Maritime domain awareness (MDA)

Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is the effective understanding of anything associated with the global maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment of the United States.  MDA is a key component of an active, layered maritime defense in depth. It will be achieved by improving our ability to collect, fuse, analyze, display, and disseminate actionable information and intelligence to operational commanders.  MDA is supported by the Global Maritime Intelligence Integration Plan and is the enabler for the Maritime Operational Threat Response Plan.

KEY DEFINITIONS:

  • Maritime Domain is all areas and things of, on, under, relating to, adjacent to, or bordering on a sea, ocean, or other navigable waterway, including all maritime related activities, infrastructure, people, cargo, and vessels and other conveyances.
  • Maritime Domain Awareness is the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment of the United States. 
  • Global Maritime Community of Interest (GMCOI) includes, among other interests, the federal, state, and local departments and agencies with responsibilities in the maritime domain. Because certain risks and interests are common to government, business, and citizen alike, community membership also includes public, private and commercial stakeholders, as well as foreign governments and international stakeholders.

MDA Goals :

MDA supports core national defense and security priorities over the next decade. MDA serves to simplify today’s complex and ambiguous security environment by meeting the following strategic goals: 

  • Enhance transparency in the maritime domain to detect, deter and defeat threats as early and distant from U.S. interests as possible; 
  • Enable accurate, dynamic, and confident decisions and responses to the full spectrum of maritime threats; and
  • Sustain the full application of the law to ensure freedom of navigation and the efficient flow of commerce.

Maritime domain awareness MDA  Objectives:

  • Achieving MDA depends on the ability to monitor activities in such a way that trends can be identified and anomalies differentiated.
  • Data alone are insufficient. Data must becollected, fused, and analyzed, preferably with the assistance of computer data integration and analysis algorithms to assist in handling vast, disparate data streams, so that operational decision makers can anticipate threats and take the initiative to defeat them. 
  • The following objectives constitute the MDA Essential Task List, which will guide the development of capabilities that the United States Government will pursue and when executed will provide the GMCOI an effective understanding of the maritime domain.
  • Persistently monitor in the global maritime domain: o Vessels and craft o Cargo o Vessel crews and passengers o All identified areas of interest 
  • Access and maintain data on vessels, facilities, and infrastructure 
  • Collect, fuse, analyze, and disseminate information to decision makers to facilitate effective understanding. 
  • Access, develop and maintain data on MDA-related mission performance.

 

Threats:

  • Nation-State Threats: The prospect of major regional conflicts erupting, escalating, and drawing in major powers should not be discounted. Nonetheless, for the near-term, states represent a more significant challenge to global security.
  • Terrorist Threats: The vastness of the maritime domain provides great opportunities for exploitation by terrorists. The use of smaller commercial and recreational vessels closer to our shores and areas of interest to transport WMD/E is of significant concern.
  • Transnational Criminal and Piracy Threats: Modern-day pirates and other criminals are well organized and well equipped, often possessing advanced communications, weapons, and high-speed craft to conduct smuggling of people, drugs, weapons, and other contraband, as well as piracy. 
  • Environmental and Social Threats: Catastrophic destruction of marine resources, conflict between nation-states over maritime resources, and mass migration flows have the potential to harm the maritime domain or destabilize regions of the world. The accompanying economic impacts are often significant.

KEY ORGANIZATIONS:

Governmental Organizations :

  • The Maritime Security Policy Coordinating Committee (MSPCC), established by NSPD41/HSPD-13 and co-chaired by representatives from the NSC and HSC staffs, is the primary forum for coordinating and implementing policies, strategies, and initiatives of this plan.
  • Both through the MSPCC and other organizational implementation efforts, theUnited States Government will work with relevant intergovernmental, state, and local agencies, as well as private sector and international partners, to execute this plan.

International Organizations:

  • MDA must be embedded into all maritime activities to enhance global maritime security. Close, continual cooperation with international organizations is required to achieve MDA.
  • For example, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) took steps toward embedding security within the global maritime domain with the adoption of the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code.
  • This provides a standardized, consistent framework for evaluating risk, enabling governments to offset changes in threat with changes in vulnerability for ships and port facilities. 
  • To help facilitate global MDA, this plan will leverage the efforts of the NSMS International Outreach and Coordination Strategy, which provides a framework to coordinate all maritime security initiatives undertaken with foreign governments and international organizations, and solicits international support for enhanced maritime security.

Private Sector Organizations:

  • Private Sector Organizations Initiatives conducted with the support of the private sector are also necessary to ensure full information dominance in the maritime domain.
  • Public-private sector partnership initiatives, such as the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), provide models for enhancing awareness and incentives for private sector participation. 
  • Such initiatives have helped enhance the visibility and security of the global supply chain, a key element of MDA.
  • To this end, we must engage private sector organizations to include: Harbor Safety Committees, shipping companies, associations and consortia within the GMCOI, including the National Maritime Security Advisory Committee (NMSAC) and other private sector advisory committees.

Conclusion:

  • To meet emerging threats, MDA may be required to support the entire spectrum of national security events – from the Global War on Terrorism and stability operations to disaster response and recovery. These requirements may call for a surge or sustained capability to provide MDA where strategically, operationally, or tactically most important. 
  • In these cases, capabilities supporting MDA will be focused toward identified maritime areas of interest, such as military vessels or formations, the center of a maritime operating area or a geographic area of interest (e.g., choke point, special security events, sea lines of communication, strategic port, high threat area, etc.).