David Bosco - The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the Worlds Oceans

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bosco, David L., author.

Title: The Poseidon project : the struggle to govern the worlds oceans /

David Bosco.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2022] |

Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2021030644 (print) | LCCN 2021030645 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780190265649 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190265663 (epub) |

ISBN 9780197582916

Subjects: LCSH: Law of the seaHistory.

Classification: LCC KZA1145 .B678 2022 (print) |

LCC KZA1145 (ebook) | DDC 341.4/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030644

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030645

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190265649.001.0001

For James, Lael, and Josephine

This project began while I was at American University and was written from my new home at Indiana Universitys Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. The deans at these institutions, Jim Goldgeier at American and Lee Feinstein at Indiana, have been enormously supportive. Padraic Kenney and Purnima Bose were unfailingly helpful as department chairs. Dave McBride at Oxford University Press embraced the idea of the book from the beginning and guided me expertly through its various stages.

A fellowship through the College Arts and Humanities Institute at Indiana University provided an invaluable semester to complete writing, and the Institute for Advanced Studies supported a conference to review the manuscript. I am grateful to Barbara Breitung for her work in arranging that conference (and for countless other forms of assistance). I benefited enormously from comments by David Balton, Nick Cullather, Taylor Fravel, Tamar Gutner, Kate Hunt, Stephanie Kane, Adam Liff, Stephen Macekura, Jessica OReilly, Lincoln Paine, Alexander Proelss, Scott Shackelford, and Justyna Zayac. Douglas Guilfoyle, Jim Goldgeier, and Emma Chanlett-Avery were kind enough to comment on late versions of the draft. Colin Koh shared his expertise on freedom of navigation operations. Mark Strauss, my friend and former colleague at Foreign Policy magazine, provided several rounds of superb edits.

A wonderful group of students at both American University and Indiana University pitched in at various stages of the project, including Jong Eun Lee, Sunny Aldrich, Henry Farrell, and Rachel Myers. Alejandro Barrett Lopez and Megan Chapman went above and beyond the call of duty in their work on the project.

I am grateful to the 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative for financial support that allowed me to make a trip to Japan and have enlightening discussions with a range of officials there. In Tokyo, my friend Tomoaki Ishigaki generously helped me find the right interlocutors. Kristina McReynolds expertly facilitated the logistics of the trip.

During the pandemic year, this project became an extended family affair. Relatives who took up the gauntlet include my father, Joseph Bosco (who served in the US Navy), and my father-in-law, Jim Wallace. My sister Carla, a history buff, offered salient thoughts. My brother Stephen (also a former naval officer) helped with several chapters. My sister Alessandra provided superb comments and editing throughout. My wife, Shana Wallace, buoyed my spirits when the project seemed overwhelming and gently but firmly urged important structural changes. Our children, Josephine, Lael, and James, expressed only intermittent interest in the project but had pronounced views on the cover design.

). Hundreds of miles of often turbulent waters separate Japans main islands from the Senkakus, a clutch of eight rocky outcroppings about 120 miles northeast of Taiwan. Sea conditions around the islands that day were manageable if not hospitable.

Figure 0.1 The Senkaku Islands; courtesy of Michael Lipin/Voice of America

The patrol was a familiar one for the crews. Japans Coast Guard devotes a significant percentage of its budget to monitoring these waters. To aid in the effort, Japan has built a network of defense installations, including a coast guard base housing hundreds of personnel on the nearby island of Ishigaki. Japanese aircraft fly regular patrols in the area, and the government created an elite ground force that can be deployed quickly if the Senkakus are threatened.

The strenuous effort is centered on islands that have no residents and scant resources of their own. The largest island in the chain has an area of just two square miles, and the smallest feature barely breaks the water line. Japan first staked its claim to the Senkakus in 1895 on the premise that the islands were unclaimed and therefore free for the taking. A 1900 survey by several Japanese scientists found an array of birds (including albatross), wild cats, and swarms of mosquitoes and bottleneck flies. With permission from the government, an intrepid Japanese businessman harvested and exported bird feathers and snails. At its peak, the business employed dozens of people. The isolation and harsh conditions ultimately prevailed, and by the late 1930s the Senkakus were once again uninhabited.

What the islands lack in onshore human activity, they have more than compensated for in offshore drama. When imperial Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, the Senkakus came under the control of the United States. In the 1950s, US forces used several of the islands as bombing ranges. As Washington finally prepared to hand back control to Japan in the late 1960s, China objected. Its government insisted that the islands, which it calls the Diaoyu, have always been Chinese. Beijings interest in the islands coincided with a report suggesting that the waters near the islands might hold plentiful oil and gas reserves. In the decades since, groups of nationalist protesters from China, Taiwan (which also claims the islands), and Japan itself have voyaged to and occasionally clambered onto the rocky islands. In 1978, a Japanese group apparently introduced goats, which multiplied, turned feral, and ravaged one islands vegetation.

Once an occasional irritant to relations between Beijing and Tokyo, the Senkakus have become a nearly constant source of tension. A collision between Chinese fishing boats and a Japanese Coast Guard vessel in 2010 raised the temperature of the dispute. Controversy ratcheted up further in 2012 when the Japanese government, prodded by the nationalist mayor of Tokyo, purchased three of the islands from their private Japanese owner. While that move did not alter Japans international legal position, it made several islands government property and was seen in China as a provocation. In several Chinese cities, protesters gathered outside Japanese consulates and businesses. In 2016, an armed Chinese navy vessel appeared for the first time in the waters around the Senkakus.