Whether it is pirates, smugglers, illicit fishing, or disputes in the South China Sea, the oceans are of increasing importance in international security.

In Understanding Maritime Security (Oxford UP, 2024), Christian Bueger and Timothy Edmunds provide a concise introduction to the history of security at sea and explain the core frameworks of analysis that professionals use to understand and tackle challenges to maritime order. They discuss key issues within the maritime security agenda, including inter-state disputes, terrorism, piracy, smuggling, trafficking, and illicit fishing, and examine how states have responded.

Bueger and Edmunds analyze future trends and show how maritime security is impacted by the critical infrastructure agenda, emerging technologies, cyber security, climate change, biodiversity loss, and the renaissance of geopolitics.

Comprehensive and incisive, this primer of maritime security is essential reading for maritime security professionals and students of this increasingly important issue.

Our guest today is Christian Bueger, Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).