ABSTRACT There is a growing understanding among maritime security practitioners of the importance of Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) as an essential enabler of maritime security. This article describes Australia’s efforts to develop an integrated national MDA system that brings together data and intelligence from a range of military and civil agencies and commercial sources to which a risk-based assessment is applied. This has become an essential tool to combat transnational maritime security threats in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. But inherent limitations of national MDA systems are also pushing Australia and other countries to cooperate in trying to improve MDA. This paper then examines ways in which Australia can promote MDA cooperation in the Indian Ocean. It considers the effectiveness and limitations of current and proposed multilateral information sharing arrangements in the region. It concludes that Australia should primarily focus on working with selected Indian Ocean partners to enhance information sharing and help develop integrated national MDA systems.

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给光，黑暗就会消失：澳大利亚在印度洋寻求领海意识

摘要 海事安全从业者越来越认识到海事领域意识 (MDA) 作为海事安全的重要推动因素的重要性。本文描述了澳大利亚为开发综合国家 MDA 系统所做的努力，该系统汇集了来自一系列军事和民用机构以及商业来源的数据和情报，并对其应用了基于风险的评估。这已成为打击印度洋和其他地方的跨国海上安全威胁的重要工具。但国家 MDA 系统的固有局限性也在推动澳大利亚和其他国家合作努力改进 MDA。然后，本文研究了澳大利亚在印度洋促进 MDA 合作的方式。它考虑了该地区当前和提议的多边信息共享安排的有效性和局限性。它的结论是，澳大利亚应主要专注于与选定的印度洋合作伙伴合作，以加强信息共享并帮助开发综合的国家 MDA 系统。