A Cooperative Strategy For 21st Century Seapower - Maritime Cooperation

Maritime Cooperation

A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower highlights cooperation by the U.S. sea services with maritime counterparts around the world. It calls for U.S. maritime forces and their international partners to be vigilant about keeping the sea lanes free and open for commerce, ensuring pirates and smugglers are thwarted and sea borne terrorist events are prevented.

The "Thousand Ship Navy" concept, later renamed the "Global Maritime Partnership," calls for the voluntary development of networked and self-organizing partnerships to guard the martitime commons. Such coalitions have taken shape over the last decade in response to piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the Strait of Malacca.

Speaking at the International Seapower Symposium held at the Naval War College October 17, 2007, U.S. Navy Admiral Gary Roughead said the key to maritime security is being aware of that which is, “moving above, on and under the ocean, or “maritime domain awareness”. Roughead told the international audience that trust among nations is critical to carrying out the strategy and that “trust cannot be surged… it is something that must be built over time, through discussions, activities and through exercises (and) initiatives that each of us may undertake and bring others into.”