Zheng He and Ming China’s Voyages in the Early 15th Century

Over the first three decades of the 15th century, Ming China dispatched a succession of naval fleets through the Southeast Asian seas and across the Indian Ocean, reaching South Asia, the Middle East, and even the east coast of Africa. These were the largest and best-armed naval fleets in the world at that time, comprising more than 100 ships and tens of thousands of troops. Like similar overland military missions sent to Đại Việt and Yunnan in the same period; these missions were initially intended to awe foreign powers and create legitimacy for the usurping emperor, Yongle. The maritime missions were generally led by eunuch officials, the most famous of whom was Zheng He. In the 21st century the Chinese state depicts these missions as “voyages of peace and friendship” and utilizes this trope in its contemporary diplomacy. However, the Ming sources reveal that military violence was an integral aspect of the successive voyages, whilst the fact that many rulers from Southeast Asian polities were taken to China by the eunuch-led missions also suggests that some degree of coercion was employed. The missions were ended by the court in the mid-1430s over concerns about the costs and the need for such missions.

Impersonating Fishermen: Illegal Fishing and the Entry of Illegal Immigrants as Transnational Crime

Illegal fishing carried out by foreign fishing vessels (Kapal Ikan Asing, KIA) and Indonesian fishing vessels (Kapal Ikan Indonesia, KII) in Indonesian waters also causes other crimes such as the entry of illegal immigrants to Indonesia. This writing aims to assess the relationship between illegal fishing and the entry of illegal immigrants as a form of transnational crime. The research method used is normative legal research. The sources of legal material used are primary, secondary and tertiary legal materials related to writing. The technique of collecting data through library studies and analyzed qualitatively. The results of the study show that Indonesia as the largest archipelagic country in the world with 17,504 large and small islands and a length of coastline of 81,700 km 2 makes Indonesia a country with abundant marine resource potential. For this reason, many foreign naval fleets have made Indonesian waters as the main destination for their capture fisheries. This capture fishery company has more foreign ownership, the exploitation of marine resources that we own both legally and illegally. Likewise, this also happened in the Moluccas territory. As a province of the archipelago with an ocean area of ​​658,295 km 2 with a coastline length of 11,000 km 2, the Maluku Sea holds abundant potential for marine wealth. Arafura Sea is one of the fisheries management areas which is often the main destination for foreign-owned fishing vessels. These fresh fish from the Moluccas are stolen and taken away in fresh condition directly to the area of ​​origin of the perpetrators. Illegal fishing activities not only make Indonesia economically disadvantaged, but there is another problem, namely the existence of other crimes that usually follow the illegal fishing activities. One of them is the entry of illegal immigrants into Indonesian territory.

A FAREWELL TO KING COAL: GEOPOLITICS, ENERGY SECURITY, AND THE TRANSITION TO OIL, 1898–1917

Interest in energy transitions has accelerated in recent years due to rising concerns about global warming and resource scarcity, but the drivers of these phenomena are not well understood. To date, scholars have primarily focused on commercial and technological factors, highlighting that oil was ‘better’ than coal – more powerful, cheaper, cleaner, and more practical to use – and that the internal combustion engine made it more advantageous to use in transportation. Yet oil was also a strategic commodity that powerful states sought to acquire for military reasons. This article contends that geopolitics, military decision-making, and energy security hastened the transition from oil to coal prior to the First World War. It argues that Britain, Germany, and the United States sought to transition their naval fleets from coal to oil to gain a military advantage at sea, which created, for the first time, the problem of oil-supply security. Through government-led initiatives to address oil-supply security, vast new supplies of oil came online and prices fell, the ideal environment for oil to eclipse coal as the dominant source in the global energy system.

Designing biomimetic antifouling surfaces

Marine biofouling is the accumulation of biological material on underwater surfaces, which has plagued both commercial and naval fleets. Biomimetic approaches may well provide new insights into designing and developing alternative, non-toxic, surface-active antifouling (AF) technologies. In the marine environment, all submerged surfaces are affected by the attachment of fouling organisms, such as bacteria, diatoms, algae and invertebrates, causing increased hydrodynamic drag, resulting in increased fuel consumption, and decreased speed and operational range. There are also additional expenses of dry-docking, together with increased fuel costs and corrosion, which are all important economic factors that demand the prevention of biofouling. Past solutions to AF have generally used toxic paints or coatings that have had a detrimental effect on marine life worldwide. The prohibited use of these antifoulants has led to the search for biologically inspired AF strategies. This review will explore the natural and biomimetic AF surface strategies for marine systems.

Military Installations, Structures, and Devices on the Seabed

The legal regulation of military objects on the seabed and in general of military uses of the seabed seems to have ceased to attract the attention of the international community since the conclusion in 1971 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Seabed and Ocean Floor (the Seabed Treaty). Attention now seems to be concentrated on other military uses of the sea, especially those concerning the mobility of naval fleets. This shift in focus is particularly noticeable if one considers the work of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.

The Part of International Law in the Further Limitation of Naval Armament

Naval fleets are maintained by development and replacement because their possessors dare not fail to make provision for a maritime war in which they may be participants. No means yet devised and accepted for the amicable adjustment of international differences have removed from responsible statesmen a sense of the necessity of anticipating such a contingency. Despite increasing efforts in every quarter to cultivate wills for peace and abhorrence of armed conflict, as well as a desire to adjust grave differences by judicial process or through commissions of conciliation, war is still regarded as a contingency which must be reckoned with, and as one which is as dangerous as it is seemingly remote. In making provision as against a contingency which none would welcome or hasten, the governments of maritime states do not necessarily encourage war or indicate approval of recourse to it. A particular conference of maritime states may in fact uplift the hopes of prospective belligerents which resent and oppose agreements restricting recourse to measures and instrumentalities on which they expect to rely. On the other hand, general arrangements respecting belligerent activities may serve to lessen a zeal for war and to remove its very approach further from the horizon. Everything depends upon the ambitions of the states which consent to confer. The point to be observed is that agreements for the regulation of maritime war in so far as they purport to proscribe or check the use of particular instrumentalities or recourse to particular measures, are not to be deemed bellicose in design or effect. Such regulatory agreements are advocates of peace rather than of war. Moreover, as will be seen, they may be the means of encouraging states to reduce armaments which would otherwise be maintained.