Strait Shooting

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So far, negotiations at the Law of the Sea Conferences have not protected the rights of nations bordering international straits, such as Malacca and Gibraltar. Now, these nations have chosen to arm themselves with antiship missiles, such as the Exocet, below, to enforce territorial sea claims. What will happen when or if shooting starts is anyone's guess.

Strait Shooting

By Lieutenant Commander James A. Hazlett, U. S. Navy

The post-World War II period has been marked by many important trends in international rela­tions. Two of the most important have been the increasing interest of nations in the Law of the Sea and the ever-expanding arms transfers to the nations of the Third World.¹ Failing to recognize linkages between these two areas may have prevented the United States from being prepared for encounters with straits' states. For example. North Korea’s use of patrol craft to capture the USS Pueblo (AGER-2) might have been foreseen and avoided if the United States had been attentive to the “creeping jurisdic­tion" taking place in the Law of the Sea and to the arms transfers from the Soviet Union to North Ko­rea.- This article will link the arms transfers to Third World nations with the evolution of the Law of the Sea and determine the threat this link poses to the U. S. Navy, with emphasis on the Indonesian Straits and the Strait of Gibraltar.

In December 1957. Indonesia extended its terri­torial waters to include “all waters surrounding, bc-

tween, and linking” its islands to the state. The following year, the Convention on the Territorial Seas, a product of the first United Nations Con­ference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I), emerged containing only one sentence referring to interna­tional straits. UNCLOS II was unsuccessful in 1960, when a U. S. compromise proposed on the terri­torial sea was defeated by one vote. In 1961, In­donesia acquired its first antiship-equipped craft— “Komar” guided missile patrol boats from the So­viet Union.

In 1967, the Law of the Sea impetus picked up again with the calling for UNCLOS III, which held its first session in New York in December 1973. The lack of action at the international level prompted four more states with interests in international straits to acquire antiship missile systems: Singapore, in 1972: Malaysia, in 1971; Libya—although not a lit­toral state to the Strait of Gibraltar, it could con­ceivably have designs upon restricting Western ac­cess to the Mediterranean in the future—in 1968­69; and Algeria—included because of its ties with Libya and the Soviet Union—in 1966.

After a ten-week session in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1974. seven sessions were held in quick succes­sion in Geneva and New York from 1975 to 1982. The issue of international straits has been discussed at every session and is covered in each one of the various draft treaties: the Informal Single Negoti­ating Text (ISNT or SNT), the Revised Single Ne­gotiating Text (RSNT), and the Informal Composite Negotiating Text (1CNT). In the early stages of ne­gotiations. the international straits issue was hotly contested when Spain. Morocco, Malaysia, and In­donesia wanted the more restrictive rule of innocent passage through straits to prevail. In 1973, these countries—-joined by Greece. Cyprus, South Yemen, and the Philippines—rejected a U. S. proposal for the acceptance of a 12-mile breadth of the territorial seas in return for unimpeded passage of interna­tional straits. They countered with their own Draft Articles of Navigation Through the Territorial Sea, including Straits Used for International Naviga­tion.'^- The proposed articles differed from the U. S. Proposal on three points:

“(1) Navigation through the territorial sea and international straits should be treated as a single subject; (2) Innocent passage, and not unimpeded transit, is the best principle to balance the inter­ests of the international community with those of strait states; and (3). Technological changes re­quire the regulation of ships with special char­acteristics.”⁴

Under the straits' states' proposal, there was no recognized right of overflight or submerged transit °f submarines, and notification or authorization was deemed necessary prior to the passage of warships. None of the draft treaties reflect all of the regu­lations proposed by the straits’ states, thus resulting in their dissatisfaction. “In effect, the straits states’ proposal viewed straits as integral parts of the ter­ritorial sea of riparian states.”⁵ For Indonesia and Malaysia, the draft proposals were an attempt to achieve international acceptance of the 1970 dec­laration that the Strait of Malacca be territorial waters and not an international strait. For Spain and Mo­rocco, they served as a repeat of the 1971 pledge to “promote the creation of a Mediterranean aware­ness” and Spain's 1972 call at the United Nations for a compromise between unimpeded transit and the rights of straits’ states.

The continual denial of straits’ states’ aspirations at UNCLOS III motivated these states to continue arming themselves to a level where they could uni­laterally, or in concert, inhibit the use of “their” straits. During the period of UNCLOS III, Indo­nesia ordered several antiship missile-capable frig­ates from the Netherlands and four guided missile patrol boats from South Korea. Malaysia ordered eight guided missile patrol boats, four each from Sweden and France. Morocco received two missile- capable patrol boats from France. Singapore ob­tained six West German-designed guided missile pa­trol boats. Libya ordered four missile-equipped cor­vettes from Italy and ten French guided missile patrol boats, and received its first Soviet “Osa II”-class and three British guided missile patrol boats. Spain planned to arm its six Lazaga-class patrol boats with antiship missiles and has contracted with the United States for the production of three Standard/Harpoon missile-equipped frigates. Table 1 details the arms transfers to the coastal states bordering on the In­donesian Straits and nations near the Strait of Gi­braltar during the Law of the Sea negotiations.

The coastal states in the Strait of Gibraltar and

the Strait of Malacca areas have obviously chosen the antiship missile as the primary naval weapon system for use in securing these vital waters. The top suppliers of these antiship missiles have been major industrial states, and ironically these powers, the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, are all in favor of unimpeded passage in international straits. They maintain a po­sition directly opposite that of the states they are supplying. There appears, however, to be a trend by each strait state toward decreased reliance on the superpowers and an increase in coproduction.

The U. S. Navy is one of the heaviest users of the Straits of Gibraltar and Malacca. Although none of the states discussed has taken any actions against the use of these straits by the United States and its Navy, that use might be threatened. Two possible scenarios follow.

Table I:

Antiship Missile-Carrying Warships in the Indonesian and Gibraltar Straits Areas

Missile System

'MM-40 Exocet: all other systems listed are MM-38 Exocet ^:Not yet installed 'To be carried in the standard SM-I missile launcher magazine

Strait of Gibraltar: The year is 1985. Spain and Morocco's call for an increased “Mediterranean Awareness” and the recent collapse in UNCLOS IV negotiations have rallied the Mediterranean lit­toral states. Libya has made threatening military gestures toward Israel and Egypt because of their increasing coziness and their failure to adequately resolve the Palestinian question. The United States has been asked by Israel and Egypt to augment the dwindling Sixth Fleet in order to cool Libyan ardor. Syria, Morocco, and Algeria have called for a “neu­tralization” of the Mediterranean. France, faced with the threat of an oil embargo by Libya and Algeria, supports this call for neutralization. As the crisis reaches the boiling point, Spain, although a recent addition to NATO, cannot oppose its neighbors and refute its calls for the "Mediterranean Awareness.” As Libyan forces stage border raids on Egypt and hit-and-run missile attacks on Israeli coastal towns, Colonel Qaddafi, still smarting from the Gulf of Sidra

This Indonesian “PSSM Mk-5” missile craft is one of many of the straits’ states’ recently acquired antiship missile-equipped vessels, which are posing new and fierce threats to the right of unimpeded passage through the Indonesian straits.