Counter Maritime Terrorism: Multitrack Diplomacy

Abstract

With these special issues of defense studies, the researchers placed the issue of terrorism maritime as a threat to disrupt the security and sovereignty of a country. The Southeast Asia region is inhabited by some island nations, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, the strongest sign of growth and development of maritime activities of terrorist groups. Acts of a maritime terrorist group is a form of the real threat that unwittingly compromises the security and sovereignty of a country. The targets of a maritime terrorist group are all the things associated with the sea, either infrastructure or cross-country vessels transporting goods of high economic value. Since 1998 up to 2016, the Global Terrorism Database noted an act of terror in the sea area of about 368 incidents. Indeed, the numbers are still much lower than the terrorism that makes religious figures/institutions as the target, but because of marine resources being most potential, everyone will fight over this great potential and can impart to the emergence of conflict and even war in the future. Therefore, researchers sought anticipatory measures to counter maritime terrorism solutions, especially in the Southeast Asia region. In the end, the researchers analyzed the strategy of soft power to counter maritime terrorism, precisely multi-track diplomacy, where the problem of terrorism is used as a general problem because it is not the state or government that resolves it, but all relevant stakeholders of maritime counter the terrorism.