“There really isn’t a silver-bullet solution other than going into Somalia and rooting out the bases” of the pirates, said James Carafano, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based group.
I’m good with that.
In 1992, under then-President George H.W. Bush, U.S. forces that landed in Somalia to confront widespread starvation found themselves in the middle of a civil war. Forty-two Americans died before former President Bill Clinton pulled out the troops in 1994.
Yeah, and I’ll bet that Obama is thrilled with BJ and the giggling cockatrice who is his SecState for kicking that can down the road to him.
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Oh, bullshit. Let’s suppose the would-be targets started shooting back at pirates and there were only a 50% chance of any given pirate returning when he sets out. Does anyone seriously posit that there wouldn’t be a drastic change in career choices?
Bill, thanks.
Until you wrote that, I really didn’t know what she was laughing about. I thought she was just one of those people who laugh inappropriately when they’re nervous, but I think I like your explanation better.
I think the bases have to be taken out. Pirating has become the basis of an extensive economy here. If the ships buy arms, the pirates will buy bigger arms. Rich rewards pay for the risk. That’s the way it has worked historically anyway.
Sorry, Tom, but it doesn’t work that way on the sea. If pirates had to switch to “bigger arms”, they’ll need bigger (i.e. more expensive and more visible) ships to carry them. Half a dozen 20mm Bofors guns mounted on a cargo ship would make it almost impervious to about 90% of all piracy, whereas most of the ramshackle pirate vessels couldn’t carry one Bofors without turning turtle and sinking.
Ditto for missiles, by the way. Longer-range missiles require a lot more infrastructure than a handheld RPG or Stinger.
WWI U-boat captains have gone on record as saying that their biggest fear was not Allied warships, but armed merchantmen (hence the success of the “Q-ships”).
Readers of my former blog will recall that I’ve always supported the “Q-ship” approach to fighting piracy*. Conceal a bunch of cannon/heavy machine guns on a cargo ship, make sure the sentry duties are properly performed, and I’ll bet that three quarters of all piracy attacks would fail.
*Actually, what I really wanted was to have privateer vessels funded by insurance companies, with volunteer crews, to end this little problem: but I’m also a realist, and I know that the modern mindset prefers the concept of sniveling unarmed victims to robust self-defense.
Well, I’d have agreed with you 100% not long ago, but I think now that they would not be that easy to beat, having read a little of the history. Certainly the ships passing through should be arming themselves and making it harder for the pirates.
If history is any guide, the pirates will upgrade their boats from “ramshackle” to something considerably more capable as a platform for more powerful weapons. They can do this extremely cheaply by keeping some of the vessels they capture. By sinking a ship or two, they can change the need to board before getting a surrender to holding up private vessels from a distance.
They are tapping into an extremely rich flow of resources, which, if they are smart, they can use to upgrade very quickly.
This has happened several times before. In the Caribbean, the pirates were able to capture ships, arm them, and face the local British Navy on equal terms. For all the hang em on the yardarm talk, and Blackbeard notwithstanding, the Caribbean pirates were not succesfully dealt with by battles at sea. They were defeated by threats of force combined with offers of pardons and status conferred for quitting. The Barbary pirates were not defeated at sea either. Algiers was bombarded and threatened many times, including by Decatur, but the piracy never totally ended until the Barbary coast was colonized by European powers. Decatur ended demands for US tribute in 1815, but there was little business capturing American ships at the time to provide incentive to take the risk. Treaties with European nations, founded on destructive naval bombardments of Algiers and Tunis, were abrogated often, the richness of the prey being sufficient incentive to risk more naval attacks.
It didn’t end until the bases came under European control
Regarding piracy as warlike activity, pirates are somewhat analogous to guerillas supported by some territorial power outside their area of operation. In this case, the area of operation is shipping lanes at sea, and the outside area is the land bases supported by the surrounding region, which profits immensely from successful pirate operations. Just as is the case with guerillas operating from support bases across bordrs, the pirates will be a menace until the coastal bases which support them are cleaned out and destroyed or captured.
None of this means that I don’t think they should be engaged at sea by every means possible. I’m not sure,though, how much support the insurance companies would invest in fighting the piracy. Strictly from a loss/benefit calculation, they may decide that paying tribute is cheaper.
Interesting possibilities that can be considered, here…
Historically, piracy has been fairly successful so long as it has remained (wherever/whenever found) relatively low-level. The point has been made elsewhere that, in comparison to the value of the cargoes and ships involved, for instance, off the coast of Somalia, the total amount of ransom the pirates have been collecting (though in the two- to three-digit millions range) has been small, and the number of attacks/raids has been fairly small (compared with the number of ships passing through the area) as well.
However, in recent months, there has been quite a bit of escalation - More pirates, more attacks/raids, more/bigger ransoms demanded, and bigger targets being attacked/taken hostage. In addition, insurance premiums have been skyrocketing AND costs due to the use of alternate routings have gone up considerably.
Looking at history again - the Barbary Coast pirates of old times were pretty successful for quite awhile, as were the Caribbean-area pirates. However, over time, some of the same escalation took place among both groups. What then took place is probably pretty analogous to what will -sooner or later - happen off the Somali coast. When it became substantial enough of a problem, the navies of the nations involved - the U.S. in the case of the Barbary Coast, the French and British and Spanish in the case of the Caribbean - moved against the piracy involved militarily, and ended the problems, pretty much.
In the case of the Barbary piracy (anybody want to take a guess at the religion involved there?), BTW, the U.S. actually budgeted and paid annual amounts for a number of years, as ransom/”tribute”/baksheesh to insure free passage and/or return of hostages, until the U.S. Navy became strong enough (and the payments became onerous enough) to make military action feasible.
The likely course of events, then, is that there will be a fairly extended period of somewhat-mixed success by the Somalia-based pirates, during which their numbers - and the costs generated by their activities, both direct and indirect - continue to rise. They will attack/capture ever bigger and more (potentially) lucrative targets, and will likely begin to use some of the captured ships as larger and better-armed attack vessels. Bureaucracy and “negotiation” will reign for some time, with occasional “successes” on each side involved. As the costs to shippers and their customers mount hugely, the pressures to actually deal with “root causes” will also begin to weigh more and more heavily. Then, eventually, some event or series of events will trigger a fairly heavy military response, probably by the U.S. Navy and/or Marines, mostly (if not completely) ending the problems in those waters.
Of course, as others (such as Kim) have pointed out, the whole course of the thing could be considerably shortened by such tactics as simply:
a) Arming all ships passing through the targeted waters, and making certain there are personnel aboard able and willing to use the arms for defense.
b) Refusing to insure ships in said waters that do not go armed, and pressuring the insurors to reduce rates for those ships that do arm responsibly.
c) Ignoring the silly-assed business about “this is a law-enforcement problem”, and issuing U.S. Naval rules of engagement that emphasize killing any and all pirates, whenever and wherever found in the waters involved, who do not surrender and/or disarm immmediately when confronted.
But there I go, talking logic and intelligent behavior - not to fear, the bureaucrats will now take over…
Things will, therefore, likely get far worse before they can possibly get any better…
There’s an interesting article on the Caribbean pirates and what it took to defeat them in the Spring, 2009 issue of MHQ.
Morning all.
I am sure many others know more about this issue than I do, and if I am incorrect, please enlighten me.
It is my understanding that the basic problem is that the boats used by the pirates are so small that they cannot be detected by the radars now in use on the merchant ships. i understand that other radars, that will detect these small boats exist, but they are generally not used on these merchant ships. Also, the boats are so small, and the merchant ships so large, that lookouts cannot normally see the pirates. The pirates come in close and use grappling hooks to climb up the vessels sides. They are not seen until they are on board and attacking the crew.
Comments?
DCP.
Comments:
I would strongly suspect that you have part of the problem correct, in some cases. My understanding of the radar used by most oceangoing ships* is that it may have limited ability to detect small, fast-moving wooden or fiberglass boats, such as the pirates have mostly used in the past, and some of them are probably still using these type of boats in their initial approach to a vessel they have targeted.
However, based upon some of the accounts I’ve seen lately, I think the ships have been keeping a fairly good lookout for these pirate boats, and, since the attacks appear to be happening in daylight hours, I suspect they mostly are able to see the boats coming after them.
The problem with trying to avoid these attacks would seem to be twofold:
1) The ships are generally slower - even at top speed - than the pirates’ small attack boats, and the ships are both limited in their ability to take evasive action (big ships take awhile to turn, and they have to avoid getting too close to any other ships or into shallower water or near any underwater obstructions) and likely to be traveling at a relatively-slow rate to keep fuel consumption at an economical level.
2) If the pirates successfully get close enough to the targeted ship, even before they hook onto the ship and try to board it, they don’t seem to be shy about firing at the ship’s crew to try to get them to slow down and/or to keep the crew from trying to keep the pirates from boarding the ship. After all, these ships are not allowed to be armed, supposedly, so that few (if any) of them have anything available (aside from, possibly, fire hoses and loud air horns) to try to “repel boarders” with.
In sum: Most of the targeted ships likely see the attacking pirates coming - whether on radar or (more likely) visually - but they are often unsuccessful in getting away, and mostly can’t do much to keep the pirates off of the ships. The crews who have been able to avoid capture have mostly been lucky.
Maybe more ships will somehow start carrying better means of defense - whether the maritime authorities like it or not…
* This is based upon a bit of online reading on shipboard radar, and a conversation some years ago with a friend in Michigan who, until a few years ago, worked at times as a crew member on Great Lakes cargo ships.
Wimp Clinton sent our troops to Somalia to make sandwiches for the starving masses. USA reward? Our guys Shot, killed, hung off bridge trusses, burned, and dragged naked down the dirt streets.Insurance companies are worried about liability for killing pirates? Screw the insurance companies. Their infinite wisdom got bailouts of US Taxpayer cash. Stick some of those greasey headed fat heads on the prow of a ship and when the pirates arrive they can wave their precious policy at them.
Beter idea: kill the pirate bastards on sight and by all means keep them out of the USA. The last thing the USA needs is some pirate asshole fed, clothed and defended at our expense. Oh, and probably the first time that –misguided “youth”–had a medical and dental exam. Who pays for that? The punk should have been dead at the scene. So Somalia starves, again. The pirates make millions off ransom. Any investment in clean water, sewers, schools? Nope. Somalia starves. Been there, done that. Screw them. All they do is eat on someone’s dime, defecate, and reproduce. And execute the most revolting dispicable atrocities since the Mayans.