Assets are required to conduct thorough surveillance of an assigned area of responsibility, detect and intercept all shipping, and dispatch trained boarding or inspection teams, providing for their logistics, support, transportation, and protection.  Sustained presence in the operating area is a necessity.

Maritime Interception Operations (MIO), a naval mission conducted to enforce the seaward portion of certain sanctions against other nations or group of nations including surveillance of approach zones, querying and/or stopping inbound vessels, boarding and searching them to ensure compliance with applicable international rules and UN resolutions, and diverting or redirecting those vessels not in compliance