With the de facto closure of the vital Red Sea route between Europe and Asia, 2024 proved a particularly challenging year for global maritime shipping. Houthi attacks forced shipping companies to reroute vessels around Africa, driving up costs and disrupting supply chains. There is a clear need to balance addressing persistent, non-traditional maritime security threats – such as maritime terrorism, piracy and illegal fishing – with the renewed demands of great power competition, deterrence and preparing for potential peer conflict.
Since late 2023, multinational operations in the Red Sea, such as PROSPERITY GUARDIAN, ASPIDES and POSEIDON ARCHER, have struggled to reassure commercial shipping. Warships were scarce, response times slow, and much of the burden fell to private security firms. For ASPIDES, a fraction of the planned vessels were deployed, underscoring states’ reluctance to commit limited assets to missions perceived as non-traditional. These shortcomings echo earlier responses to Somali piracy, where Combined Task Forces (CTFs) 150 and 151 and the European Union’s (EU) Operation ATALANTA faced similar criticism over cost, sustainability and strategic prioritisation.
This modern dilemma is not unprecedented. The need to protect commercial shipping in peacetime while preparing for major conflict has shaped maritime strategy for centuries. History shows that navies often delegated certain maritime security responsibilities to non-military or irregular actors to preserve high-end warfighting readiness.
One telling example comes from Dutch colonial counter-piracy operations in the Indonesian Archipelago during the 19th and early 20th centuries. There, Dutch authorities faced the same dual challenge of persistent piracy threatening trade and the need to remain ready for peer conflict. Examining how these pressures were navigated offers valuable insights for today’s naval planners and policymakers confronting the same enduring trade-off.
Historical context: The Dutch in colonial Southeast Asia
The military organisation, tasks and ministerial coordination of the colonial Royal Netherlands East Indies Army were relatively straightforward. However, the maritime domain was not, consisting of separate organisations subordinate to different departments with varying (and often rivalling) responsibilities. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Dutch maritime forces in the Indonesian Archipelago comprised a complex organisation of conventional national forces, a regional force and a civilian paramilitary force, resulting primarily from what were described as ‘dual pressures’.
On one hand, the Dutch sought external security against outside powers such as the United Kingdom (UK), Spain and later Japan. On the other, they faced an internal security challenge centred on persistent piracy. This was a dual challenge comparable to today’s tension between traditional maritime security responsibilities and the need to balance irregular threats.
Interestingly, the Dutch colonial administration considered concerns of foreign power encroachment on its territorial claims to be interrelated with the issue of piracy, fearing Britain or Spain could justify intrusions into Dutch-claimed territory under the guise of counter-piracy operations. As such, a successful maritime counter-piracy strategy was considered essential for various socio-economic, colonial administrative and geopolitical reasons.
Dutch colonial maritime strategy: A dual approach
To handle the dual pressures, the Colonial Navy (Koloniale Marine) was formed, primarily outfitted with conventional, but outdated, warships, converted commercial vessels and gunboats to face largely ill-equipped and asymmetric adversaries – an arrangement that today may be considered irregular maritime warfare. It was separate from the Royal Netherlands Navy’s auxiliary squadron, yet drew personnel from the regular navy. It carried out internal security and counter-piracy responsibilities, while the auxiliary squadron had the core task of protecting Dutch colonial territories against external threats.
The Colonial Navy was a conventional approach to an inherently asymmetric and irregular naval threat. As a result, it proved utterly ineffective at its primary task of counter-piracy – the slow, bulky ships were no match for the fast and agile pirate craft, which avoided direct confrontation. Accordingly, the cost was disproportionate to its benefits, and criticism grew rapidly over the use of costly naval assets for ineffective counter-piracy operations. Naval officers increasingly lamented such ineffective tasks, which they considered ‘unworthy of the navy’.
Piracy in the Indonesian Archipelago persisted despite the Colonial Navy’s best efforts. In 1821, the colonial administration changed strategy, instead recruiting and mobilising the local Javanese population for counter-piracy purposes. Their fast and manoeuvrable kruisprauwen cruisers were small indigenous sailing boats, well-suited for the environment. These units were delegated to the authority of the local ‘resident’, a high-ranking Dutch colonial official governing an administrative division, and essentially countered an irregular threat with an equally irregular paramilitary civilian maritime force. By 1861, this ‘third’ maritime force became known as the ‘Government’s Navy’.
The Government’s Navy proved more effective at countering piracy than its naval counterpart, leading to the Colonial Navy’s disbanding in 1838. Vessels were reassigned to the auxiliary squadron of the Royal Netherlands Navy, which thereafter became known simply as the Dutch Squadron – no longer serving as auxiliary to the Colonial Navy. Although the conventional Dutch Squadron officially supported counter-piracy efforts, in practice the Government’s Navy absorbed most non-traditional security tasks. Due to its semi-military status, the squadron acquired the local nickname ‘half company’ (setengah kompeni).
The division allowed the Ministry of the Colonies, which was responsible for the Government’s Navy, to focus exclusively on the provision of inexpensive, small and manoeuvrable vessels for counter-piracy purposes. Previously, the Ministry of the Navy had obstructed their purchase, considering such capabilities useless for more traditional security responsibilities.
Throughout the 19th century, the Government’s Navy maintained between 34 and 90 vessels, far outnumbering the much smaller regular naval fleets. Moreover, by recruiting locally, and increasingly under the supervision of Dutch merchant officers instead of the more expensive naval officers, the counter-piracy campaigns became more cost-effective. Thus, the Dutch colonial authorities effectively delegated and ‘civilianised’ counter-piracy away from regular military actors.
Historical parallels with today
The Dutch colonial experience offers striking parallels to the maritime security challenges confronting today’s navies – now underscored by Houthi interdiction in the Red Sea. Then, as now, maritime forces faced a persistent dual pressure: sustaining internal security against threats such as piracy or terrorism while remaining ready for external defence against powerful state rivals.
The Dutch colonial authorities also recognised that these missions were connected; suppressing piracy helped deter foreign encroachment. Similarly, today’s ‘non-traditional’ maritime threats are often closely linked to larger geopolitical competition. While the strategic contexts differ, the Houthi threat illustrates how seemingly localised maritime security challenges can be shaped and amplified by the ambitions of more powerful state actors.
The most striking analogy, however, is represented by the Dutch colonial authorities’ decision to delegate or outsource addressing an asymmetric threat to an equally asymmetric and irregular semi-military civilian force. The Government’s Navy operated with a semi-military objective, thus representing an early precursor to today’s private maritime security companies.
In a sense, this parallels 21st century counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. Initially, flag states relied on naval deployments, but Somali pirates held significant advantages with fast and manoeuvrable skiffs and their ability to avoid direct confrontation. This led states to turn to irregular solutions: embarked guards and a larger number of cheaper, smaller escort vessels – utilised in counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea – provided more effective defence and deterrence than a few powerful warships.
There are further analogies regarding the apparent issue of cost-effectiveness, which played a significant role in both the establishment of the Government’s Navy and the utilisation of private maritime security companies today. Moreover, institutional conflict within naval circles concerning a navy’s ‘core task’ also represents a persistent feature regarding the delegation of security, as illustrated in 2012 by R. Adm. (rtd.) Terence McKnight, the inaugural commander of CTF-151, who said: ‘It is time for the maritime community to take responsibility for their own security and free our navies to defend our freedoms on the high seas.’ Additionally, similar to the political pressures faced by the ill-equipped and outnumbered Colonial Navy, the international naval coalitions received harsh criticism from their respective political establishments, as their attempts to suppress piracy initially had little impact and caused the diffusion of pirate activity over a larger area.
With the return of great power competition and a renewed focus on traditional security, these insights may regain relevance. Houthi attacks have increasingly become a concern for the private security industry, while states are growing more reluctant to engage in such non-traditional and irregular maritime threats. Furthermore, the mobilisation of equally irregular actors by states in countering a variety of asymmetric threats might make a return as well – as discussed regarding the use of non-military actors in the South and East China Sea disputes, where coast guards and maritime militias are progressively overshadowing their naval counterparts.
Ultimately, the maxim that history does not necessarily repeat itself but often rhymes certainly holds true, as highlighted by the Dutch colonial maritime strategy in the Indonesian Archipelago.
Pieter Zhao is a PhD Researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where his research focuses on the role of non-military and irregular actors in maritime warfare and security throughout history. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative and part of the Maritime Leaders Programme at the Council on Geostrategy.
This article was originally written for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, and republished in Small Wars Journal. It is republished here with permission from the author and the Irregular Warfare Initiaitive.
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