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What to do about Piracy                                                                                    

Posted at: May/04/2009 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: Perspectives,

Piracy is back and it is in the news. Actually, that is only half right; Piracy is in the news, but it can’t be back because it never really went away. The recent acts of piracy in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia have created quite a bit of news. These acts of piracy aren’t really a resurgence of something lost to the history books, they are actually just the most notable set of piracy actions in a long history.

Like anything else we do in life, there are those who work hard for what they have and those who feel it is their place to steal it from others. While the surge in pirate activity of the coast of Africa is notable, piracy has been active off portions of the south Asian continent for many years. Pirates have been around for as long has man has moved trade goods across large bodies of water. Pirates even have their “golden age” in the eighteenth century. I suspect this period was considered golden because of how flamboyant some of the characters were. It does not hurt that some of these pirates operated with the unofficial blessing of one monarch or another so long as they were selective about the flag of the ships they did attack. Even in the early history of the United States we had our home grown pirates who, because they only harassed British shipping were thought of as local hero’s.

Ultimately, pirates are just thieves. Piracy is in theory remarkably easy to eradicate. In practical application, piracy has proven almost impossible to get rid of. For pirates to operate, they need a base of operations. The base is used to fit and repair their ships, offload their captured booty, secure their hostages, and find safe harbor from forces intent on their capture or destruction. Historically, pirate bases have always existed on shores where there is no organized government, or occasionally where the government is providing safe shelter in exchange for harassing only selected targets. The current surge in pirate activity off the coast of Africa is a clear case of Somalia being both unable and unwilling to police its shores.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about arming merchant ships and/or their crews. This is not a practical solution for a number of reasons. First; most crews don’t want the responsibility of protecting their cargo with force and personal risk of life. Second; This puts the insurance carriers in an awkward position with respect to crew welfare and ship/cargo safety. Lastly; Most cargo ships have much more freedom to come and go from one country to another because by international maritime agreements they are unarmed. Conversely, military ships need substantial approvals to enter foreign ports because they are armed. Arming merchant vessels would significantly impede their ability to move from one countries port to another and conduct the business of trade.

The answer to piracy is already written in history and has two key facets. The first facet is military sea power. One of the primary roles of Navy’s throughout history has been to keep commercial maritime safe and sea-lanes open. The second and more elusive challenge is to help and encourage stable governments such that they can police their own shores and bays. This does not have to be full scale "nation building", but a stable government of nearly any form will reduce piracy from it's own shores.

The oceans of the world are vast and fighting piracy cannot be accomplished with just sea going military might. Until the shores of Somalia can be controlled by some local or regional authority, pirates will still have a home and continue to attack and harass regional shipping and trade.

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