keywords and paragraphs though it rocks you back on your heels.
    Unifying all the Middle East States is a rather good idea proposed by a tall chap with a beard who lives near the Pakistan Afghanistan frontier, while the new President of Israel has a similar idea for the small countries in that corner of the Mediterranean.

  34. Thanks Salah
    Seeing as Somalia and the lack of a coastguard was mentioned I thought people might be interested in this.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6918582.stm
    It said Eritrea had sent at least six SA-18 surface-to-air missiles to the Shabab.
    SA-18 are rather good modern weapons and if true this is bad news for helicopter pilots. If Eritrea has enough of them to give some away things could get quite exciting in the Nile Basin fairly soon.

  35. Hi Helena
    As the guy who is putting together the Wikipedia article on Maritime Security Regimes, I would like to thank you for your contributions to aspects of the debate.
    Maritime security has many aspects including environmental but maritime policing in and outside the territorial sea (12nm), the contigious sea (24nm) and the economic zones (approx 200nm) is a complex business.
    In the confines of the Persian Gulf the issues between the US and Iran, and the southern Gulf states and Iran over ownership of Gulf islands, as well as conflict in Iraq and just who the US is fighting – it might be considered a proxy war with Iran – make the whole issue of policing complex.
    Incidentally, the Iranian Navy is not one navy but two, and the small craft you mentioned are equipped with exocet-type missiles and are heavily armed, and are very active and able to use ‘swarming’tactics to quickly destroy enemy ships.
    Iran also has the latest in larger exocet style guided missiles which can easily destroy most types of warship today. Of course this is probably the last thing anyone wants, especially the Iranians.
    Thanks again for your interest and I welcome changes and editing to the Wiki site.
    TAM

  36. Hi Tim
    Thanks again for your interest and I welcome changes and editing to the Wiki site which is at what URL?

  37. Hi Frank
    The site can be found at Wikipedia:
    Helena also has a link to it in her article above.
    cheers
    Tim

  38. Tim Martin,
    I speak from the experience in Iraq war in 1991, US air force have very active and very responsive actions against enemy toys, whatever Iran had from weaponry you can not easy to say “easily destroy most types of warship today” this not really the reality with US weapons and affective early warning system and spaying regime.
    Just simple example for you, Iraq Air force in 1991 was complete ineffective to launch any fighter from Mig 23,, Mig29, and with sixty French Mirage 2000 fighters. In addition to
    • 20 Su-25 ground-attack aircraft
    • 30 Su-20/-22 ground-attack aircraft
    • 7 Tu-16 and B-6D bombers
    • 10 Tu-22 supersonic bombers
    The Iraqi Air force (IAF) with 500 combat aircraft were formed into two bomber squadrons, eleven fighter-ground attack squadrons, five interceptor squadrons, and one counterinsurgency squadron of 10 to 30 aircraft each. Support aircraft included two transport squadrons. As many as ten helicopter squadrons were also operational, although these formed the Army Air Corps. The Air Defence Command piloted the MiG-25, MiG-21, and various Mirage interceptors and manned Iraq’s considerable inventory of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
    France supplied IAF with more than 100 Mirage F-1s, about 100 Gazelle, Super-Frelon, and Alouette helicopters, and a variety of air-to-surface and air-to-air missiles, including Exocets. Other attack helicopters purchased included the Soviet Hind equipped with AT-2 Swatter, and BO-105s equipped with AS-11 antitank guided weapons.
    source
    All this IAF was inactive during the war 1991, because of US super power, one example Iraqi Air-to Air missiles French missiles 40km range the American had 100Km missiles which caused, many fighter destroyed just mints after taking off from any Iraqi Air Base specially from Baghdad (Al-Rashid Air Base) and Naseriyah (Ali Air Base) and other fighters can make take off from the ground due to very strong US jamming.
    This experience back 20 years now, So back to your comment I thing you are very optimistic, when you talking about Iranians force comparing with US forces

  39. Helena,
    Sorry to be somewhat out of topic, but did you know about that organization named Just Foreign Policy ? Their goals seem to point in the same direction as your book, aka Achieving a just foreign policy based on cooperation, law and diplomacy.
    For instance, since the Lancet study concerning the number of deaths due to the US invasion of Iraq is getting older, they offer an estimator updating the data. I’ve read the page explaining their method which seems very honnest and get to the conclusion that nearly one million Iraqi have now died as a result of the US invasion. It can easily be added to blogs.

  40. Well it looks like the Saudis might take on the role. Note the reference to naval vessels
    WASHINGTON, July 27 — The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.
    The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

  41. Christiane
    Their goals seem to point in the same direction as your book, aka Achieving a just foreign policy based on cooperation, law and diplomacy.
    Christiane, is the above similar or close to this:
    the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.
    American foreign and defense policy

  42. Nice thread! Enjoyed Frank and Dominic in particular. As for the statelets of the Gulf I don’t know what historical pedigree they have but they surely believe they have a personal pedigree and blue blood:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6920226.stm
    A British Airways flight was delayed for several hours after women members of the Qatari royal family objected to sitting next to men they did not know.
    The three wives of Sheikh Badr Bin Khalifa al-Thani refused take up their seats on board Flight 563 from Milan’s Linate airport to London Heathrow.
    Police and Qatari diplomats became involved before the captain told Sheikh Badr’s entourage to leave the aircraft.
    The Qatari royals eventually ended up getting an Alitalia flight to London.
    They had been on a shopping day-trip to the Italian city.
    In addition to his three wives, Sheikh Badr, a junior member of Qatar’s 3,000-strong ruling family, was accompanied by a male relative, a cook and another servant on the flight.
    After boarding, the women complained about the seats they had been allocated because they were next to men they did not know, a spokesman at Linate said.
    Sheikh Badr then reportedly got up and walked to the pilot’s cabin to complain.
    A delay of nearly four hours ensued as two members of the Qatari party refused to sit down.
    A BA spokesman said the captain eventually had no option but to return to the terminal.

  43. This thread is not about the minor misbehaviors of members of “royal” families. It is about something much more significant and interesting.

  44. Frank,
    Well it looks like the Saudis might take on the role.
    Frank you need to read carefully my early post about US, UK support for the regimes and specially developing local armies and police in those stats, I requote the line for you again:
    deployed an ever-larger U.S. military presence in the region and helped establish both the Saudi Royal Army and the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), responsible for internal security.

    What’s that mean Frank? With vast spending on advance weaponry in these state they did not had the ability to defend them self from outsider why?
    There are two reasons that come to mind:
    1- The weaponry and the strategy that established to built Royal Army and the National Guard is to protect the regimes internal security not to defend the state from outsider that option left and they relay on US and UK to protect their states due to many security and military agreements and alliance with them.
    2- The purchases of weaponry used by these regime as away of corruptions and money laundering here we talking hundreds if not thousands of billions of oil dollars that these royal families enjoying..
    So now the find themselves so shaky and so week against Iran in the region as the weak up that their society and their nation in all aspects have nothing to offer to protected their states and regimes .

  45. Doris,
    With apology to Helena and other redress I just like to say this to Doris.
    During 33dayes war between Israel and Lebanon some sources reported the same Qatari royal family were in Israel for a holiday and shopping Doris. Did they also conflicts the city schedules and air flights also inside Israel?
    So it’s all about their shopping money.

  46. Salah,
    The Project for the New American Century is an emanation of the neocons, those who decided that the US should act like a superpower and replace multilateralism by unilateralism (we know where this brought in Iraq). It was Wolfowitz, Pearl, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc..
    The association for a Just foreign policy to which I linked is opposed to that conception of unilateralism.
    None of the names of the staff members are familiar to me, but reading from their biography, they seem to be of good faith; many are academicians whose books smell of social preoccupations; one seem to have been an eminent civil rights activists, others have been elected at the senate; they state to be bipartisan, but their discourse seems nearer of that of the Democrates. What I find interesting is that their action isn’t directed toward the rest of the world, it’s directed toward the Americans whom they want to teach some humility.
    I don’t know enough about them to make a judgement, but their goal seems interesting.

  47. Christiane,
    Lets wait 20 years to come if they have the power today and judge them! as we did with Wolfowitz, Pearl, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others

  50. Look out for Terry Crawford-Brown’s book “Eye on the Money”, coming out in SA on Wednesday, all about the Arms Deal. Published by Umuzi, an imprint of Random House.

  52. Tim Martin, hi!
    Thanks for the contribution you made to the Wikipedia with that entry on Maritime Security Regimes. I have one small question about your lead there and a couple othert suggestions. Sorry I don’t have time to get into the entry there and do anything about these myself, but maybe you or someone else could consider doing so?
    First, the small question. It’s about the definition you give up at the front there:
    Maritime Security Regimes are codes and conventions of behaviour agreed upon by coastal states to provide a degree of security in territorial waters and on the high seas.
    Is that a “standard”, widely accepted definition? If so, what is its source?
    If it’s not widely used and considered “standard”, I think it could be open to several questions. One is, the inclusion of the (restricting) phrase “agreed upon by coastal states”. This would seem to exclude non-coastal states, which seems to make the whole idea of an MSR depend on regional, one-sea arrangements. These do exist in some areas. But couldn’t we also think of a global MSR? (I do, anyway.) In which case, restricting it to states that “coastal” to, presumably, any one particular body of water would seem inappropriate.
    You could consider just taking out the word “coastal”?
    Also, I’ve been doing a bit of net-based research on maritime security issues, and there are lots of great resources out there that I think should be linked to (and used) in your entry there. Starting with some of the excellent resources available through the website of the UN’s International Maritime Organization, and also (to a lesser extent) those available at the ICS/ISF website. Also, the IISS has just published an Adelphi Paper on Maritime Security issues which is sitting on my desk 120 miles away from me now, sadly still unread.
    Anyway, good luck with anything more you can contribute– there or here. Personally I’m thinking of working into my book the idea that shipping routes, air-lanes, space, the internet, global wireless spectra etc all constitute a kind of global commons and therefore should have their security guarded by a transparent, accountable, and sturdy global common-security regime… Still thinking this through. Your reactions (and those of others) v. welcome.

  53. What a jolly super idea, Helena!
    Let’s wipe the whole slate squeaky-clean, erect an enormous global fandangle, and put some really impressive personality in charge of the whole bang shoot – someone like Ban Ki-Moon, or Tony Blair, or Kofi Annan, say.

  54. H’mm, I was thinking of nominating you, Dominic…
    Irony alert.
    (And I think you omitted to put one on your comment too, perhaps?)
    Seriously, though, what’s wrong with the concept of treating these spaces or connectors or however we think of them as some form of global commons?

  55. I seriously think you are going to produce something that is seriously bonkers if you are not careful, Helena.
    I seriously suggest that you tell your publisher that you cannot meet this deadline and that you need more time, not only for research, but also for reflection.
    I seriously suggest that if you were serious about the real crisis in this general area you would be paying attention to the WTO negotiations at this time. The concerns that we in have SA are well articulated there by the group called the “NAMA 11”, for your information.
    If instead you insist on going ahead with this amateur, ex-novo project of yours then you at least should pay heed to advice, especially when you are asking for advice.
    I think it has been suggested to you above that there are hundreds of thousands of kilometres of coastline that have been watched over by careful people, like fisherpeople and lifeboat people, in all sorts of locally suitable arrangements, under the severe discipline of the sea.
    You now propose that the townies from up-country must have “rights” to impose themselves uniformly on the coasts and everywhere, by imposing “compliance” backed up by threats of “unilateral and multilateral force” (boilerplate used by Kalilzad this week). There will have to be “qualifications” and reporting and bean-counting, more than before, and there will have to be scandals and humiliations so as to subordinate the proud and agitate the ignorant.
    In other words you are proposing a vast new institution of Imperialism to take its place alongside the WTO and the others, at the very moment when it is the WTO that should be under examination, because there is a real and present crisis there, unlike in this field that you are trying to get people stirred up and worried about, for nothing.
    The best interpretation I can put on all this, seriously, is that you are being “played”, Helena. That’s what it looks like from here. I seriously wonder if you are short of money, or something like that. I seriously wonder if I have seriously misjudged you all along, and it’s years now (do you relaise that?). For years I have been following you through this blog. This thing you are doing now is not in keeping with your usual standard of circumspection and, well, seriousness.

  56. Helena
    what you are describing as applied to the internet and modern communications networks is not as daft as one might think.
    Given the movement towards Next Generation Networks as the underlying technology to support
    eCommerce and other modern ways of doing business and managing health and education these need to be protected from Crackers and other malign forces.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Networking
    It parallels some other work I am doing that is at a very early stage.
    You cant build a society that is at risk of being switched off suddenly by some hooligan seizing control of your communications system.
    I commend Geoff Mulgan’s book Connexity to you.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Mulgan
    http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/184/mulgan.htm

  57. Hi Dominic and Helena
    I like the debate, as the issue of global verses regional is in part a result of the end of the cold war and its pervasive bi-polarising influences.
    Regional security has re-emerged as the prerogative of individual states, and in the maritime context, it is the coastal states that have a vested or national interest in their immediate coastal waters.
    It took a lot of work to get UNCLOS accepted by around 70 countries, yet still the USA refused to sign this due to concerns (which are largely resolved). Regimes such as UNCLOS work only by agreement, and its laws are often breached anyway largely because the geography of the oceans is vast, the shipping industry is secretive and largely unregulated, and it is extremely difficult to police.
    Regional maritime security agreements face all these problems as well but with fewer states involved the it is easier to get agreement, regulate and police as what affects a specific region is often considered to have more relevance.
    As to your question as to who agrees to this theory, I have set the questions via Wikipedia so that some debate might be generated.
    cheers

  58. Dominic and Tim, hi.
    Of course I realize that the coastal states lining any body of water have long had their own arrangements– often cooperating with each other– to see to the safety of fishing and maritime traffic within coastal waters. It is also the case, I think, that most of the acts of piracy occurring these days are carried out within the 24 nm band that UNCLOS defines as the “contiguous zone” for any state, wherein it has the right to enforce its own laws. I guess for the places where piracy is a real problem these days, the main issue is actually the incapability of the states concerned to be effective in this enforcement.
    Certainly, catastrophic state failure is the main issue– and not just at sea!– for Somalia. I don’t know as much about Nigeria, Indonesia (Malacca Straits), and the South China Sea, which I gather are the other main piracy zones these days. (Though maybe for the SCS there is also a problem of coordination among the various coastal states with often competing rights and interests there?)
    Tim, you’re quite right to enumerate the huge challenges to even thinking about a global maritime-security regime, and I am largely persuaded by the points you make.
    Actually, how I got into thinking about all this was when I wanted to start thinking of possible alternatives to US domination of the maritime security regime in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. The US role there is not as a coastal state, but by invitation of the coastal statelets; and I guess any state has the right to call on the maritime assets of its friends?
    I’m also interested in thinking about the maritime-law implications, and particularly the limitations on passage of armed warships (i.r. not “innocent passage”) through the Straits of Hormuz, in the event of any US-Iran war. The Straits are around 30 nm. wide at the narrowest point, between the Iranian island of Qeshem and the tiny tip of (Omani) Hormuz. I guess I’ve seen the maps with the shipping lanes that have been carefully designated to go around Hormuz and in and out of the Gulf. But in the event of an Iranian-US war, Tim, can you tell me what the position of the Iranians would be under international law if they announced and then sought to enforce a ban on the passage of US warships through the Straits?
    Anyway, the thinking about a UN-based alternative to the present US domination of nearly the whole maritime environment in the Gulf is what got me started thinking about this.
    Of course, there’s no need to set up a UN global capability for this. We could envisage the Security Council discussing and coming up with an explicit UN-backed international security regime just for the Gulf. (One alternative I would love to see explored would be a demilitarization or anyway strictly arms-controlled plan for the whole Gulf.)
    I think that for many reasons a UN-backed international security regime for the Gulf would be preferable to the existing situation. The key thing, however, is how the citizens of the coastal states and their governments feel about it. And yes, the “state” status of the former Trucial “States” does complicate this… they are sort of like a great heavy necklace of Hong Kongs and Macaos hung around the neck of the more “real” and sizeable countries of the Gulf. I guess the Foreign Office and India Office guys who set up all those little Trucial States 80 years ago had a fair idea of how useful they might be in protecting Western oil interests long into the future.

  59. source Burney Law Firm LLC (copied for private study and correspondence purposes and less than 10,000 words)
    Looks like naval ships will do Transit passage of straits and can start shooting if someone tries to stop them.
    Innocent Passage.
    Articles 17 – 32. This is what effected the compromise between the seafaring and coastal nations. You get the 12-mile belt provided other states get the right of innocent passage within it.
    Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, security, and good order of the coastal state.
    A variety of laws and regulations can be applied to ships in innocent passage — it is not the same as the high seas.
    Cannot do anything threatening force. Can’t practice with your weapons.
    No spying or propaganda.
    No launching or landing aircraft or any military device.
    No commerce contrary to the laws of the coastal state.
    No willful and serious pollution.
    No fishing.
    No research or surveying.
    Can’t do anything else not having a direct bearing on passage.
    Submarines must navigate on the surface and show their flag.
    Coastal states have the rights & duties to regulate innocent passage.
    They set up sea lanes, regulate safety, etc.
    nnocent passage CAN be SUSPENDED at the discretion of the coastal state.
    Exception — Israel’s only Red Sea port is at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. Article 45 says that innocent passage there cannot be suspended by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
    Innocent passage is a problem for warships.
    Many states say that passage of a warship is by definition prejudicial to the peace and good order of a coastal state.
    The big-navy states (U.S., U.K, Russia, France, etc.) contest this. So many states say it’s okay only if the coastal state gives permission.
    Transit Passage, Straits, and Archipelagic States.
    Transit Passage.
    Less restrictive than innocent passage. Ships (and aircraft) must:
    Proceed without delay through or over the strait.
    Refrain from any threat or use of force against the coastal states.
    Refrain from any activities other than those incident to their normal modes of continuous and expeditious transit (unless necessary because of distress or force majeure).
    Comply with generally-accepted international regulations for sea/air safety.
    Comply with generally-accepted regulations for controlling pollution.
    Turkey says Russian tankers shouldn’t be allowed to use the Bosporus to get into the Mediterranean, because they’re too bad for the environment, and there’s a pipeline right across Turkey anyway (which by the way provides Turkey with some fees). It doesn’t help the Russian position much that their tankers keep running aground.
    Military ships have every right to transit in their normal mode. Subs get to submerge, for example.
    Transit Passage may not be suspended.
    Straits.
    When you extend a territorial sea out from 3 nm to 12 nm, straits have a tendency to disappear. Like Gibraltar. And then all passage between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean would have to be innocent passage under the jurisdiction of Spain and Morocco.
    So through straits you have Transit Passage, rather than innocent passage.
    Definition:
    It must have been a traditional sea route.
    Generally passage from one High Seas/EEZ to another.
    Corfu Channel — Even if there are alternate routes, a route from the High Seas to the High Seas, used by international navigation, is a strait.
    Exception, under Article 38, is when the strait lies between a state and its island.
    Then, if there is an alternate route that is just as convenient, there is only innocent passage, not transit.
    Archipelagic States (like Oceania).
    These can set baseline borders around the clusters of islands, but they must permit sea lane passage (Articles 46 – 54).
    The baselines cannot be extended out around islands far away from the rest of the group.
    To prevent gerrymandering, the rule is that the ratio of water to land must be no greater than 9:1 within the boundary.

  61. Dear Helena
    And yes, the “state” status of the former Trucial “States” does complicate this… around the neck of the more “real” and sizeable countries of the Gulf.
    I remember the disbelief of an American satellite enginer planning the footprint of his Satellite when he was told that Luxembourg is a country.
    They held the Presidency of the EU in 2005.
    Tea Culpa? Tea Culpa? Tea maxima Culpa?

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