http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/Columns/20030530082320/Article/Comment: Perils of spying at seaB.A. Hamzah
May 30: There is a new military security threat in Asia Pacific. Lack of a legal framework regulating spying activities at sea will only result in more maritime skirmishes that may turn nasty, warns B.A. HAMZAH.
A TRANSFORMED SARS virus is waiting to mutate into a military security threat in Asia Pacific. The virus — "Sophisticated Aerial-systems-for-Spying" — is a byproduct of the arms race.
The competition for state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, considered destabilising SARS platforms, is ongoing.
Configured to destroy enemy targets without warning and zero casualties to the perpetrators, these platforms are sharpening military conflicts at sea.
This military-generated virus is as debilitating as its medical cousin, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. If efforts to produce an antidote in the form of a politico-legal regime for military activities in exclusive economic zones (EEZ) fail, this virus will threaten regional security.
The new UAVs are small but deadlier. Designed for spying, they can be fitted with precision-guided munitions to strike distant targets. Relying on its stealth, in November 2002, the CIA used a larger UAV-craft, Predator, to kill six suspected terrorists travelling in a car in Yemen, including Qaed Sinan Harithi. Of course, UAVs were used to great effect in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One report says the US Defence Department will spend US$1.5 billion (RM5.7 billion) for battlefield-proven UAVs in 2004 and tactical mini-UAV systems, the size of cigarette boxes, currently undergoing field tests.
There are reports that Singapore will buy additional UAVs to complement Scout UAVs, Seacher Mark II UAVs, Firefly UAVs, E-2C Hawkeye and Fokker 50 maritime patrol aircraft. Its electronic intelligence capability is the region's best.
Leading global maritime powers — US, France, UK, China and Russia — possess sophisticated aerial-platforms spying capability. All five, in varying intensity, are engaged in intelligence gathering activities (spying) at sea.
Of course, spying is not confined to these states alone; others have their share of indiscretion.
During the Cold War, the Soviets de-veloped an extensive maritime spy infra-structure that included trawler-fishing ves-sels configured for electronic intelligence.
With the Soviet Union out of the picture, Washington operates by far the most advanced aerial spy platforms in the world.
An expert claims the US currently maintains a fleet of 30 aircraft for col-lecting signal intelligence in Asia Pacific, "flying more than 400 reconnaissance mis-sions a year, several of them on a daily basis, mainly along the periphery of China." On one of its spying missions off China, the US EP-3 plane collided with a Chinese F-8 Interceptor in April 2001. The rest, as they say, is history.
While Beijing protested the US military spying as a hostile act that violates international law, its hands are not entirely clean. China has reportedly sent "geologicalsurvey ships" to spy in Japan's EEZ. Its communications monitoring station in the Paracels tracks transmissions from US warships and war planes. The facility on Hainan monitors electronic intelligence. Its spy planes and vessels are regularly sighted in the Spratly islands.
So is North Korea. It has allegedly sent spy ships into the EEZ of Japan and South Korea. In December 2001, a North Korean spy ship sank in China's EEZ after a skirmish with the Japan Coast Guard.
There were similar incidents that grabbed headlines in the past. In May 1956, for example, the Soviets shot down a US U-2 spy plane. In 1957, North Korea detained an American spy ship, Pueblo, in international waters. A year later, North Koreans shot down a US Navy spy plane again in international waters, killing all 31 aboard.
In 1971, Israel attacked the US spy ship Liberty in international waters, killing 34 sailors and wounding 171.
All these incidents could have been avoided. The 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS), hailed as the constitution of oceans, has failed to regulate this due to lack of support from maritime powers. It is said that "if states really wanted to make spying in the EEZ illegal, they could have inserted an express prohibition in the 1982 UNCLOS against it just as they did for spying in the territorial sea." Nonetheless, this lacuna in law should not be used as an excuse. Such indiscretion can be dangerous. States must respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, a cardinal principle in international law.
Under international law, a flag state is obliged to exercise its freedom of navigation and overflight "with due regards to the rights of coastal states".
Flag states are obliged to respect national laws and practices like prior notification of military operational activities in EEZ. Washington deems prior authorisation and notification for military activities in EEZ, as demanded by China and other nations, as excessive national claims and unlawful. Since 1979, Washington introduced the Freedom of Navigation Programme aimed at challenging and reversing "excessive national claims" by diplomatic and military means. Besides diplomatic protests, Washington has used its navy and air force to mount operational assertions against excessive claims of 27 countries in 1998; 15 countries in 2000, including Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran and Syria.
But US practises double standards. Washington requires foreign military planes to identify themselves when flying within a 322-km air defence surveillance zone (Adiz). If they do not, US fighter planes will be sent to intercept and escort them. Yet at the same time, it advises its military aircraft to ignore similar requests for identification.
Recent incidents in the EEZ of China, Japan, Korea and elsewhere demonstrate that unauthorised military activities can be provocative in times of crisis.
The challenge to regional defence plan-ners is to design a legal regime that regulates unauthorised military activities at sea. It will certainly help build better trust one another if neighbours don't openly spy on each other.
