Countries have always gathered information about the maritime environment, in order to collect intelligence necessary for various missions or finding enemy navies. Modern MDA however, was defined in the aftermath of the &lt;a href="September%2011%20attacks"&gt;9/11 terror attack&lt;/a&gt; and the terror attack on the destroyer USS Cole. Maritime Domain Awareness programs aims to detect threats and come up with resolutions to these; helping with decision-making for different threats and; inspects that international law are kept, in order to ensure freedom of navigation.