French Navy: publication of the MICA Center’s annual report on maritime security
For the fifth year running, the Maritime Information Cooperation & Awareness Center (MICA Center) has published its annual report on maritime security. It identifies and characterizes the events of 2023 that affect maritime security worldwide.
Based in Brest, under the direct authority of the French Navy’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, the MICA Center collects and relays useful information to all players in the maritime industry. Its mission is to process maritime security data worldwide.
The maritime world is exposed to increasingly pressing and multifaceted challenges, particularly those linked to illicit activities. At the same time, the geopolitical context is becoming increasingly complex, with the emergence of new hotbeds of tension, raising concerns about the safety of seafarers and the fluidity of maritime traffic in ever larger geographical areas, some of which are of strategic importance to world maritime trade. Against this backdrop, cooperation is becoming an imperative.
After a dark period in the Gulf of Guinea, followed two years ago by the conflict in the Black Sea, attention is now once again focused on the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. The stance taken by the Houthi forces, in support of Hamas and against Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip, has caused chaos in this maritime zone, where calm seemed to have returned since the end of piracy. Faced with a mass drone threat and a feared but rarely considered missile threat to commercial traffic, conventional naval forces have had to reorganize and coordinate to support international trade and enable safe transit through one of the world’s most strategic straits.
While we await the results of these operations, it is difficult to anticipate how this pendulum swing in threats to global maritime security will evolve.
With the exception of the Indian Ocean and the Black Sea, all theaters of the sea are experiencing a significant increase in the number of incidents reported, although without any major deterioration in navigation conditions.
You will find the full 2023 Annual Review and a complete presentation of the Maritime Information Cooperation & Awareness Center (MICA Center) on its website : https://www.mica-center.org/en/publications-2/
Centre media du ministère des Armées
