A couple of posts ago, I asked why the navies of the world aren’t trying harder to stop the Somali pirates. Yesterday, I had dinner with a friend of mine who follows world events more than I do (and who I’m trying to talk into co-blogging) and he had an answer that explains a lot.
First of all, with all the shipping in the area, it’s very difficult to spot the pirates in action until the moment they start their attack. Even if a warship spots a likely pirate ship, they can’t legally take action until they witness an act of piracy.
Second, the pirates treat the crews of the captured ships very well, at least by pirate standards. My friend hadn’t heard of any captured crewmembers being killed. The pirates clearly regard ransoming the crews as an important source of income.
Thus, once a ship is captured at sea, any attempt to take it back places the hostages at higher risk than simply ransoming them later. It’s all about the money, and since only a small fraction of the enormous shipping volume is actually pirated, it’s not even a lot of money.
(That’s also why merchants don’t arm the ships, I think. The security teams would add to the cost of every single ship that sails, but only benefit the handful that are attacked by pirates.)
Third, the pirates are operating out of an unstable region of Somalia, and they effectively control that region. The embattled Somali government might just collapse under the additional internal conflict that would result if they allowed foreign-flagged ships to come in and raid the pirate port. And the current Somali government is better than anything that might replace it—at least in the opinions of nations operating navies in the region.
Finally, a lot of 5th Fleet’s surveillance assets are tied up supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What it comes down to is that the pirates just haven’t caused enough trouble yet to be worth the effort to shut them down.
Except maybe for India. Their navy seems to be taking a more aggressive approach.
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