Commodore Raymond King of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force called the security framework between the Bahamas and the United States “a lifesaver.”
GERALDINE COOK/DIÁLOGO AMERICAS
The Bahamas offers a paradise for tourists with its white sandy shores, blue waters, fishing, and scuba diving, but it is also a transnational criminal organization’s maritime haven for drugs and human trafficking, illegal fishing and related crimes. To counter those security threats, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) partners with local and regional agencies banking on the strength that comes from interoperability.
Commodore Raymond King, RBDF commander, spoke with Diálogo Americas magazine during the Caribbean Nations Security Conference (CANSEC) 2023, in Montego Bay, Jamaica, June 6-9, about his perspective on how to defeat common security threats.
Diálogo: What is the significance of the Bahamas’ participation at CANSEC 2023?
Commodore King: CANSEC seeks to bring professionals from the defense and security institutions to discuss current and future threats to the region itself. The Bahamas, as a member of the CARICOM community, has a vested interest in those issues, particularly at the regional level. CANSEC gives us an opportunity to share experiences and best practices, strengthen our relationships in a cooperative, collaborative and coordinated way to share information and intelligence for the security and safety of all nations involved.
Diálogo: One of CANSEC’s main topics was enhancing cybersecurity. What does the RBDF bring to the regional effort in this regard?
Commodore King: The cybersecurity mechanisms and framework are still in the budding stages for most of the Caribbean nations. The Bahamas in particular, under the Bahamian government, has partnered with the International Telecommunication Unit, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies, whereby a readiness and a vulnerability assessment was done. We are now moving toward drafting our national cybersecurity strategy. We have formed a computer incident response team responsible for leading those efforts. We are putting in the legal framework to ensure that we have resilience in our cybersecurity response at a national level. While we’re moving toward strengthening our cybersecurity efforts at the national level, the government has indicated its intent to partner with the region as a whole in terms of harmonizing our efforts, sharing best practices, experiences and strengthening those relationships.
Diálogo: CANSEC also focused on climate change and environmental security. How does the RBDF contribute to the regional response effort?
Commodore King: Our Prime Minister Phillip Edward Davis, as the present chair of CARICOM, has led the efforts toward building a coalition from this region, so we can have a larger voice in meetings with the wealthiest countries, who contribute more than 75 percent of the greenhouse gases that is driving the global warming and the entire climate change processes. Our prime minister has had a number of regional meetings with prime ministers and presidents and they’ve had a successful meeting at the 2022 U.N. Climate Change Conference. As we speak, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting The Bahamas [June 8] and meeting with all of the Caribbean leaders, where climate change and environmental conservation and preservation are the main topics of discussion. The government is leading those efforts and by extension, the RBDF and all other government agencies, ministries, and departments are aligning all of our procurement and everything that we do to ensure that we consider the environment and the impacts thereof.
Diálogo: The Bahamas’ maritime domain is challenged by illicit activities such as narcotrafficking. What initiatives have RBDF adopted to counter transnational criminal organizations?
Commodore King: I would say that the strategy that I’ve implemented as the commander of the RBDF is one whereby we seek to have intelligence-driven operations. We sought to decentralize our operations because the Bahamas is an archipelago and we seek to have joint interdiction operations with national partners such as police, marine units, customs, and immigration departments, as well as international partner nations. We work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard, Turks and Caicos, even with the Cuba Border Patrol. We share information and intelligence and we have blended our relationships, seeking to do three things.
One, in our maritime domain awareness, we’re using all resources, in particular from the Canadian government and U.S. government satellite feeds as we want to know who is in our sovereign waters at any time. We are also using persistent and overlapping vessel patrols, aerial reconnaissance, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance patrols. The second thing we’re doing is seeking to control access to our sovereign waters. We want to have maritime domain control. Thirdly, we want to dominate our domain — persistent, overlapping patrols, aircraft, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance patrols, and again, working with our regional partners. We did those things successfully. We are doing an awesome job with those partners in tracking, sharing information.
Diálogo: What is the importance of the Bilateral Security Cooperation Framework between the United States and the Bahamas?
Commodore King: The framework has been a lifesaver. I personally led efforts for many years representing the RBDF as a more junior officer and talked with SOUTHCOM (U.S. Southern Command) and NORTHCOM (U.S. Northern Command) in terms of the levels of support that we expected the preceding year. The framework clearly identifies the areas of mutual interests. The first effort is our maritime domain awareness, where we are seeking to strengthen certain capabilities, intelligence, cybersecurity and communications. We also have efforts that deal with maritime domain control, where we’re getting assistance with our decentralization program, being equipped with the necessary technology to ensure that we can maintain awareness of who is in our domain. The third one has to do with institutional capacity building, where we’re seeking to professionalize the RBDF to ensure that our structure is designed based on a force design, structure, objectives and capabilities we need to accomplish our mission. The fourth one has to do with subject matter expert exchanges with mobile training teams coming to the Bahamas to conduct them.
Diálogo: RBDF has a strong partnership with the Rhode Island National Guard through the U.S. State Partnership Program. What kind of exchanges do you conduct together?
Commodore King: The State Partnership program, which was formed in 2005, has assisted us greatly, particularly in our professional development. They’ve even assisted us with structural buildings at our base, HMS Coral Harbor in New Providence, to ensure that we have the capacity for our men and women while they do their work. They often send subject matter experts to see how things are done and then they reciprocate it with some of our personnel traveling to the U.S. to see how things are done in any of the U.S. naval establishments.
Diálogo: What are RBDF’s advances in terms of gender integration?
Commodore King: I sought to drive the national push for gender equality in the workplace. The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) program is fully endorsed by the organization, evidenced by the fact that we have a female population of 22% in the RBDF and my recruitment has taken it as high as 30%. They are included and integrated in the decision-making processes because the female perspective is critical in all of our missions and operations. We have endorsed all of the policies and the recommendations from the WPS initiative to ensure equity in the workplace.
This article was originally published in Diálogo Americas in July 2023. Diálogo is a publication of U.S. Southern Command.