Title: Maritime Security and the Pacific Coast: Post 9/11 Challenges in Trade and Tourism
Abstract: This chapter describes how maritime security is a topic that covers a wide range of areas and can be used to define different activities. A brief overview of maritime security ranges from safeguarding maritime vessels from piracy to dealing with public health threats aboard cruise ships. This chapter explores how maritime security of the Pacific coastal areas of the United States has been defined, how plans to ensure the safety and security of the Pacific coasts, especially its major ports, have been formulated and operationalized, and what types of challenges remain since September 11. The Pacific coastal area stretches from California in the south to Washington in the North and it also includes the coastline of Alaska in the far north. It stretches approximately 1,300 miles on the mainland and 6,640 in Alaska. The first section of the chapter provides a brief history of the maritime security efforts in the Pacific Region and this is followed by a brief analysis of trade and tourism-related activities in three major ports of the U.S. Pacific: Seattle, Los Angeles, and Long Beach. In each of these ports, case studies of trade and tourism illustrate their importance to the socioeconomic health of the United States. Obviously, ports are important to U.S. security because there are hundreds of public port in the United States, through which about 95 percent of U.S. overseas trade passes. The chapter then describes some of the major initiatives that have been operationalized to ensure port security in the post 9/11 era. Threats are not just military-based, since economic risks faced by any disruption in trade and tourism activities in this area can lead to big changes in the U.S. economy, in addition to destructions of lives and livelihoods. The final section looks at the unique challenges facing U.S. Pacific maritime security in terms of new security threats, such as bioterrorism and geographical challenges, and makes some recommendations for improving maritime security.
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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