The Combat Operator

With piracy odds in their favor, ships shun armed guards

May 7, 2009 Piracy

The small number of successful pirate attacks, an increase in military patrols, and legal concerns have kept many firms from hiring security.

Tags: aegis, Afghanistan, Blackwater, charges, contracts, DoS, Iraq, Mullen, offered, Pentagon, Piracy, pirates, ransom, services, shipping, wanted

Captain once held by pirates urges military protection, armed crews

May 1, 2009 Piracy, Somalia

Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama says, ‘And I don’t mean a security guard. I don’t mean a mall cop. I mean someone who’s sufficiently trained.’ His boss disagrees.

By Rebecca Cole at LA Times

Reporting from Washington — The freed captain of a merchant ship attacked by pirates near Somalia last month called Thursday for military protection and armed crew members to thwart attacks in dangerous waters.

Capt. Richard Phillips, skipper of the Maersk Alabama, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it was the “responsibility of the U.S. government” to protect any ship flying an American flag, through military escorts or onboard squads of highly trained security forces.

He added that an armed brigade of specially trained senior crew members also could deter pirate attacks in certain situations.

“And I don’t mean a security guard. I don’t mean a mall cop. I mean someone who’s sufficiently trained,” Phillips said

Phillips and the private shipping line’s chairman, John Clancey, differed in their prescriptions for addressing piracy in testimony Thursday. Clancey said arming and training crew officers would be prohibitively expensive and would result in a potentially deadly arms race with pirates.

But the recommendations from Phillips, widely regarded as a hero for selflessly trading his freedom in exchange for that of his 20-person crew, are likely to pressure the U.S. military to consider steps he outlined in the hearing. At the same time, military officials have said that world navies could not protect every ship, and they have recommended that vessel operators adopt more aggressive defenses.

Since the Maersk Alabama attack, the military has held several meetings with shipping companies, looking for better ways to deter pirates. Clancey said those talks were continuing.

He said Maersk Inc. had more than 500 merchant ships at sea, making the cost of training and arming crews a “very tall order,” and not one with guaranteed results.

“Our belief is that arming merchant sailors may result in the acquisition of ever more lethal weapons and tactics by the pirates, a race that merchant sailors cannot win,” Clancey said.

He also pointed out that most nations did not permit armed ships to enter ports or dock. Besides talks with military officials, Clancey said ships were being “hardened,” including the addition of electrified rails and pressure hoses.

Phillips agreed that more training in anti-piracy tactics and upgrading vessels would be an improvement, but said, “There is no way they can be foolproof.”

Phillips, 53, emphasized that the success of any method would hinge on a clear chain of command — one that ends with the captain.

“In the heat of an attack, there can only be one final decision-maker,” he said.

Phillips called piracy a “crime of opportunity,” and said pirates were shifting their tactics as quickly as shipping companies made changes to foil them.

“There’s no silver bullet here,” he said. “One solution is not going to solve this problem.”

Panel members expressed interest in the idea of arming crews.

“Historically we have deputized citizens to engage in law enforcement activities, going way back to the posses,” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the committee chairman.

Tags: Piracy, pirates, shipping, Somalia, training

Terrorists Finding Safe Havens in East Africa

Apr 29, 2009 Piracy, Somalia

My thanks to Jason at LES for bringing this story to my attention.  The piracy threat and with it the counter measures will change very quickly in HOA if/when Islamic terrorists exploit the relative easy access to commercial shipping.  Wouldn’t it be ironic if Islamic terrorists indirectly fixed the piracy problem.  A single suicide attack similar to the one launched against the USS Cole in back in 2000 would dramatically change the industries position on the use of armed guards.

Jake

________________________________________________________

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press

WASHINGTON–There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks.

The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world.

So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to three dozen.

But a similarly small cell of militant plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of militants now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned from seven years at war against the U.S. and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

“There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing,” Gen. William “Kip” Ward, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press. “When you have these vast spaces that are just not governed it provides a haven for support activities, for training to occur.”

Ward added that American officials already are seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.

Several military and counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters cautioned that the movements of the al-Qaida militants do not suggest an abandonment of the ungoverned Pakistan border region as a safe haven.

Instead, the shift is viewed by the officials more as an expansion of al-Qaida’s influence, and a campaign to gather and train more recruits in a region already rife with militants.

Last month, Osama bin Laden made it clear in a newly released audiotape that al-Qaida has set its sights on Somalia, an impoverished and largely lawless country in the Horn of Africa. In the 11-minute tape released to Internet sites, bin Laden is heard urging Somalis to overthrow their new moderate Islamist president and to support their jihadist “brothers” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iraq.

Officials said that in recent years they have seen occasional signs that sophisticated al-Qaida terror techniques are gaining ground in East Africa. Those harbingers include a coordinated series of suicide bombings in Somalia in October.

In the past, officials said, suicide attacks tended to be frowned on by African Muslims, creating something of an impediment to al-Qaida’s efforts to sell that aspect of its terrorism tactics.

But on Oct. 29, 2008, suicide bombers killed more than 20 people in five attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate, the presidential palace in Somaliland’s capital and two intelligence facilities in Puntland.

The coordinated assaults, officials said, amounted to a watershed moment, suggesting a new level of sophistication and training. The incident also marked the first time that a U.S. citizen — a young Somali man from Minneapolis — carried out a suicide bombing.

The foreign fighters moving into East Africa complicate an already-rising crescendo of terror threats in the region. Those threats have come from the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist Islamic faction and from al-Qaida in East Africa, a small, hard-core group also known by the acronym EEAQ.

While not yet considered an official al-Qaida franchise, EEAQ has connections to the top terror leaders and was implicated in the August 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 225 people. The bombings were al-Qaida’s precursors to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a plot spawned by a small cell of operatives as far back as 1992. Four men accused as al-Qaida plotters were later convicted in federal court in New York for those bombings.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and several other EEAQ members remain under indictment in the United States for their alleged participation in those bombings. Mohammed is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list with a reward of up to $5 million on his head.

Al-Qaida has the skills while al-Shabab has the manpower, said one senior military official familiar with the region. The official said EEAQ appears to be a small cell of a few dozen operatives who rarely sleep in the same place twice and are adept at setting up temporary training camps that vanish days later.

What worries U.S. military leaders, the official said, is the that EEAQ and al-Shabab may merge in training and operations, potentially spreading al-Qaida’s more extremist jihadist beliefs to thousands of clan-based Somali militants, who so far have been engaged in internal squabbling.

The scenario could become even more worrisome, the officials said, if the foreign fighters transplant their skills at bomb-making and insurgency tactics to the training camps in East Africa.

Africa experts, however, said it won’t be easy for Islamic extremists to win many converts in East Africa.

Francois Grignon, Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said in an interview that many clan members generally practice a more moderate Islam, and militants are not inclined to join a fight they do not see as their own.

The U.S., he said, needs to encourage the new government in Somalia to deal with the growing terror threats there and to marginalize the jihadists so they are not able to sustain their activities in Somalia.

Ward said U.S. Africa Command is working with a number of nations to build their ability to maintain security. But he said commanders are less able to do much in Somalia, where the new government is still fragile.

Meanwhile, he said, officials continue to watch as the ties between the terror groups grow.

“I think they’re all a threat,” said Ward. “Right now it’s clearly a threat that the Africans have, but in today’s global society that threat can be exported anywhere with relative ease.”

Tags: Afghanistan, Africa, fighting, Indictments, Iraq, Islamists, Kenya, Pakistan, Piracy, Somalia, terrorism, Terrorists, training, wanted

Italy cruise ship fires on Somali pirates

Apr 26, 2009 Piracy

Associated Press

ROME — An Italian cruise ship fended off a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, with its security forces exchanging fire with the bandits, the commander said Saturday.

Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire Saturday night, but retreated after security forces aboard the cruise ship returned fire.

Domenico Pellegrino, head of the ship-owner Msc Cruises, told ANSA news agency that all 1,500 passengers and crew aboard the Melody were safe, and credited Pinto for his “cool-headed” handling of the incident.

The attack occurred about 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the Seychelles. The ship was on a 22-day cruise from Durban, South Africa, to Genoa, Italy.

ANSA said the ship was now headed as scheduled to the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Pirates have attacked more than 100 ships off the Somali coast over the last year, reaping an estimated $1 million in ransom for each successful hijacking, according to analysts and country experts.

Another Italian-owned vessel remains in the hands of pirates. The Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer was seized off Somalia on April 11 with 16 crew members aboard.

Petraeus suggests ships have armed guards

Apr 26, 2009 Industry News, Piracy, Somalia

The News & Observer

WASHINGTON - The global shipping industry should consider placing armed guards on its boats to ward off pirates who have become increasingly violent, the U.S. military commander who oversees the African coastline said Friday.

Gen. David Petraeus told a House committee that just trying to outrun or block pirates from boarding cargo ships isn’t enough to deter sea bandits off Somalia who are becoming more aggressive.

The shipping industry has resisted arming their boats, which would deny them port in some nations.

Petraeus said defensive preparations short of armed guards “can work. You can have water hoses and others that can make it more difficult,” he said. But he added, “It’s tough to be on the end of a water hose if the other guy is on the end of an RPG [a rocket-propelled grenade launcher]. So you’ve got to think your way through that calculation as well.”

Pirates more skilled and organised

Apr 20, 2009 Piracy, Somalia

THE British naval officer commanding the fleet of European warships sent to deter Somali pirates has warned that the pirates are becoming “better-armed and more professional”.

Rear-Admiral Philip Jones, who is in charge of the six warships attached to the European Union Naval Force for Counter-Piracy, said that while the force had had some success deterring “amateur” attacks in the Gulf of Aden, recent hijackings in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia appeared to be the work of new, better-organised gangs which could range far out to sea in so-called mother ships.

“In the Gulf of Aden we saw a lot of opportunist attacks from people who are part-time fishermen,” Rear-Admiral Jones said.

“The more recent attackers seem to be more sophisticated, with access to better arms and equipment.” The foreign anti-piracy patrols were merely “scratching the surface” and the only real solution was for proper security on the lawless Somali mainland.

A spate of attacks in the past fortnight, which included the abduction of the captain of a US-flagged cargo ship, Maersk Alabama, comes after a lull of nearly three months. Rear-Admiral Jones said that was partly due to the recent monsoons.

He said the pirates were less easily deterred if a ship put up a fight and the prospect of earning millions of dollars from ransoms meant most pirates deemed the risks worth taking.

On Saturday, Dutch commandos freed 16 Yemeni fishermen taken hostage on their boat, and briefly detained nine suspected pirates who had forced their captives to use the boat as a “mother ship” during an unsuccessful attack on a Greek-owned ship, the Handytankers Magic.

A Dutch defence ministry spokesman, Robin Middel, said the commandos seized and destroyed seven AK-47 assault rifles and a rocket launcher. Mr Middel said the suspects had to be freed.

“There exists no legal framework in NATO for arrests to be carried out,” he said.

Telegraph, London; Agence France-Presse

PMCs and anti-piracy, where is the fit? Part I

Apr 16, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts, Piracy, Somalia

By Jake Allen

With so much news about piracy lately in the coming weeks I plan to take a look at 3 of the ways that private security firms can find a productive role to play in the counter-piracy effort off the coast of Somalia. The three areas I will be taking a closer look at are:

1. Security Guards Aboard/Armed with Lethal Weapons
2. Security Guards Aboard/Unarmed or using Less-than-lethal weapons
3. Security Guards Adjacent/ Escort Vessels

Security Guards Aboard/Armed with Lethal Weapons

Benefits: The primary benefit of having armed guards on board is that their visual presence alone can serve as a deterrent to an attack.  Armed vessels represent what is called a ‘hard target’.  In other words, given the choice of attacking a unarmed vessel or an armed vessel the unarmed vessel represents a ‘softer target’ comparatively speaking.  Though is not possible to calculate how many attacks were avoided due to a more defensive posture the hard/soft target is widely accepted in most all other criminal circumstances and there is no reason to believe it would not also apply on the high seas.   However, many experts counter this argument by stating that the number of attacks do not actually drop they are simply diverted to other ships which appear as easier targets.   Yet even if this is so it adds a level of complexity to the pirates planning and execution that he has thus far not needed to account for and over time this can have an effect.

In the event of an attack the armed guards’ presence at the point-of-attack offers considerable tactical advantage and is by far the most likely method for successfully deterring an attack. Especially when compared to an unarmed guard approach or a escort vessel method of security. The physical ’high ground’ afforded by ship’s decks as well as the limited cover and concealment offers significant advantages tactically during a fire fight should one occur.

4 to 6 qualified marksmen armed with weapons that are effective at point-targets out to a distance of 800 meters would be all that is required to successfully repel a coordinated pirate attack. This use of force must be only applied within the framework of Rules of Engagement which are well defined and commonly interpreted.

Challenges/Limitations: The difficulty in executing the ’armed guard’ scenario are a mix of logistics and legal. The area where armed guards may be necessary in relation to the overall distance travelled on most journeys is relatively short. The typical westbound journey which originates Asia bound for a European port could take between 3 and 4 weeks. During that time armed guards may only be necessary for less than 5 days. In the case of the Horn of Africa region the shipping carrier has no need for armed guards prior to reaching the western Indian Ocean and would no longer need the guards once it entered the Red Sea and would most certainly no longer need them as it approached Suez. This leaves the carrier rightfully unwilling to pay for the guards when they are not necessary.

From the security company’s perspective getting their guards onboard when needed and off when not presents a real logistical challenge requiring a footprint somewhere along the northern shore between Oman and Saudi Arabia or on the southern shore between Somalia and the Sudan. A simple map reconnaissance and knowledge of the region can quickly rule out several otherwise ideal geographical locations as being too politically unstable to operate from. The introduction of weapons to the equation adds a level of complexity relative to compliance with laws, regulations, permits, etc, goes up. Notably the pirates are not encumbered by these regulations.

Legally speaking carrying arms aboard a commercial ship can be problematic, especially if the ship wishes to or needs to enter a port with arms onboard. While there is more latitude afforded while steaming in international waters in the case of the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea the proximity to the national waters of Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti, Oman, Eritrea, Sudan and Saudi Arabia add a layer of legal complexity that is difficult for law abiding security companies to overcome.

Perhaps the largest legal challenge to this potential solution are the Rules of Engagement necessary to successfully and defend the ship while protecting unnecessary loss of life. As always it is a challenge to develop and define ROEs that can be commonly interpreted and applied. At the end of the day the final decision to use force is a personal one made a the time by the man on the ground. Some cases are kill or be killed while others leave more room for interpretation and debate. All the more reason why the industry needs a form of certification where by both the company as well as the individual security guards can be vetted, trained and supervised in a way that protects all stakeholders’ perspectives. What the industry cannot afford is a migration of many of the unregulated firms operating in other theatres to quickly find themselves involved in the anti-piracy campaign using the same contractors directly out of Iraq or Afghanistan without undergoing the appropriate training and rehearsals.

Liabilities: The liabilities here are potentially many but they mostly all centre around the assumption that the introduction of armed guard will automatically result an increase in casualties and damage to property. As such the resistance to the armed guards concept is mostly championed by the insurance companies and to a lesser degree the ship owners and financiers. Insurance actuaries crave stability and predictability in order to construct the price of the premiums in relation to the potential payouts. In 2008 ransoms were paid out for 40 ships at an estimated $80 million dollars. While this may seem like a large number, in relation to the premium revenues taken in by the underwriters it remains an operating cost they are comfortable with. In light of the fact that even a single vessel sunk by pirates would trigger the insurance company to incur costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Summary: Both the root cause of the piracy problem as well as any eventual solution have their roots in economics. The pirates are active because of the financial benefits relative to the downside for failure. The insurance companies view a few million dollars in ransom payments worth the expense when compared to the catastrophic loss of a ship. The carriers, for their part, remain open to the idea of armed guards but have seen their profits thinned recently due to the slackening demand in the shipping market so they often hesitate to further erode profits by paying private security guards out of what would otherwise be operating profit. Finally the logistical challenges and the web of legal risks involved in conducting security operations in the region mean that the rates for security services are often more than many carriers are able or willing to pay.

Podcast: Boots on the Ground

Apr 14, 2009 Piracy, Podcasts, Somalia

Christian Lowe, the Managing Editor of DefenseTech.org and Military.com asked me to join him as a guest on his weekly podcast titled Boots on the Ground.  The topic this week was piracy.  Joe Buff, noted naval expert and maritime author was also on the show.

Hope you enjoy it.  Let me know either way.

Jake

A more reasoned approach to Somali pirates

Apr 14, 2009 Jake's Posts, Piracy, Somalia

By Jake Allen

Although there were many who agreed with yesterday’s rant about the  piracy problem off the coast of Somalia I did take some heat from a few readers. Perhaps some of that heat was justified and in rereading the post it does read as more angry than I certainly am.

The truth is I have long been level-headed realist when it comes to dealing with this piracy problem. Note I said, ‘dealing’ with the problem and not ‘solving’ the problem. The solution, of course, will come some day when Somalia is able to establish a functional government which can provide services for its people and stand up a working coast guard to both defend its territorial waters as well as enforce laws prohibiting piracy. But as that day is not likely to arrive soon let’s put aside solutions and discuss counter measures which can deal with the realities in the interim.

The death of these teenage pirates is indeed tragic but we must remember that 19 year-old men are responsible for their actions.  They  chose at multiple junctions not to release the hostage.  In fact it has been reported that they were surprised to learn that the ship was crewed by Americans.  The decision not to retreat at that early stage turned out to be a poor one.  But in the subsequent days they were offered many other chances to lay down their arms and release the hostage.  Perhaps, as I will touch on below their death may serve to bring into balance the calculations taken by other pirates as to whether or not piracy is worth the effort.

While we celebrate the hostages successful release let us also not forget that what is required to prevent future events of this type is a total approach to the problem. Killing  pirates or those suspected of piracy on-site is no more a winning strategy by itself  than relying solely on water cannons or other non-lethal approaches.  Furthermore navy patrols alone are not the answer. Nor is arresting and prosecuting every armed “fisherman” found off the Somali coast.  The complexity of the challenge requires us to adopt a coordinated and comprehensive strategy.

Before we look at that strategy let’s  just revisit the business case from the pirates perspective so that we can understand and ultimately change his calculations. There are basically only 4 outcomes which pirates are able to achieve.

1.  Success: Ransom paid out

2.  Failure: Return to shore empty handed

3.  Failure: Arrested and tried in a court-of-law for piracy

4.  Failure: Lost or killed at sea

With that said.  Let’s look at what each stakeholder here can do to contribute to an increase in outcomes 2, 3 and 4.

Ransoms: Part of the problem here and the driving force behind the piracy market is the fact that shipping companies willingly and often too quickly payout multimillion dollar ransoms. Certainly if you were a hostage this is precisely what you would want to occur but the problem with this is that it only encourages more attacks as more and more pirates enter the ‘lottery’ in an effort to get some easy money. Were carriers and insurance companies to stop paying ransoms this market would disappear over night. Desperate people might resort to other types of crime but piracy-for-ransom would effectively end. Ransoms may be warranted but they need to be drastically curtailed and reduced in size through tough and often long-drawn out negotiations. Ransoms are money in the hand of pirates, but it needs to be hard- money and not easy-money.

Naval escorts: The navies of the world do need to maintain an active presence in the region but let us be realistic about what effect they can have.  Yesterday’s successful recover of Captain Phillips notwithstanding we can already see a game of whack-a-mole developing where pirates simply have moved out of the Gulf of Aden and are now more active in the western Indian Ocean. The navies are a critical element to the equation but they alone are not capable of dealing with this problem. At best they will serve as a deterrent when they are in a particular geographical area but only a 911 emergency responder to areas where they are not. Already with the rescue of Captain Phillips the U.S. Navy has set a precedent for getting involved post incident. Will that continue? What if the next Captain is not an American? How will these decisions be made? What kind of signal will that send not only to the pirates but to our allies?

Armed guards aboard: As indicated the Obama administration is presently making the new realities clear to the shipping providers. It will be made to them in no uncertain terms that they are going to have to shoulder more ownership for the security of the ship, cargo and crew. It is understandable, based on some of the cowboy firms we have seen performing armed security in Iraq and Afghanistan, that many are hesitant to introduce more guns to this theatre. But there are a number of practical realities of the maritime environment which make it ideally suited to the use of PMCs. For one the list of potential clients is knowable and likely 80% of shipping traffic in this area is conducted by 20% of the companies. Governments could step in here and provide a list of ‘authorized suppliers’ of security services and forbid carriers from using security companies who are not on the approved list. This of course opens the whole discussion around the definition of ‘qualified’ but in all honesty this is a discussion that has been necessary for a long, long time. The bottom line is that a viable deterrent must be co-located at the point of the attack.

Prosecution: The U.S. entered into an agreement with Kenya earlier this year whereby pirates caught in international or Somali waters could be transported to Mombasa for trial. To date this mechanism has not proven effective. Mostly due to evidential complications of documenting and proving acts of piracy. While these challenges will not disappear this legal framework needs more throughput. We cannot stop simply because it’s too hard. We need to understand clearly what evidence will be required at trial for a successful prosecution and ensure that the navies and law enforcement are able to document that evidence and protect the chain-of-custody in such a way that trials are both fair but also effective.

We can control the proportions...

One way to think of this problem is in the shape of a pie where we have control over the proportionality of the 4 pieces or outcomes.   To date the Trial/Prosecution portion is far too small while conversely the Ransom Payout piece is far too large. While Killed/lost at sea may preferably always be low in percentage terms it must be a real enough possibility to factor into the pirates business case.

The bottom line is this is business for pirates and to counter this we need to make the business model less appealing if not very difficult as compared to other choices one makes about how to spend their time.  That can only be done through a coordinated effort of both commercial, private and state security mechanisms each working in concert to mutually support eachother.

3 outta 4 ain’t bad

Apr 13, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts, Piracy, Somalia

By Jake Allen

Navy SEALS shot and killed 3 of the 4 pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage.  Other pirates active in the region were quoted as saying, “The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now.” Let’s hope they don’t follow through this threat but it is probably the only thing that would force the civilized world to locate enough of their collective spine to deal with this issue.

The taking of the Maersk-Alabama may turn out to have been a strategic mistake for the pirates in the region. At least in the short run it seems to have brought unprecedented focus onto the piracy problem and could very well have been the final straw. I, like everyone, am so pleased that Mr. Phillips is alive and well. The courage and leadership he displayed in offering himself in exchange for the release of the crew is the stuff of legends and he is to be commended for multiple acts of heroism throughout this drama. It’s hard to imagine a better outcome from an event that seemed so fraught with opportunities for disaster. The sole hostage now safely aboard a U.S. Navy ship, his crew and ship safely moored in a Kenyan port, 3 pirates dead and another in custody is what we call in the trade, ‘a good day out.’

And let’s not miss the chance to acknowledge the work done here by the U.S. Navy. They showed that when on-scene they have the resources and training to accomplish a very difficult mission. Their insurmountable challenge is to be everywhere they are needed all the time and that, of course, is simply not possible.

But while we revel in our good fortune of getting the Captain back alive let us not take our eye off the ball and miss the larger point here. These pirates attacked the Maersk-Alabama with the full knowledge that it was flagged in the U.S. and likely would contain multiple American crew members. The pirates also knew that a ship carrying the name Maersk, the largest shipping carrier on the planet, would certainly be backed by a big insurance policy whose underwriter would, in time, make a large ransom payment.

Despite the dismal outcome for this group of pirates I suspect that had the pirate quoted above held his tongue on that last sentence he likely would continue to enjoy a lot of sympathy from a range of observers. It seems these days the pirates have more support from governments, ship owners, carriers, the military, insurance companies and most everyone else. Ah, the poor Somali pirate; he grew up in a war-torn country, all he ever wanted to be was a peaceful fisherman and spend his time ashore helping old ladies across the busy streets of Mogadishu.

Here is a trivia question for you:  What is the one thing most Somali’s would want more than anything? You guessed it, to leave Somalia. And what is one way many Somalis are leaving the country every day?  Yep, on boats. So, it is pirates who get that chance to flea every single day. They could take their boats, load them with their families and go to any of a dozen neighboring countries just as many peaceful minded Somali refugees do every day. Just ask the Yemeni authorities how many Somali refugees are turning up on their shores every week. No these pirates are criminals by choice. For all the media condemnation against PMCs and the endless accusations of ‘wide spread’ human rights violations by ‘mercenaries’ where is the outrage against criminal pirates who openly admit that money is their sole motivation?

Ah but these guys are only after the ransom. They don’t intend to harm anyone. This is precisely the kind of argument you will repeatedly hear from our so-called leaders in the U.S. and E.U. capitols. Of course they have never and will never have a loaded gun pointed at them. Certainly not one which is being held by an untrained, uneducated and likely drug induced criminal thug whose only concern is ‘the money’. No these brave and noble leaders will never be forced to live in the hot and stinking hold of a ship like animals for months on end. They will not be the ones forced to live in close proximity to theirs and their fellow captives’ excrement, vomit and urine. They won’t be forced to subsist on the meager scraps of food left by their captors. But hey, that’s no problem, don’t worry, at the end of several months the ransom will eventually be negotiated down to ‘a fair price’ for your life and lives of your fellow crew members and you’ll be free to go! Never mind the 20 kilos you lost in body weight and the immeasurable psychological damage done to you, to say nothing of the fear and anxiety your family was forced to live through during your captivity.  Nah mate, all they wanted was the money and that’s all been paid up so the problem is sorted. Carry on sailor…

There is of course some basic truth to the adage that money is the root of all evil. Well if not the money itself certainly the greedy pursuit of it. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with pursuing and even amassing a fortune provided one follows the rules established by the laws of man along the way. However, when laws are broken, whether in the Gulf of Aden by pirates, by executives on Wall Street or bank robbers on Main Street a civilized society must enforce consequences that discourage future breaches of the law.

I really like this issue of piracy from a PMC perspective because it is a crystal clear example of the total failure of leadership, diplomacy and partnership by state actors primarily the United States but also the rest of the key players in the UN Security Council. The ‘country’ of Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991 and the world has done very little in the way of dealing with this problem in any effective way. What’s more there is no real action being taken as we speak so there can be little hopes for improvement in the foreseeable future. In short, the world has moved on from Somalia and were it not for these pesky and annoying pirates no one in Washington, London, Brussels or New York would give a wit about it.

And if there is no attempt being made to deal with the root cause of the problem (Somalia as a failed state) the medicine being prescribed, namely military warships, is showing itself to be impotent in the extreme at preventing attacks. By their own admission the efforts placed in the Gulf of Aden have resulted in an increase in attacks off the eastern Somali coast.

There is only one solution to cure this disease and that is to fix Somalia.  But that seems to be far too difficult for anyone to contemplate.  So, if you cannot or will not deal with the cause of the disease you are left only to treat the symptoms.  And the solution to this is so blatantly obvious that it defies basic common sense to avoid the discussion.  Everyone in the world knows the right medicine for this disease.  The problem is not the medicine it is the commitment and fortitude necessary to prescribe it.  And if ever two paths are rare to cross it will be the path of politicians and the paths of commitment and fortitude.

Three-outta-four ain’t bad. If the next couple of gangs of pirates finds 75% of their lot killed and the remaining 25% in custody I am betting their calculations will change a bit.  However, if we continue to feel sorry for these guys and wring our hands and naval gaze and mumble about how there is really very little that can be done we will only be reinforcing the pirates’ business model and we cannot honestly be surprised when we find more of the same.