In Argentina, national security presents several challenges. Sea control is one of the most challenging and highest priority. It means public spending. To justify it, there must be an interest. This must be intense so that it is not afraid to face other interests that oppose it.
The Argentine Sea has oil, gas, minerals and fishing. The latter is the most vulnerable resource. It has two dimensions: the interior, within the Argentine Sea; and the external one, in international waters, where there is a large fishing ground that concentrates a predatory fishing of such magnitude, that the philanthropist Enrique Piñeyro, has shown it as a city of boats. It's not the whole contiguous ocean. It is a concentrated area.
The control of the Sea represents a sovereign act of the country to protect its seabed, where it has full extractive power in accordance with International Law, and to project its presence in the South Atlantic, just as we do in Antarctica. Fishing predation is not a crime like drug trafficking. It is only an administrative offence. When an offending vessel resists authority, one of the federal courts on the coastal coast intervenes.
On the jurisdictional sea, the actions to be carried out need: will, efficient organization and money for operations. On the two external areas, a multidimensional strategy (diplomatic, geopolitical and psycho-social) is also needed to obtain international legislation that allows protection.
It means going against China. Therefore, it is necessary to consolidate alliances that tilt power in our favor. We don't have to act alone. We must generate a global awareness. A public opinion impossible to oppose. Encouraging filmmakers, such as Juan José Campanella, and the world's leading production companies to make animated films, films and documentaries on this subject is fundamental. Our most renowned artists and football stars could collaborate. There are good reasons. In South America, this predation occurs in the Galapagos Islands and here.
Today, the control of the Sea and illegal fishing is exercised by the Maritime Authority which is the Argentine Naval Prefecture in action with the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Ministry of Defense and with the National Institute of Fisheries Research and Development of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, with the support of agencies of the Ministry of Science and Technology. Ships, planes, helicopters, satellites and command and control centers, among other resources, are involved.
The Prefecture reports that it carries out real-time monitoring and follow-up of more than 350 active fishing vessels, that it has captured some 80 illegal foreign vessels and that it registers the annual infringement of hundreds of vessels. Defense reported that during 2022, over 105 days of navigation, it covered an area of half a million square nautical miles, without detecting illegal vessel entries. They sailed only 28.8% of the year.
When Piñeyro flew over mile 200 to 5,000 meters high, he reported that he could see intruding vessels. At that time, Defense, had of the four OPV patrols, one sailing and three in port. Of the 5 Matilla patrols of the Prefecture, only one was also sailing due to lack of days assigned for navigation. The Prefecture has corrupted its mission to fulfill police functions on land.
That is, that night, the available capacity was much less than the total of nine patrols that the country has plus the two Navy corvettes converted to patrol boats. Thus, no one can control illegal fishing and - even less - if at night the locator equipment of the vessels is turned off so that they do not detect them. From the nearest coast, a patrol arrives at the critical zone after a day of sailing.
The solution to this problem is two issues: 1) allocate more money to operations and; 2) Possess a permanence strategy. The latter is achieved if three second-hand oil platforms are obtained by adapting them as three artificial islands that act as a station for helicopters and patrols, gunned for their protection, with maritime radars -if possible- to have the ability to detect ships and form an operational and logistics post located at three points to be determined, three miles before mile 200, to discourage them from being attacked.
This strategy would strengthen naval and air control operations. They could be the post of scientific missions of fisheries control and completely change the concept of operations. This will allow control to be projected outside mile 200 if an international regulation that assigns a role to Argentina over critical areas of predation is successful.
Under these circumstances, acquiring submarines has no priority. That is the priority. So far, Argentine politics has no initiative on this issue. You have some ideas here.
Engineer, Defense Specialist
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