| Sumario: | By the end of the Cold War the United States had produced a navy, to a large degree in response to the global challenge posed by the Soviet Union, that was and remains the largest and most powerful navy in the world. This maritime supremacy confers great advantages on the United States in its foreign policy, but it has limitations. The U.S. Navy, while the dominant maritime force, must act in concert with other maritime forces in the quest for an orderly maritime domain. More and more, todays dynamic maritime security landscape also involves such broad-ranging missions as countering global terrorism, providing humanitarian relief for natural disasters, interdicting drug trafficking, and regulating the migration of people. No single navy or nation can do this alone. Security threats in the maritime domain are an important challenge. In todays world 50,000 large ships carry about 80 percent of the worlds trade. To offer security in the maritime domain, governments around the world need the capabilities to confront directly such common threats as piracy, smuggling, drug trading, illegal immigration, banditry, human smuggling and slavery, environmental attack, trade disruption, weapons proliferation, and terrorism. Recognizing this new international security landscape, the former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) called for a collaborative international approach to maritime security. Initially branded the 1,000-ship Navy, this concept envisioned that U.S. naval forces would partner with a diverse array of multinational, federal, state, local and private sector entities to ensure freedom of navigation, the flow of commerce, and the protection of ocean resources.
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