Maritime Domain Awareness and Maritime Fusion Centers

This article emphasizes the importance of maritime domain awareness (MDA) and the coordinating efforts of maritime fusion centers (MFC) to support those efforts.

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The essential mission of a MFC is to strengthen MDA by gathering and analyzing data from multiple sources, fusing it into meaningful information, and disseminating actionable intelligence to operational commanders to directly improve national security, safety, economy, and environment. Not all maritime centers source data broadly enough to make fusion meaningful, and not all attempt to adequately fuse data to extrapolate new intelligence. Some of these agencies only focus on internal monitoring and have little to do with transnational events.