GLOBAL MARITIME SECURITY MATRIX INTERRELATIONS SURVEY

RESEARCH CONTEXT

This survey instrument is designed to elicit expert professional judgement on the interrelations among the four cardinal domains of Bueger's Maritime Security Matrix — National Security, Economic Development, Marine Environment, and Human Security — and their constituent sub-domains. It further seeks to identify evidence that the global maritime security environment exhibits the properties of a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) and to assess the suitability of Systems Dynamics, Fuzzy Systems, and Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodologies for maritime security prioritisation.

PREAMBLE & RESEARCH RATIONALE 

Prof. Dr. Christian Bueger's maritime security matrix (Marine Policy, 2015) and its subsequent refinement by Bueger and Timothy Edmunds in 'Beyond Seablindness' (International Affairs, 2017) represent the most intellectually coherent framework for mapping the conceptual terrain of contemporary maritime security. The matrix positions Maritime Security at its centre, flanked by four cardinal domains: (1) National Security — encompassing sea power, inter-state disputes, arms proliferation, and maritime terrorism; (2) Economic Development — encompassing blue economy, IUU fishing, and maritime trade; (3) Marine Environment — encompassing marine safety, pollution, and climate-induced threats; and (4) Human Security — encompassing piracy, human trafficking, and resilience. Bueger and Edmunds further argued that the marine environment must be understood as part of an interlinked security complex, incorporating strong land–sea connections.

The contemporary maritime security landscape provides compelling empirical grounds for this framework's salience. Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November 2023 have halved traffic through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. IMO-reported piracy and armed robbery incidents rose by 47.5% in Q1 2025 versus Q1 2024, with incidents in Asia nearly doubling. Boardings in Southeast Asia totalled 135 in 2025, a 35% increase on 2024 figures. The Gulf of Guinea, Gulf of Aden, and Mediterranean remain active theatres of transnational organised crime, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling. These developments are not reducible to single-domain explanations; they manifest the non-linear, emergent, and interdependent properties that define Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). The purpose of this survey is to elicit structured expert judgement to test that proposition empirically and to identify which analytical methodologies — Systems Dynamics, Fuzzy Systems, or MCDM — offer the greatest policy leverage.

Ethical Notice: All responses are anonymised. Institutional affiliations are recorded only at the categorical level. Participation is voluntary. Data will be aggregated for academic publication.