FAQ
After Lisbon Summit declaration, Allied Maritime Strategy and NATO MSO Concept, Maritime Security was considered the best area for co-operation with NATO Partners.
“MARSEC COE Project” was finalized in December 2011 with national entities and proposed as a Smart Defence Project to the ACT in January 2012.
On February 2012, MARSEC COE Project was presented to the Military attaches in Turkish Naval HQ in Ankara.
CHOD letters were sent to NATO on 13 March 2012 and NATO Partner Countries on 16 May 2012.
To avoid duplications and concept of MARSEC COE were discussed with NATO nations on 4 April 2012 and other related maritime organizations (CJOS COE, CSW COE, NMIOTC) and ACT representatives on 5 April 2012 in NATO HQ-Brussels.
As of 8 June 2020, Multi-National Maritime Security Centre of Excellence achieved the status of “International Military Organization” as the 26th centre of excellence accredited to NATO.
NATO and NATO Partners (PfP, ICI, Med-Dialog, CC).
MARSEC COE will mainly focus on;
- Support MSA,
- Uphold Freedom of Navigation,
- Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO),
- Fight proliferation of WMD,
- Protect Critical Infrastructure (CI),
- Support Maritime Counter Terrorism (MCT),
- Contribute to Maritime Security Capacity Building.
Our aim is to bring existing communities (PSI, ISPS, CSI, GCINT, CBRN, MSA, NCAGS), Contact Group on Piracy) representatives on Government, private sector, Maritime Industry and Academics.
- During the last decade, but most notably following the terrorist attack on New York in September 2001, a great many national and international initiatives have been put in place to enhance security in the maritime domain resulting in the ongoing development of Maritime Security.
- Maritime Security is, so far, a mostly ad hoc attempt to combine civil and military efforts to ensure the legal use of maritime spaces and prevent unlawful activities such as terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, piracy, irregular migration, narcotic trafficking and the like, being spread across the oceans and projected into territorial areas.
- Maritime Security requires a solid legal basis therefore the first international initiatives have been oriented towards the creation of such a framework. The establishment of the Automatic Identification System (AIS), the international Ship and Port Security (ISPS) Code, by the amended Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention or the 2005 Protocols to the Suppression of Unlawful Acts (SUA) Convention are some examples of measures taken by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), on behalf of the United Nations.
- Together with these legal tools, new organizational models have been proposed to enable the correct combination of efforts and capabilities by those agencies entitled to act against the various threats that have emerged in recent years. The large number of agencies involved in maritime activities is itself a challenge when it comes to co-ordinating the required defensive measures, yet co-ordination is essential to achieve sufficient unified action and avoid undesired security gaps.
- At the same time, in the wake of Maritime Security, a better understanding of the maritime domain has been found to be critical, calling for increasing information exchange by all involved agencies, which has resulted in the expansion of a further concept, Maritime Situational Awareness.
- Maritime Security (MS) is an international and interagency, civil and military, activity to mitigate the risk and counter the threat of illegal or threatening activities in the maritime domain, so that they may be acted upon in order to enforce law, protect citizens and safeguard national and international interest. Maritime Security will therefore concentrate on the unlawful use of the maritime domain.
- Maritime Safety encompasses the measures taken by the appropriate national and international authorities in order to ensure the safe navigation of ships and transport of goods at sea and prevent accidents, pollution an the undesired accidental effects of legal maritime activities.
- Maritime Security Operations (MSO) relates to the action carried out at sea by those military and civil authorities equipped with the appropriate assets and empowered to act upon Maritime Security related risks and threats.
- Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA) is the management of information related to the maritime domain that can have an impact on Maritime Security. Ideally, Maritime Situational Awareness should include as many international and interagency information sources as possible; furthermore Maritime Situational Awareness requires the timely exchange and analysis of different pieces of information, coming from different sources, in order to obtain actionable conclusions that might otherwise remain unnoticed.
- To easy access to maritime security partners,
- To establish Maritime Security Data Base,
- To create a new and unique community of interest among Maritime Security Stakeholders (government, academics, maritime industry and private sector),
- To foster national maritime security capacity building (VPD, MSA Tools etc.),
- To train Marine & Navy SOF Teams in MSO before deployment,
- To support Decision & Policy Makers,
- To support Maritime Transportation & Harbour & Ship Security,
- To train all relevant Maritime Security Stake Holders in Table Top Exercise and LIVEX,
- To provide sustainable Multinational Synergy for Counter Proliferation, Counter Maritime Terrorism and Counter Piracy,
- To establish a multinational platform on cross-functional interagency approach,
- To support Private Maritime Companies (PMSC) on PCASP.