Over 40 int’l navies coming to Pakistan for ‘Aman 2021’ National February 6, 2021 KARACHI: The Pakistan Navy is holding its eighth edition of the annual multinational exercise ‘Aman’ from mid-Feb, in which navies of 46 countries are participating. Naval participants from European, Eurasian, Asian, American continents are bringing together ships, aircraft, special operation forces and observers for collaborative peace and security of the maritime domain. The Pakistan Navy seeks to enhance interoperability between regional and extra regional navies to promote peace and stability in the region and beyond. From 2006 onwards, piracy and maritime terrorism incidents like those of Somali pirates hijacking commercial ships and crews increased significantly all around the world but especially in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf and the Somalia Basin, threatening commercial interests and freedom of the high seas. According to the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Center, due to joint global efforts of which Pakistan is a critical part, the piracy and terrorism incidents dropped to 41 by 2019 from 180 in 2017. The Pakistan Navy is the first regional navy to become a member of the US led and Bahrain-based Combined Maritime Forces in 2004, to conduct Regional Maritime Security Patrols in southern Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman and choke points off the Maldives. The PN’s very own Task Force-88 is focused to ensure robust security posture in maritime security of Gwadar and adjacent sea-lanes. The Aman exercise also provides an opportunity for detailed coordination of different navies’ individual rules and regulations and consequently develop and practice tactics critical for joint operations imperative for ensuring safe and secure sea lanes across the world’s oceans. In this context, the sea lines of communications of Arabian Sea being the jugular of global and regional trade and commerce with multiple chokepoints, need to be protected from traditional and asymmetric threats and from the emerging disruptive communication technologies linked to artificial intelligence and robotics that can potentially threaten digital security including deep-water cables, energy lines and other assets. By training together and evolving common, synchronized strategies and joint tactics to guard and pre-empt the growing global and regional susceptibility to cyber attacks and employing new instruments of cooperation, Aman has provided another proverbial feather in Pakistan Navy’s maritime diplomacy. AMAN is not a strange word to those comprehending vernacular language and its close variants, meaning ‘peace’ and therefore the slogan of the exercise is ‘Together for Peace’.