DT24 | Maritime Domain Awareness: Knowing to Understand

MDA is a concept, an ideal condition to achieve, which is difficult to attain in its entirety, considering that the maritime domain consists of three dimensions: it is necessary to understand what happens above, in, and below the surface of the sea.

This article discusses the concept of Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), one of the necessary tools to achieve the condition of good order at sea, or as some refer to it, maritime security. A basic requirement for exploiting the maritime domain is to understand what occurs within it; especially in countries like Chile, where the area covered by the Exclusive Economic Zone is significantly larger than the land area.

MDA is a concept, an ideal condition to achieve, which is difficult to attain in its entirety, considering that the maritime domain consists of three dimensions: it is necessary to understand what happens above, in, and below the surface of the sea.

Technological advancements have contributed to reducing maritime opacity, utilizing not only naval and coast guard vessels but also the support of aircraft, satellites, and radars. Additionally, sectoral actors, such as the merchant fleets themselves, are cooperative and often provide information about their units. However, for various reasons, not all actors are willing to disclose their operations; this may be to gain commercial advantages, due to monopolies in certain fishing areas, or even to commit illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal fishing. To minimize these actions, more developed countries have addressed the problem by creating information fusion centers, where they concentrate the data received from the aforementioned platforms, disseminating the analyzed content to those who require it. Given the quantity and complexity of the illicit activities, it is rare for a single agency to be able to deal with them, thus requiring interagency collaboration to confront these growing threats.

These fusion centers—some of which are interagency and also regional—base their operations on three key concepts: see, understand, and share. The first pillar, see, relates to the ability to collect information, either through own means or by acquiring services, such as satellite services. The second pillar, understand, allows for the detection of irregular behavioral patterns that are difficult to observe in their entirety by human operators, who must deal with a large amount of information. The third and final pillar is sharing information, which is also the most complex; especially when government agencies generally compete with each other for more resources. Furthermore, when operating at the international level, sharing information among neighboring countries can represent a strategic advantage for one of them. Trust, which is built through actions, is vital to achieving this point.

In Latin America, there have been attempts to create this type of center; however, trust is precisely the key factor that has hindered progress. In the national case, the Chilean Navy, through its General Directorate of Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine, is responsible for obtaining and analyzing the data collected, and although there are currently levels of coordination among agencies, it seems that there is still room for improvement.