Continuity and Change in post-Cold War Maritime Security: A Study of the Strategies Pursued by the US, Sweden and Finland 1991–2016

What explains continuity and change in post-Cold War maritime security strategies? What lessons can we learn from the employment of such comprehensive grand strategies in maritime regions where traditional and non-traditional threats converge? While many scholars have addressed particular maritime security issues, this author joins the few who engage themselves in the study of the conceptual development of maritime  security. Through the lens of structural realism, this thesis examines the logic of the maritime security strategies employed in two distinguished regions by the US and EU member states Finland and Sweden. It concludes that while their maritime security concept remains broad, the recent increase in security pressure has renewed the priority assigned to the military sector of security. Navies are thus re-using the measures implemented by a broad set of civil agencies and the shipping industry to improve maritime security, to gain the level of maritime domain awareness required for establishing regional sea control and project power from the sea.