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| Image: Flickr User - Greg Bishop |
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: In 2016, the Defense Department flew aircraft or steamed ships through territories claimed by Albania, Brazil, Italy, Japan, Malta, and, well, China, according to the Pentagon’s annual report released today. So should Beijing be relieved it was not the sole focus of American Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) or should it feel slighted that it wasn’t our sole focus? Of course, China’s Pacific pushiness does get pride of place, with the most extensive single entry — but the 22-nation list also includes US allies and neutral powers like tiny Malta.
Indeed, to quote the accompanying press release, the Pentagon strives — sometimes to absurd extremes — to be “comprehensive (and) even-handed… challenging excessive maritime claims based on principle rather than identity of the coastal State asserting the claim.” (Ironically, the US has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which codified in a treaty the longstanding principle of freedom of navigation. The right was first expounded in western law in 1609 by the estimable Hugo Grotius of Holland).
We have the challenge to Italy, which the US believes improperly “claimed historic bay status for the Gulf of Taranto.” Malta, for its part, improperly required “prior consent or prior notification” for foreign warships to enter its waters, which is one of the most common offenses in the report, committed in some form by 14 of the 22 countries. Japan is guilty of another common sin (committed by seven of 22), “extensive straight baselines” — that is, Tokyo claimed jurisdiction over large, squared-off areas of the ocean, rather than the irregularly curving boundaries that result from properly measuring distances off the nearest point of land.
All told, 13 of the 22 countries challenged were in East Asia or South Asia, a region of growing economies, rising nationalism, and complex island territories. Just four were in Europe, two in the Persian Gulf (Iran and Oman), two in the Americas (Brazil and Venezuela), and one in North Africa (Tunisia).
Read the full story at Breaking Defense