Additionally, just recently, a significant new threat has emerged: semi-submersible maritime drones. These are particularly dangerous because they are very difficult to see and destroy, and are designed to attack targets at their most vulnerable point, the waterline.
If such a drone were to collide with a large container ship or oil and gas tanker, the consequences could be catastrophic, including sinking of the vessel, death of the crew, and dire environmental impacts.
Escalation is an inappropriate alternative
The number of warships and the schedules of individual shipping companies make regular convoys for escort impossible. Operation Prosperity Guardian is therefore likely to be conducted using carefully selected and patrolled routes, concentrating naval forces in areas where the threat is believed to be highest.
This is a complex, demanding and expensive task, but escalating the response can be a dangerous option.
Any retaliatory measures could jeopardize the fragile ceasefire in Yemen’s civil war, further deepening the conflict already engulfing parts of the region, as the US and UK launched pre-emptive strikes against Houthi-linked targets. There is a risk of expansion.
Operation Prosperity Guardian is therefore critical to safeguarding global peace and prosperity, both by protecting the trading system on which the whole world depends and by limiting the risk of further large-scale war in the region. This is a great exercise.
Small countries like Singapore can also play their part. As a small island nation dependent on the world’s maritime system for its security and survival, Singapore must do all it can to support and uphold the multilateral rules-based system.
Jeffrey Till is Professor and Advisor of the Maritime Security Program and Jane Chan is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Maritime Security Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.