How can small states with an interest in maritime security develop a posture in the Indo-Pacific that is not only strategic, but also sustainable in the current security landscape? With recent anti-global tendencies and the (re)turn to geopolitics in foreign policy, the maritime domain plays a significant role in facilitating power projection. This is seen in the Indo-Pacific. Its constituent seas, the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, are bordered by countries with economic, military and cultural importance, and the region’s maritime supply chains are vital for global trade. Yet the Indo-Pacific is experiencing increased hardening of threats and diversification of tension at sea. The high seas – as opposed to sovereign territories on land – are “neutral” spaces; they are international, belong to us all and are not the territory of any state. This makes it possible to create strong political, economic and cultural messaging to the world through violent means without infringing a state’s sovereignty and territorial integrity – but with threats to the freedom of navigation enshrined in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).

A small state with an open economy, the freedom of navigation is particularly relevant to Denmark. It relies on maritime trade and places high value on maritime security in its foreign and security policy. Recently, Denmark has turned some attention to the Indo-Pacific. As it engages this theatre, several challenges emerge. Firstly,  its small size and limited capacities which require its engagement to be prioritised. Secondly, growing geopolitical diversion of interests creating tensions and a decline of multilateralism. 

To analyse this, the paper draws on International Relations scholarship on interventionism. This literature focuses on the frictions produced by interventions related to norms, sovereignty and power, which ultimately speaks to interventions’ legitimacy and effectiveness. It sensitises us to the concrete positions and contextual realities surrounding maritime governance on the ground and allows us to critically assess the pitfalls of how responses to tensions in the Indo-Pacific play out on the ground. This leads to discussions on how states can respond legally, politically and operationally. By way of conclusion, the paper suggests pathways of how to mitigate these pitfalls, arguing for the importance of inter-cultural dialogue across legal, political and operational dimensions of interventions.

Developments in the Indo-Pacific threat landscape

International policy attention on maritime security has in recent decades focused on maritime crime, not least piracy, illegal fishing and drugs trafficking. Yet today there is an increase in hybrid threats, or grey zone, tactics that sit in between peace and war, where state and non-state actors are making political and economic claims by aggressive or violent means, but below the threshold of an armed attack (Larsen 2024). 

Examples of non-state actors are al Shabaab, both the terrorist Somali version and the militant Mozambican version. The Iranian-backed Houthi militia raised the level of violence to unprecedented levels by attacking merchant (and even military) vessels in the Red Sea since November 2023. Examples of state actors include tensions in recent years caused by China’s grey zone operations in the South China Sea and Iran’s harassment of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz since 2017. Russia is conducting naval exercises with the regime in Myanmar – and, although a little less directly implicating the Indo-Pacific proper, Russia is partnering with North Korea’s military in Ukraine and is receiving support from China. Moreover, long-standing military tensions between India and Pakistan include missile testing and increased competition in the Arabian sea and Northern Indian Ocean.

Whether state or non-state actors, hybrid threats challenge international law, cause insecurity, disrupt international trade and the peaceful use of the oceans. The trend is also expressed elsewhere as in the waters around West Africa, the Arctic and Northern Europe (Larsen 2024). It is a trend that has several implications.

Trend 1: hardening of threats

We are witnessing a hardening of threats in the maritime domain, compared to the modus operandi of maritime crime like piracy that we have seen hitherto. It also leads to a hardening of responses. Regional and extra-regional actors are consolidating relations and establishing (military) alliances, e.g. ASEAN (ASEAN N.d.) and the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness initiative by the Quad (Defence Media Network 2022). Extra-regionally, the US-led Combined Maritime Forces deal with maritime security threats, and NATO is stepping up cooperation with IP4 (NATO 2025).

Trend 2: Weakening of multilateral platforms 

Because the new threat patterns involve not only criminal organisations but also political groups and states in acts of geopolitical power projection, there is a risk of weakening existing platforms of cooperation, fragmenting robust solutions to maritime insecurity. 

International cooperation is already being challenged by geopolitical tensions stalling multilateral fora (Larsen 2020). This is consolidated by the oceans being used for geopolitical contestations, drawing new fault lines between sovereign entities.

Trend 3: A vacuum posing opportunities for illicit claims

This leaves a policy and operational vacuum in which maritime domains and their resources may be further claimed by political groups, states and criminals. UNCLOS is silent on most threats, including crime and conflicts at sea (save for piracy). How states are to manage e.g. artificial islands and severed data cables on the high seas have yet to be codified in international law. 

This contingency holds a productive capacity, where both illicit actions threatening maritime security and ‘licit’ actions to counter them pose an opportunity for actors to position themselves as powerful forces or maritime security providers (Jacobsen & Larsen 2019). But the question is how to mitigate the implications of this trend, especially for small states? To answer this, we first unpack the concrete manifestations of maritime security governance in the case of Denmark.

Denmark in the Indo-Pacific

Denmark is a small state with an open economy, reliant on maritime trade. Its footprint in the Indo-Pacific is small but given the current security landscape, Denmark is increasing its strategic interactions for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Its strategic position is shaped by its foreign policy interests and values: commitment to international law and multilateralism and a recognition that China is increasingly challenging security and a rules-based international order. 

Denmark most often works through multilateral frameworks. The latest Danish Foreign and Security Strategy from 2023 takes note of the American so-called pivot to Asia. Because the US has always been Denmark’s nearest security ally, Denmark needs to be aware what is important for the US. Indeed, the strategy states that it is necessary to cultivate security relations with countries in the region (MFA 2023: 54), highlighting India, Japan, Indonesia and Australia, thus overlapping with the QUAD. In particular in the maritime area, there is interest in military cooperation (ibid: 55). 

In Denmark’s maritime security strategy, the freedom of navigation looms large and drives much of its priorities (MFA 2025: 8). There are various engagements in the region: Denmark has seconded military personnel to CMF since 2008. It has been very active in NATO’s counter-piracy mission Operation Ocean Sheild off the coast of Somalia from 2008-2016. It supports the Djibouti Code of Conduct and the Jeddah Amendment, and information-sharing platforms developed by the EU. Danish representatives also participate in the Contact Group on Illicit Maritime Activities and the SHADE mechanism.

The Danish Navy has been involved in EMASoH since 2020, deploying warships, military personnel and diplomatic representatives. The navy has participated in naval exercises in the Indian Ocean with the French aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle alongside other NATO allies and India. A Danish officer was for the first time recruited to the American Pacific Command in Hawaii in May 2025. This may be a first step in involving Danish naval and air force in the region. 

That said, there is limited bandwidth in the Danish administration and services given its size and due to the situation in its own neighbourhood, the Arctic and Baltic Sea. Danish priorities at home could change, if the situation in the Indo-Pacific were to develop for the worse, for instance in the Taiwan Strait and the US were to get involved.

Recalling the question of how to mitigate the diversification and hardening of threats and trends of the weakening international platforms on which to counter them, Denmark as a small state is generally seen to select its interventions by where impact is high and reflects its foreign policy priorities. But it also points to limitations beyond resources, namely the complicated climate of international politics. It calls for a need to recalibrate maritime security strategies and operations. To this end, we may consult the interventionism literature on international operations.

Learning from interventionism studies

The interventionism literature points to frictions between actors in international intervention. It relates to normativity, power, legitimacy and effectiveness. Thus, on the one hand, international interventions promote universal principles of human rights and liberal democracy. On the other, interventions are implemented in contexts with cultures and customs that may not fluctuate with external intervention norms (Welsh 2004; Chandler 2010). This can imply power dynamics where larger states, donors or international organisations shape interventions based on their normative understanding of security issues, thus potentially marginalising recipients or less powerful actors (Duffield 2007). 

This power dynamic produces its own adverse effects, imposing the needs and interests of the more powerful (Ferugson 2003), while simultaneously undermining the ultimate legitimacy of the intervention (Mearsheimer 2018). To counter this, inter-cultural dialogue may keep exchanges open across geopolitical divides. Hailing from peace-building interventions, this is understood as processes of communication between relevant actors to ensure mutual understanding to avoid top-down models and normative frictions in the cooperation around a governance issue (Mac Ginty 2011).

Extrapolating the logic of interventionist critique to the case of maritime security governance in the Indo-Pacific, several points emerge.

As mentioned, UNCLOS is silent on much of what takes place in the Indo-Pacific. As seen above, a range of military alliances, exercises and partnerships are developing in the region. In a threat landscape where militarisation is a tendency, more powerful naval states may contribute with capabilities and lead on preferred norms and solutions. 

This draw attention to a related point about problems and solutions. It is pertinent to ask who defines which security issues grant policy attention, and who decides the preferred remedy to counter a threat? Who provides the human and material resources, formulates the operational mandate and success criteria? In fact, who are invited to join, and who are excluded as allies and partners?

These questions are tightly related to power dynamics and contestations over normative understandings of needs in international interventions. Alliance-building – which is currently ongoing – establishes mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. Like-minded states and adversaries. If ignored, the legitimacy of governance responses risks being compromised, because problems and solutions are not grounded in local needs and interests. 

Ignoring these questions could potentially compromise security itself. Excluding certain actors without sensitivity to local security dynamics may have adverse effects. In the Indo-Pacific, countries fraternising with China and Russia may be discarded as irrelevant, as ‘not-likeminded’ or even as the enemy. It may be advisable to include states on the margins of an alliance, engaging them on areas of mutual interest, insisting on formulating common goals and, if nothing else, continuing diplomatic dialogue. 

Finally, when certain states engage in countering other states’ violent actions at sea, it has legal, political and even economic repercussions that are different from countering criminals at sea. It is one thing when criminals breach the law, but if a state does not respect the rule of law, it starts eroding the international system as such. Suddenly issues of sovereignty are at stake, and any military or legal confrontation as a response to that threat can be construed – genuinely or as a matter of political optics – as a provocation. Contestations over the Taiwan Strait is a case in point, but also Chinese reactions to Western Freedom of Navigation Operations. This may produce misunderstandings that can spark defensive reactions. We thus see a risk of conflict escalation, where inaction could a preferred option in the concrete situation.

Concluding remarks: Pathways to inter-cultural dialogue 

This paper examined threats and responses to maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region, asking asked how small states with an interest in maritime security can develop a posture in the Indo-Pacific that is not only strategic, but also sustainable. 

Drawing on scholarly knowledge on interventionism, the paper foregrounded the effects of implementation and outcome of international security governance interventions, rather than on its principles and intentions. Mindful of power and normativity, the Indo-Pacific has both regional and extra-regional actors with individual needs, common interests but also conflicting interests. There are countries taking sides in rivalries. There are countries preferring non-alignment. There are challenges to the rule of law. There are attempts to change the maritime map. There are serious infringements on sovereignty and territorial integrity. There are imperial legacies, agendas of influence and resistance. There are long-standing policy issues of climate change, sustainable development, economic growth. And these are now coupled with geopolitical tensions and geoeconomic competition. Here, existing and new frameworks for addressing threats to maritime security are put to the test.

Some states reject the system, while others attempt to keep it alive, thereby adding a layer of complexity to it, because alliances and frameworks for action multiply. Some alliances may promote the liberal world order and wish to continue down the path of multilateralism and international human rights, while others may be more transactional and driven by economic interests. And yet others may reject collaboration altogether.

From a purely legal perspective, policy-makers and practitioners could wish that UNCLOS or other relevant international regulation were more specific and clear on how to manage hybrid threats and the current hardening of security issues seen in the Indo-Pacific. Denmark is one such state, which has integrated multilateralism and freedom of navigation in its maritime security strategy. But in the current landscape, it is necessary to rely on cooperation and coordination to get us some of the way. This is where it becomes important to foster inter-cultural dialogue between state actors, which takes into account the above pitfalls as drivers of exchanges, ensuring transparency in negotiations based on common ground and focus on shared goals as a way to define political and operational cooperation. 

If not rendering diplomacy and multilateral approaches ineffective, it is necessary to understand and mitigate pitfalls through inter-cultural dialogue. Pitfalls of interventions become clear in processes of inter-cultural dialogue. Against this backdrop, diplomacy and multilateralism still play a critical role. From a policy perspective, there is a need for enhanced bi-, mini- and multilateral cooperation on a political and operational level around maritime domain awareness and joint military exercises, through which to preserve and further develop inter-state collaboration in a sustainable and robust fashion. This could be through the establishment of a crisis management mechanism that pulls decision makers and practitioners from various forums and geographies.

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