Menghean Maritime Security Force

The Maritime Security Force (Menghean: 해양 보안 부대/海洋保安部隊, Haeyang Boan Budae) is the coast guard of Menghe. It has undergone multiple reorganizations, reclassifications, and name changes over the years, and was formerly known as the Maritime Patrol Force, the Maritime Border Security Force, and, informally but not in official translations, the Menghean Coast Guard. Since 2017, it has been organized as an agency-level body subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Security, and thus it is formally known as the Maritime Security Force of the Ministry of Internal Security of the Socialist Republic of Menghe (Dae Meng Sahoejuyi Gonghwaguk Guknae Boanbu Haeyang Boan Budae).

Though no longer directly subordinate to the Menghean Navy, as it was between 2011 and 2017, the Maritime Security Force is a paramilitary organization and many of its ships are armed and built to military standards. In wartime, the Menghean government can transfer control of its assets to the Menghean Navy, which would use them as auxiliary escorts and patrol vessels.

History

In 1964, after its victory in the Menghean War of Liberation, the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe established the Maritime Border Police Force (해양 국경 경찰 부대/海洋國境警察部隊, Haeyang Gukgyŏng Gyŏngchal Budae). This agency, part of the Ministry of State Security, was tasked with patrolling the country's maritime borders and later its exclusive economic zone. While it formally performed most routine duties associated with a coast guard, it was primarily tasked with preventing defectors from escaping from the DPRM to Altagracia, Dayashina, or Hanhae by boat, raft, or, in the case of Altagracia, by swimming. The Maritime Border Police Force also served as a civilian counterweight to the Menghean People's Navy, which, under the terms of the Sangwŏn Agreement, was insulated from the oversight of the Menghean People's Communist Party. The Maritime Border Police Squadron in Donggyŏng included gunboats and torpedo boats which could, in theory, attack a Menghean People's Navy formation entering the Kimhae Sea en route to the capital.

After the Decembrist Revolution, the Ministry of State Security was merged into the Ministry of the Interior and its personnel were purged. To further dismantle the power of the outgoing regime, the interim government transferred the Maritime Border Police Force to the control of the Menghean Navy, which, as a military body, had been insulated from Communist ideological control and was relatively loyal to Choe Sŭng-min's new regime. There, it was renamed the Maritime Border Security Force (Haeyang Gukgyŏng Boan Budae).

In 1995, content that the civilian bureaucracy was loyal to his new regime, Choe Sŭng-min transferred the Maritime Border Security Force back to the control of the Ministry of Internal Security, where it retained its previous name.

The agency was returned to Navy control in 2011, as one of the aftereffects of the 2005 Menghean military reforms. This reorganization was meant to streamline the wartime integration of the paramilitary auxiliary and the active Navy. During this time, it was renamed the Maritime Patrol Force (해양 순찰대 / 海洋巡察隊Haeyang Sunchaldae).

The latest reorganization came in 2017, after the resolution of the Innominadan Crisis. The Maritime Patrol Force was renamed the Maritime Security Force and placed under the controlf of the Ministry of Internal Security. It was also expanded through the merging-in of the Maritime Traffic Control Agency, formerly part of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, and the Maritime Monitoring Service, formerly part of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. For the first time, this produced a consolidated agency with the combined missions and resources of a proper coast guard.

Missions

Following its reorganization and consolidation in 2017, the Maritime Security Force is tasked with the following missions in peacetime:

1. Maritime border enforcement, including preventing unlawful incursions into Menghe's territorial waters and exclusive economic zone;
2. Maritime border patrol, the interception of vessels unlawfully entering or leaving the country and any unauthorized passengers or contraband aboard;
3. Maritime law enforcement, including collaboration with international law enforcement agencies to combat cross-border crime;
4. Maritime traffic management, including maintaining shipping lanes and regulating maritime tourism;
5. Search and rescue, specifically air-sea rescue as well as rescue in coastal areas;
6. Disaster response, extending to the shipment of supplies to affected areas;
7. At-sea firefighting, for example at oil platforms and damaged ships;
8. Oceanography and Hydrographic survey, marking of submerged obstacles, and placement and maintenance of buoys; and
9. Marine environmental protection, including monitoring water pollution levels, combating illegal dumping, and containing and cleaning up hazardous spills.

Though the Maritime Security Force is no longer under the direct oversight of the Menghean Navy, the Navy still has the authority to command its ships in times of war. Though usually lacking the newest sensors and weapons, Maritime Security ships often carry some gun armament and provisions for the mounting of additional weapon systems, and could be used as auxiliary escort ships in rear areas or as minelayers in contested or defended waters. Some of the latest Maritime Security ships are configured to accept special-purpose mission modules, including minehunting gear and variable depth sonar. The Maritime Security Force would also deploy its resources to locate and rescue downed airmen and the survivors of sunken ships.

Organization

At present, the Menghean Maritime Security Force is divided into two fleets, five coastal flotillas, and one riverine flotilla.

The two Security Fleets are comprised of large, heavy, long-range patrol ships and venture further afield, patrolling the outer areas of Menghe's exclusive economic zone and conducting missions in international waters. These larger ships resemble offshore patrol vessels, with military-grade construction standards and heavy armament, as well as helicopter facilities for search and rescue. They were established in 1995 when the Maritime Border Security Force was transferred to the control of the Ministry of Internal Security, with the South Sea Border Fleet taking control of the first two Ginam-class frigates around that time.

Originally, the DPRM's Maritime Border Police Force had 13 individual flotillas, each corresponding to one of Menghe's coastal provinces (including directly-controlled municipalities). These flotillas had provincial agency level status, meaning that they answered directly to the provincial government but could be coordinated by the national Maritime Border Police Agency as needed. When Choe Sŭng-min reorganized the Maritime Border Police in 1988, he retained the structure of the provincial flotillas, but placed them under the direct control of the Maritime Border Security Force, meaning that they no longer answered to provincial governments and their areas of jurisdiction simply corresponded to provincial boundaries. In 1997, the Maritime Border Security Force revised its flotilla patrol areas, giving the Donggyŏng Coastal Flotilla control over the entire Kimchang Sea (as the Kimchang Coastal Flotilla) and expanding the Hwangjŏn Coastal Flotilla's control over the entire Daman Sea (as the Daman Coastal Flotilla). Over the course of the late 1990s and 2000s, the Ministry of Internal Security also gave provincial governments more control over their corresponding coastal flotillas. In 2012, one year after the Maritime Border Security Force became the Maritime Patrol Force, the Navy reorganized the provincial flotillas into regional commands, further increased central control over them, and improved the procedures to transfer ships between them and handle issues with overlapping jurisdiction. This system came to an end in 2017, when the Maritime Patrol Force was placed back under Ministry of Internal Security control as the Maritime Security Force.

Under the latest reorganization, launched in 2017, the coastal flotillas correspond to Menghe's greater administrative regions, except for the Daman Sea Flotilla which covers the area from Altagracia to the southeastern point of the Lakkian Autonomous Province. Because greater administrative regions have no permanent governments, these coastal flotillas are not subordinate to any local government authorities, though they can and do communicate and coordinate with provincial, prefectural, and city governments. Under this more centralized structure, ships from each flotilla retain the ability to cross flotilla jurisdiction boundaries in order to pursue a fleeing suspect, rescue a person in distress, or otherwise react to a time-sensitive mission when ships in the adjacent flotilla are too far away.

The Meng River has its own dedicated flotilla, which has authority over river traffic from the river mouth up to the meeting of the Banggyŏng River at Junggyŏng's southern border. This is due to the Meng River's breadth, the high volume of shipping traffic it supports, and the fact that it forms the border between many prefectures and municipalities below this point, making it difficult to divide jurisdiction. All of Menghe's other rivers are governed by prefectural police departments, with jurisdiction divided along the official prefectural boundaries, which are usually demarcated down the river's center, when necessary. The Baek River and San River, which form Menghe's borders with Polvokia and the former Innominada (now Argentstan), also gained Maritime Border Police flotillas starting in 1995, but these were transferred to the control of the Border Patrol Forces as part of the 2011 reorganization of the Maritime Security Force, partly to prevent the Menghean Navy from patrolling land borders in the Army's domain and partly to strengthen cooperation between riverine craft and Border Patrol units on the riverbank.

Fleets:

• East Sea Security Fleet
• South Sea Security Fleet

Coastal Flotillas:

• Donghae Coastal Flotilla
• Southeast Coastal Flotilla
• Chŏllo Coastal Flotilla
• Southwest Coastal Flotilla
• Daman Sea Coastal Flotilla

Riverine Flotillas:

• Meng River Flotilla

See also

• Menghean Navy
• Internal Security Forces (Menghe)