The challenges to American security in the Western Pacific, the seas that surround Europe, and the Persian Gulf are growing. At the same time, U.S. military commanders seek more naval forces to protect America's interest in the safe transit of American goods, deterrence in a proliferating world, and the defense of our key allies. At the same time U.S. defense budgets are shrinking. American seapower has not been as small as it is today since before World War I. Unless reversed, U.S. seapower will continue its decline into the indefinite future as politicians ignore the widening gulf between the cost of modernizing and expanding American seapower, and the resources devoted to this most strategic arm of the nation's defense. Seablindness explains the dilemma. It looks at the consequences of neglect including the effect of increased deployments on families, global scenarios set in the immediate future, the views of America's most knowledgeable military officers, the anxious reactions of U.S. allies, and hard facts to show how a lack of political will is dismantling the nation's global reach and with it, our position as the world's great power.

This edited volume focuses on the South Atlantic regional and national issues with maritime implications: naval policy, security, transnational organized crime, and Europe's legacy and current influence. The work analyzes the positions in favor and against NATO’s extended role in the South Atlantic, the historical and current issues related to the Falklands War, the African national deficits, and initiatives to attend the regional maritime problems. Including contributions from Angolan, Brazilian, Senegalese, and US collaborators, the volume offers eclectic conceptual frameworks, rich historical backgrounds, updated data, original analysis models, and policy recommendations.

The problems originating from the resultant ?bad order at sea? can be directly felt on land, when smuggling, terrorism and related criminal activities operate more or less unhindered. The book provides an important mapping of the challenges preventing good order at sea off the African coast and East Africa in particular. ÿ- Rear Admiral N. Wang, Commandant Royal Danish Defence College

Exploring everything from contemporary challenges to ocean security this book offers detailed insights into the increasing activities of state and non-state actors at sea. Chapters revisit the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC), highlighting how not all maritime security threats can be addressed by this, and further looking at the ways in which the LOSC may even hinder maritime security.

This book studies recent attempts to restructure maritime security sectors through capacity building. It innovates both theoretically and empirically. It proposes a new framework for understanding maritime capacity building, drawing on work in peacebuilding and security sector reform. The framework is then applied across empirical case studies from the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region written by scholars from the Global South. The WIO region is a paradigmatic case to study maritime security and capacity building in action. Countries in the region face the full gamut of maritime security challenges, while their indigenous capacities to deal with these are often weak. In consequence, the region functions as an engine of innovation for maritime capacity building more widely. The lessons and best practices from the region have importance consequences for addressing maritime security across the globe.

The commonly-held view of Rome's naval history is that it essentially ended with the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra's fleet at Actium in 31 BC, which left Rome with no rivals at sea just as the Republican period gave way to the Empire. There were no more big naval battles so, this view would have it, Rome's navy was scarcely needed and its role was of little significance to the strategy of the Empire. James J. Bloom rams this point of view below the waterline in his appraisal of the crucial role of both the Roman imperial navy and the steep learning curve of its predecessor, the naval forces of the Roman Republic. The author (following the line of preeminent naval theoreticians, Alfred Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett) takes the view that sea power is not merely about naval engagements. In its deeper sense, sea power is the steadfast exertion of command of the sea lanes to project trade, suppress piracy, transport troops and supplies and protect land-based military garrisons and expeditions. In effect, this book is a grand-strategical survey of Roman naval power as an instrument to support Roman imperial policy. In contrast to other works on the subject, Bloom argues that modern naval strategic theory can be usefully applied to Roman naval operations. The geography of their empire determined that the Romans would move most of their military supplies by water. During both the Republican and Imperial periods, nearly all of the provinces had extensive coasts alongside the Mediterranean, the Black Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. These interconnected seaways gave the Romans a distinct advantage over their adversaries around the perimeter, who generally had to utilize coasts adjacent to or interdicted by Roman maritime control. As Roman land power threaded along the Black Sea and Atlantic shorelines, major river and estuarine systems became a significant component of this web of vital waterways. Amphibious reach was an essential element of Roman sea power in guarding the wet flanks of the legions and ferrying troops to threatened choke points. Appendices will include scale drawings of the various ship types discussed in the text with their characteristics displayed in tabular form, several maps illustrating the maritime factors of the empire, and a resume of maritime exploration and discoveries in Roman times.

Over the coming decades, Artificial Intelligence will profoundly impact the way we live, work, wage war, play, seek a mate, educate our young, and care for our elderly. It is likely to greatly increase our aggregate wealth, but it will also upend our labor markets, reshuffle our social order, and strain our private and public institutions. Eventually it may alter how we see our place in the universe, as machines pursue goals independent of their creators and outperform us in domains previously believed to be the sole dominion of humans. Whether we regard them as conscious or unwitting, revere them as a new form of life or dismiss them as mere clever appliances, is beside the point. They are likely to play an increasingly critical and intimate role in many aspects of our lives. The emergence of systems capable of independent reasoning and action raises serious questions about just whose interests they are permitted to serve, and what limits our society should place on their creation and use. Deep ethical questions that have bedeviled philosophers for ages will suddenly arrive on the steps of our courthouses. Can a machine be held accountable for its actions? Should intelligent systems enjoy independent rights and responsibilities, or are they simple property? Who should be held responsible when a self-driving car kills a pedestrian? Can your personal robot hold your place in line, or be compelled to testify against you? If it turns out to be possible to upload your mind into a machine, is that still you? The answers may surprise you.