Security at Sea

Multinational Soldiers, poised with automatic rifles, stormed and swarmed onto the deck of an Arabian Gulf fishing dhow, shouting and firing as they dipped below deck to take out terrorists and tear open metal bins suspected of hiding smuggled weapons or drugs.

These troops came from afar to participate for the first time in the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise (IMCMEX) based out of Manama, Bahrain.

The dhow was actually docked on dry land, hauled to the Bahraini naval base to serve as a training vessel for multinational troops. The drill simulated searching and seizing a boat, if not the actual complexities of boarding a vessel in rolling seas.

Things were even more high-tech about 450 kilometers up the coast in Kuwait, where Kuwaiti, American and other multinational Sailors used robotically guided underwater drones to detect and scoop dummy mines from harbors vital to the country’s economic security.

Jordanian divers did much of the same 1,200 kilometers to the west off the critical port of Aqaba, and another multinational military force conducted counterpiracy operations in the Red Sea, practicing on the huge Maersk Atlantic container ship.

“We believe that the threat from nonstate actors to international commerce is real, and by doing this exercise we can help mitigate it,” Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said of the nearly three-week military exercise in April 2016. “We look at nonstate actors that have potential capabilities to disrupt sea traffic, ranging from al-Qaida to ISIS and even to the Houthis.”

The sweep and scope of IMCMEX 16 was vast, tracing a watery arc from southern Iraq, down the Arabian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, brushing Oman and Yemen and running the length of the Red Sea all the way to Aqaba and Egypt. This is all familiar territory to the three multinational task forces that patrol sections of these waters — Combined Task Forces 150, 151 and 152.

Thirty-four nations participated in IMCMEX 16, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Pakistan. The defensive exercise was designed to promote maritime security, expose troops to the latest in training and equipment and improve interoperability, not just among militaries, but with the civilian fleets that rely on navies for protection.

It’s no coincidence that the region is home to three of the world’s most strategic choke points when it comes to transporting oil — the Suez Canal, the Bab el Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz. Leaders such as Maj. Gen. Khaled Al-Kandari, commander of the Kuwaiti Navy, expressed the desire to strengthen cooperation to defend international waters in and around the Arabian Gulf. “The exercises in Kuwait will focus on infrastructure and operations of maritime security and search and rescue missions and escorting commercial ships and oil tanker protection,” Maj. Gen. Al-Kandari said as Kuwaiti, American and European Sailors trained together on the Kuwaiti waterfront at IMCMEX.

IMCMEX began with a conference in Manama that attracted some of the region’s top naval commanders and shipping industry executives. The Maritime Infrastructure Protection Symposium highlighted the world’s growing dependence on shipping lanes whose traffic has quadrupled in the past 30 years.

The recent Somali pirate crisis illustrates how small groups of criminals can wreak havoc on international shipping in the absence of multinational naval forces to keep the peace. Even the growing popularity of cruise ships raises risks: The largest such pleasure vessels hold 6,000 passengers, a capacity larger than the biggest U.S. aircraft carriers. In fact, during the exercise, Britain’s Royal Navy demonstrated sea lane protection by escorting two cruise ships — the RMS Queen Mary II and RMS Queen Elizabeth — across the Gulf of Oman.

But maritime infrastructure includes much more than ships. Commercial ports, naval bases, oil terminals and derricks, fiber optic cables, pipelines, bridges and tunnels also require protection.

“Keeping the peace at sea is our duty as naval forces,” said Brig. Gen. Sheikh Abdullah Al-Khalifa, commander of the Royal Bahrain Naval Forces.

Underwater mines and seaborne improvised explosive devices remain a threat to global shipping lanes. It was such a threat the IMCMEX participants addressed in places like Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan during tactical displays that involved about 4,000 personnel aboard 30 ships and on shore. To locate and destroy mines, technology has partly replaced what was once a more dangerous and expensive operation involving aerial patrols and human divers. Remote-controlled unmanned boats approach suspicious objects on the surface, and lightweight submersible drones equipped with sonar can plunge 100 meters in a search-and-destroy mission against more deeply laid objects.

The USS Ponce, a 45-year-old U.S. Navy ship that services and resupplies the multinational minesweeping fleet in the Arabian Gulf, accommodated personnel from 20 partner nations during the exercise. The ship also employs mine-sniffing seals trained to detect underwater explosives. When a seal touches its nose to the mine, it triggers a devise on its back that releases a flag to the surface that Sailors can spot.  “They’ll do anything for a fish,” Capt. Ken Reilley joked.

Another high-tech ship, the USNS Choctaw County, is made of unpainted aluminum to give it a lighter weight, faster speed and resistance to magnetic mines. It can maneuver close to shore in water only 13 feet deep. The ship raced Soldiers and supplies from Bahrain to Kuwait during IMCMEX. Part of USS Ponce’s crew and all of USNS Choctaw County’s crew consists of civilian Sailors, a cost-savings measure that allows Arabian Gulf forces to do more with fewer Soldiers and Sailors.

To test the skills of divers and Sailors, IMCMEX directors planted 161 dummy mines in the waters off Jordan, Kuwait and elsewhere and graded troops on how well they “mowed the grass,” slang for clearing mines. “You couldn’t just show up and declare success. You actually had to get in the water,” Adm. Donegan said of participation from partner nations.

Joining U.S. and British vessels, Japan, Kuwait and Pakistan supplied ships for training purposes. Organizers hope to grow the exercise and look forward to Arabian Gulf partner nations assuming an even more prominent role.

Donegan hoped that exercises such as IMCMEX can help promote predictability and professionalism when it comes to “unplanned encounters at sea.”

That means countries such as Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, UAE and the U.S. operate together using the same approach to potential threats.

“All of us depend on each other,” Adm. Donegan said.