WIREDGOV

Shadow fleets sit at the centre of maritime hybrid warfare, economic security and environmental risk. Despite this growing recognition, the West lacks the coherence to confront it.

The global crackdown on shadow ships continues with the American seizure of a seventh tanker on January 21. This follows the capture of the Bella 1, which was renamed the Marinera before being captured by US and UK forces after a weeks-long pursuit despite a Russian naval escort. Separately, Europe’s battle against shadow ship cable-cutting continued, with France and Finland each separately interdicting a shadow ship in the span of 3 weeks. The surging attention paid to these ships has taken an unpredictable path, with their profile rising as they transitioned from implements of sanctions evasion to irregular warfare, as well as becoming, in one case, a potential flashpoint for conventional war.

Shadow fleets are not just an adversarial tool, but a threat in their own right. Both American actions against shadow ships leaving Venezuela and European actions against Russian shadow ships are too limited and specific in scope to have a meaningful global impact. Treating shadow fleets as an auxiliary problem has produced auxiliary results; effective policy will require a strategy designed around the specific challenges of this threat.

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