At the risk of being pedantic, I would like to comment on the suggestion from a malaysiakini reader for geostationary satellites to provide constant surveillance in the Straits of Malacca and the coastal waters around Sabah.

Geostationary satellites are, as their name implies, satellites whose orbit makes them appear to be constantly over a fixed point on the Earth's surface, as opposed to satellites in low-earth orbit, (LEO) which are constantly circling the globe.

To achieve geostationary orbit (GEO), a satellite has to reach a height of about 35,000km above the Earth's surface, as compared to a few hundred to a thousand km for LEO satellites. This great height means that a lot of energy is required to insert a satellite at GEO.

This means that satellites tend to be smaller and less well-equipped than their LEO equivalents. This combined with the great distance from Earth means that such satellites usually have pixel resolutions in the hundreds of kilometres.

Clearly, this means that GEO satellites are useless for surveillance images: indeed, they are usually used only for large-scale weather forecasting. All spy or surveillance satellites have to be at LEO in order to achieve useful resolutions of a couple of meters, required to detect, say, a small boat.

With regard to the problems of piracy and terrorists in the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea, alternatives include having a network of LEO satellites so that at least one is covering the target area at all times.

Another is to use aircraft carrying maritime surveillance radars, e.g. the BAe Nimrod, the Boeing P-3 Orion or the Tupolev Tu-95 series.

For satellites, the cost of launching the necessary number is completely outside the reach of countries in this region. As for the airborne radars, the aircraft mentioned were designed for all-out naval warfare against surface and submarine targets, and as such, are packed with features we cannot afford nor need.

With regards to suggestions that the US Navy would be able to help secure our waterways, I must say that the US Navy was designed with the objective of large-scale naval combat against the former Soviet Union and also as a means of projecting air power, hence the prominence of the aircraft carrier in their naval doctrine.

While intimidating and powerful, this isn't particularly useful when dealing with asymmetric warfare such as terrorism or piracy (in or around US coastal waters, the US has a separate Coast Guard to deal with this).

What seems more productive would be for the US to cooperate with regional countries in a intelligence and training capacity. This would be low-profile enough to avoid inflaming popular opinion, yet availing us of the US' considerable intelligence assets.