Maritime insecurity and dhows' territory in the Arabian Sea

Abstract

Containerized maritime transport exerts an increasing dominance over shipping routes, marginalizing traditional dhows in the Arabian Sea thanks to tremendous economies of scale it enables. Thus, neglected territories by container shipping lines are the only ones where dhows still operate. By supplying small coastal settlements, conflict regions, embargoed countries like Iran, or even embargoed products, dhows assume security risks that other actors—regular shipping lines and insurers—refuse to bear. Thus, the rising security risks in the Red Sea since November 19, 2023, appear as a windfall for dhow business and, by this way, for the gauge of its sensitivity to varying kinds and levels of risk so as to demonstrate the connection between security and the span of dhows territory. The purpose of this article is to utilize available port data from the region (mainly Djibouti's) and AIS data from ship tracking sites to identify and measure variations in dhow activity in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Then, after a characterization of various risks of on-shore and off-shore security in the region, we rely on indicators of war risk insurance market to assess the correlation of their evolutions with the level of dhows activity.