Why Southeast Asian warship wrecks remain vulnerable

How likely is it that greed will lead to more US, British, and Japanese warship wrecks in Southeast Asia being illegally salvaged?

The risk is serious because valuable metal, weak enforcement, limited local resources, and differing attitudes toward wreck sites make protection difficult.

Protecting scattered wartime wrecks requires patrol assets or money for local authorities to allocate some of their limited resources. Valuable scrap provides a continuing incentive to disturb the sites. Clarke condemns the destruction and argues that cultures differ in how they value wrecks and human remains. Condemnation alone cannot supply the surveillance and enforcement needed to keep salvors away.