Adopting an ostrich-like approach to maritime security is not a good idea

Mauritania is one of four African countries — the others are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia — which, according to the DHS, do not maintain effective anti-terrorism measures in their ports.

The United Kingdom, however, has a slightly more benign view of Mauritania: The Transport Security division of the U.K. Department for Transport, which sets security levels for Red Ensign vessels such as the BBC Aramis, assigns Mauritania a routine Security Level 1 ranking. The vessel was not aware of its trip to the United States until it had called at several European ports after the stop at Nouakchott, so it operated under Security Level 1 rather than Security Level 2.

The U.S. Coast Guard checks all inbound ships requesting entry to U.S. ports — but it examines the ship’s travel logs only for the ships’ last five ports of call. If any of the suspect countries (not only in Africa, of course, but on other continents) appear on that list, vessels are boarded at sea and assessed to ensure they complied with the mandatory security regulations during their call there. Ships which fail properly to implement the appropriate level of security are denied entry into the United States.

Can you guess what was the solution to its problem the ship owners and DHS worked out? The Coast Guard only checks the ship’s last five ports of call. Since Nouakchott appeared fifth on the list of previous ports of call the ship submitted to the Coast Guard, an arrangement was worked out for the ship to make an impromptu stop in the Bahamas — thus dropping the offending port off the list (with the Bahamas at No. 1, Nouakchott was now No. 6 on the list and thus out of Coast Guard scrutiny). BBC Aramishad now had a clean security slate and a green light to enter the United States.

This approach to maritime security would make any self-respecting ostrich proud. Let us go over this again:

1. DHS has developed a list of countries