Page 13: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2010)

www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 13

Mediterranean, you’ve got VRMTC, Virtual Regional

Maritime Traffic Center. That is a cooperative in the

Mediterranean basin where they’re all sharing their picture amongst each other and then they are trying to advance that, with more and more information sharing as can be agreed. We see the same thing in the Pacific and we see the same thing in the Northern Med, and the Black Sea, etc. What’s good about these regional networks is that you essentially get a coalition of the willing that is able to effectively share information.”

Andress says information-sharing hurdles arise when attempting to establish a single, global network. “It’s just too big to overcome, especially as it relates to the infor- mation on commercial shipping.”

The U.S. government recognizes that it’s not a just a

Navy issue, or even a Navy-Coast Guard issue. “If we’re going to achieve effective maritime security, it’s got to be an inter-agency, whole-of-government approach. So through the maritime domain awareness effort, we’re bringing together Coast Guard and Navy, FBI, Customs and Border Protection, the Maritime Administration. We have an entire government structure around trying to fos- ter better and better information sharing amongst inter- agency partners, including the intelligence community.”

These other countries are realizing this, as well. We’ve hosted multiple operational games, if you will, inviting different countries. We started inviting their customs, immigration and state department reps to come with their navies. We started information-sharing scenarios, and at the end of it, they’re all realizing “Wow, this isn’t a navy- navy issue; this is really a whole-of-government issue.” “Inside the United States, we’re continuing to expand our partnerships, and now with our foreign partners, they’re trying to do the same,” he says. “It’s almost like a social network starting to form and this social network is expanding into regions. Our next focus is going to be on linking the various regions together. We’ve got some efforts this year that are making a lot of progress between linking together a region in South America, with the

Mediterranean, with the Indian Ocean, and then with the