The seas are critical transportation and merchant activity areas that affect states’ defense, security, and foreign policy. However, T\u00fcrkiye’s International Relations community and foreign policy decision-makers have not sufficiently grasped the importance of the seas. This brief assessment will attempt to draw a panorama of the lack of interest in the seas in T\u00fcrkiye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maritime Security for Global Security<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the May 2025 meeting, United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres called the Security Council for greater respect for international law, saying that ‘without maritime security, there can be no global security<\/a>.’ In these remarks, he cited Houthi attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea, trafficking in human beings in the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean, and numerous crimes in the Gulf of Guinea as examples of maritime security as a prerequisite for global security. Indeed, confirming what Guterres said, according to data from the International Maritime Bureau<\/a>, there have been many attempts and incidents of violence at sea since the beginning of 2025. In addition to military threats, the waters, where geopolitical risks are intensifying, are already facing threats ranging from uncontrolled violence such as banditry and armed robbery to organized crime, irregular migration, climate change, maritime accidents, cyber threats, marine pollution, and illegal fishing. In fact, due to the transboundary nature of these problems, maritime security is one of the key areas of international security that provides a common ground for cooperation. Considering that nearly 90% of global trade is conducted via maritime routes, ensuring the safety of these channels is vital for economic stability and prosperity. Therefore, the failure of global maritime security can threaten navigation safety, the marine environment’s ecological balance, energy supply chains, food security, and international production and distribution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the importance of the seas, the international community and politics have so far paid insufficient attention to maritime issues. The failure of states, societies, and academia to recognize the seas’ political, strategic, economic, and security significance is metaphorically described as “sea blindness.”<\/a> States and many international organizations have not prioritized investment in maritime security and cooperation mechanisms in global security, which is evidence of sea blindness. As the invisibility of the seas in times of peace deepens in terms of state defense, policymakers and decision-makers have systematically neglected the value of the waters by cutting naval spending. Yet historically speaking, the seas have determined the fate of wars; they have built or destroyed empires. The sea has critically shaped world history as a geographical and civilizational expanse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Time to Put Maritime Security on the Agenda in T\u00fcrkiye<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lack of interest in the seas in international politics also applies to T\u00fcrkiye. International Relations scholars in T\u00fcrkiye have primarily focused on terrestrial analyses and have neglected the role of the seas unless recent studies are considered. In T\u00fcrkiye, maritime awareness has not been sufficiently widespread among decision-makers and academia. While the discourse of “seafaring nation, seafaring country” has remained chiefly in rhetoric, the institutional and mental infrastructure to form the scientific foundations of this discourse has not been established. In most universities in T\u00fcrkiye, maritime-related departments and research centers are limited. The number of academics working in the fields of maritime history, maritime law, maritime strategy, or maritime security is low. Although individual theses, efforts, and academic publications are trying to find a direction, a holistic paradigm has not yet been built. For these reasons, technical knowledge and skills, have not yet been sufficiently grasped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n