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 1962, while the Menghean War of Liberation was still underway, Communist forces established the Coastal Militia (해안 민병대 / 海岸民兵隊, Haean Minbyŏngdae), the precursor to today's Maritime Security Force. The Coastal Militia were organized by the Menghean People's Communist Party and its guerrilla fighters, and were primarily tasked with patrolling the coast to find enemy spies, saboteurs, and landing forces, and to monitor the movement of ships along the coast. Some coastal militia units commandeered fast motorboats and even fishing trawlers to patrol coastal waters and intercept suspicious ships, though most of them relied on foot patrols along the shore.

After the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe was founded in 1964, Coastal Militia units were transferred to the control of local governments. Like police agencies, they were divided into county, city, or municipal units, which could be coordinated by prefectural and provincial governments higher up the chain of command. As such, the quality of equipment varied considerably between localities, though none operated any purpose-built patrol vessels, instead relying on some combination of commandeered civilian vessels and small open-topped motorboats. Most coastal militia units existed in their own department-level agencies, and organization differed from one jurisdiction to another.

To standardize and professionalize these coastal militias, the DPRM reorganized them into the Maritime Border Police Force (해양 국경 경찰 부대 / 海洋國境警察部隊, Haeyang Gukgyŏng Gyŏngchal Budae) in 1975. Like secret police units, the Maritime Border Police were controlled by the Bureau of State Security in each locale. As part of this more centralized oversight, they were also reorganized to fall under the control of provincial governments, allowing them to more easily cross inter-county and inter-prefectural maritime borders and base ships in the largest available ports. The Maritime Border Police Force also had a centralized and standardized procurement process, allowing them to order purpose-built patrol boats and gunboats rather than arming civilian craft.

Like the Coastal Militia, the Maritime Border Police Force was ostensibly tasked with patrolling the country's territorial waters, and later its exclusive economic zone, to catch spies, saboteurs, and contraband smugglers. In practice, its main mission was domestic repression: its ships intercepted defectors attempting to flee the country, sometimes with lethal force, and put an end to unlicensed private fishing and private smuggling. 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, though as the Menghean People's Navy expanded and modernized it maintained a considerable edge over the Maritime Border Police, which were forbidden from operating any vessel with a top speed of more than 20 knots and a displacement of more than 500 tonnes.

After the Decembrist Revolution, the Ministry of State Security was disbanded 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 (해양 국경 보안 부대 / 海洋國境保安部隊, Haeyang Gukgyŏng Boan Budae). In 1992, it changed its flag to four navy blue stripes on a white background with an anchor in a gold circle in the middle, thus using the Navy's own colors and symbols.

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. There, it was still called the Maritime Border Security Force, but its flag was changed to replace the Navy anchor with a blue shield bearing the characters 海保 (Haebo), an abbreviation for Maritime Security. With the Sangwŏn Agreement and its informal restrictions on non-military warship size no longer in effect, the Maritime Border Security Force assumed control of several dozen retired Navy ships, including two Ginam-class frigates. It also assumed control over border patrol units on the Baek River and San River, organizing them into two flotillas, each of which monitored river traffic and border crossings along the portion of each river which served as a national boundary.

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) and it once again flew the blue-stripe flag with an anchor insignia. Its missions were once again restricted to border patrol and maritime law enforcement, with the Baek River Flotilla and San River Flotilla transferred to the Border Patrol Forces of the Ministry of Internal Security.

The latest reorganization came in 2017, after the resolution of the Innominadan Crisis but primarily in the wake of Tak Jong-ho's dismissal as Commander-in-Chief. The Maritime Patrol Force was renamed the Maritime Security Force and placed back under the control of the Ministry of Internal Security. It was also expanded, absorbing three other bodies:

• the Maritime Traffic Control Agency, formerly part of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, tasked with tending buoys and regulating shipping routes;
• the Maritime Monitoring Service, formerly part of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, tasked with regulating illegal fishing and dumping outside territorial waters; and
• the Maritime Rescue Service, formerly part of the Ministry of Public Security, tasked with search and rescue operations.

Following this reorganization, the Maritime Security Force now serves as 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)