Getting to Know your Pirate Menace
Note: Do you ever stumble upon your very own White Whale? Which is to say, something you just can't give up until you've killed it dead, even if it consumes you in the process? I've had two of them this week, both of which started out as blog posts, and one of which is now an article. What I thought I could finish up by early evening ended up taking me about five and a half hours to finish last night, so it's Friday's post, and I ought to be back to regular blogging on Monday. I hope everyone has an excellent weekend, and if you're bored at home then swing by, because I may post another couple of items. For now, though, I've submitted this to my parallel writing endeavour, and I'm going to get rolling.
A mere handful of journalists and analysts have been paying attention to the rising tide of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea over the last five years. Over the last several months, Somali pirates have not only increased the frequency of their attacks, but their attacks have increased in boldness. In addition to capturing cargo ships, yachts, and even attempting to capture a cruise ship in 2005, the pirates' most noteworthy prizes in recent months have included:
a Ukrainian ship, captured in September, that carried more than thirty T-72 tanks, other miscellaneous arms, and a "substantial quantity of ammunition" (BBC, Wired)
a Saudi supertanker, captured earlier this week nearly five hundred miles of the Kenyan port of Mombasa, carrying more than $100 million worth of petroleum (Guardian, Times)
Attacks such as these had, until recently, gone virtually uncontested. However, with the capture of the Ukrainian ship, the international community finally seems to have had enough. In recent months, a number have nations have started to fight back.
In April, French commandos raided a pirate group after they released thirty hostages from a hijacked luxury yacht.
In September, French commandos killed one pirate and captured six while rescuing a French couple who had been captured by pirates while sailing in the Gulf of Aden.
Later in September, a security team about USNS John Lenthall, a US Navy oiler, fired warning shots to stop a pirate raid.
In November, Royal Marines aboard HMS Cumberland shot and killed two pirates who were trying to seize a Danish ship. (BBC, Guardian)
Earlier this week, the Indian warship INS Tabar destroyed a pirate "mother ship" between Somalia and Oman. (CNN, BBC, Times)
An excessively stretched US Navy task force has stood a lonely watch over the last two years in an attempt to stem the tide of piracy. Unfortunately, lucrative ransoms paid to pirates in exchange for the release of people, ships, and expensive cargo loads have encouraged pirates more than the threat of apprehension has deterred them. Several nations have stepped up to provide forces for the growing de facto international flotilla.
Following the capture of two Malaysian tankers in August, the Malaysian navy has sent three warships loaded with troops and helicopters.
Following the capture of the T-72 tanks, the European Union pledged to form an anti-piracy task force.
Royal Navy ships involved in the task force have been given additional authority and allowances by the British government.
India, a country heavily impacted by piracy, has sent its own contingent to protect Indian and foreign shipping in the region.
Perhaps the most surprising addition to the flotilla has been the Russian contingent, which has fought the pirates in alongside the other contributing nations in several operations. One can only imagine the tension between the Russians and the Europeans and Americans, given both Russian aggression against Georgia in recent months, and the intensely public disintegration of the Russian navy in recent years. International naval forces aren't the only organizations pitching in: even private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide are prepared to join the fight. (AP, Wired) Blackwater purchased and refurbished the MacArthur, turning it into a sort of floating security base over the course of the last year. Beyond the actual suggestion that security contractors might be called upon to engage the pirates, Blackwater Maritime Solutions and other companies of its type could fill a lucrative need for escort through the Gulf of Aden.
So, who is actually trained to fight engagements such as these? Noteworthy maritime special forces include the US Navy SEALs, the British Special Boat Service, the German Kampfschwimmer unit and GSG 9, and the Russian Naval Spetsnaz. Unfortunately, the SEALs, SBS, and sibling units are already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the German and Russian units are not sufficiently resourced to carry out any more than a few pinprick attacks. Even so, a Ukrainian sailor who was captured on the ship carrying the tanks reportedly all but begged for the SEALs to come save him and his fellow hostages.
Piracy largely subsided under the Islamic Courts Union, a radical Islamist organization that took control of much of Somalia in 2006. However, due to their alleged ties to terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda, and their increasingly aggressive posturing against largely Christian Ethiopia (its neighbor to the east), Ethiopian troops swiftly invaded Somalia in late 2006. The limited stability offered by the ICU evaporated quickly once it was deposed, and Somalia has deteriorated accordingly. Recent Somali history consists of stonings and cross-border car bomb and suicide attacks in the semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland, and events such as these are scarcely different than the chaos in Somalia from the early 1990's on. After the ultimate failure of UN-mandated humanitarian and peacekeeping operations to change the course of Somali history, the international community has been unwilling to violate Somali sovereignty, or risk the lives of peacekeeping forces, to end Somalia's tenure as a failed state.
Although some would blame Ethiopia (and, by extension, its Western backers) for the recent rise in piracy, recent Somali history would seem to suggest otherwise. Aside from ignoring the cooperation of pirates with Islamist rebels, those who would blame Ethiopia or the West for the chaos and resulting piracy would do well to remember the Taliban, an organization whose origins were chillingly similar to those of the Islamic Courts Union. Instead of ushering in an age of stability and rebuilding an embattled Afghanistan, the Taliban's initial success at crushing corruption, chaos, and injustice after the Afghan Civil War quickly gave way to their own style of corruption, coupled with state sponsorship and hospitality for international terrorism, destruction of priceless antiquities, indiscriminate vigilantism against their own citizens on nonsensical charges, and mismanagement leading to an epic humanitarian crisis. Had the Islamic Courts Union continued to consolidate its power, they would have likely resorted to piracy anyway, in much the same way that the Taliban resorted to opium cultivation. Even without the degree of success and control that the Taliban once enjoyed in Afghanistan, Western analysts have already identified Somalia and Sudan as a sort of "new Afghanistan" - and a preferred safe haven of an al Qaeda on the run. (BBC, Times) Simply ignoring the ICU would have exacerbated this development, vice preventing it.
The solution of a stable, comprehensive, effective, internationally recognized central Somali government is obviously a pipe dream at present. In the mean time, the only present solution is a continuous threat of force against the pirates, with an inevitable employment of that force in the event that the pirates attempt to hijack more ships. Michael White, writing for the Guardian, points out that it has become obvious that the pirates have pushed their luck too far (although the author's flimsy comparison of Francis Drake to Osama bin Laden holds little water). Even so, it took the diversion of shipping around the Cape of Good Hope and the threat of a de facto closure of the Suez Canal for the nations of the world to decide that it was time to act.
Students of history will remember that piracy always thrives in times or regions in which a strong naval power is absent. With a great deal of Western naval supremacy sitting in and around the Persian Gulf, or off the coast of Pakistan in support of operations in Afghanistan, what is the state of the rest of the world's navies? The Royal Australian Navy made news this week by announcing that it would be taking what amounts to a two month holiday for Christmas in a bid to bring in more recruits. (BBC, Guardian) According to the AFP, the Japanese Self Defence Forces are also experiencing recruiting shortfalls. Even the world's merchant fleets are finding it difficult to recruit qualified sailors. These recruiting shortfalls are coupled with limited supplies of sufficiently outfitted warships in the inventories of many countries, most of whom rely on the United States to provide maritime and naval security throughout the oceans of the world.
Beyond the failure of the Somali state, and the decline of international maritime power, could foreign influence be playing a part in the pirate scourge? One country has an unrivalled history of supporting terrorism in as many forms as possible: Iran. Although analysts and journalists must be careful not to find patterns where there are none, Iran would have a great deal to gain from a surge of international piracy, and Somali pirates would be the ideal choice for an increasingly isolated Iranian regime. Even the prime minister of Somalia's transitional government has suggested the possibility of Iranian support for the country's Islamic militants.
As motorists have breathed a sigh of relief over the collapse of the oil bubble, and the corresponding collapse of fuel prices, states whose entire economy is based upon oil are in economic free fall, with the two most prominent examples being Iran and Russia. While Russia has both an arms trade and natural gas sales to fall back on, Iran's entire economy relies upon selling the crude oil that its decrepit and mismanaged infrastructure extracts from beneath the desert. Iran even called an emergency OPEC meeting several weeks ago in an attempt to cut production and "stabilize" the price of a barrel of oil at $80.00 per barrel. Iran would have a vested interest in facilitating any event that might push oil prices higher. With its extensive network of terrorist contacts, Iran might also have the means to attempt such a feat by covertly altering global shipping conditions through one of the world's most strategic sea lanes. A review of the increasing frequency and bravado of pirate attacks shows an inverse trend to the collapse of global oil prices. As the Iranian regime's financial straits become more and more dire, could they be trying to facilitate a rebound for oil prices? Far-fetched, yes, but theoretically possible? Perhaps.
And what of the significance of a Saudi supertanker being hijacked, rather than one from another Gulf state? The Iranian government has recently shored up their military forces on the Persian Gulf island of Abu Musa, an small rock near the Strait of Hormuz whose ownership is disputed between Iran and the UAE. The mini-cold war that the Saudis and the Iranian regime are currently waging against one another throughout the Middle East for the purpose of challenging one another for regional superpower status is well known. Could Iran have been "spotting" for the Somalis, either from their own coast or from Abu Musa, for the purpose of hitting Saudi oil income while trying to push prices for their own oil higher? Such a plan is, of course, unlikely; but is it theoretically possible? Furthermore, hasn't the Iranian regime proven its willingness to stop at nothing in an attempt to improve its position?
Further, the surge of Somali piracy has led countries from around the world to divert already stretched naval assets to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea to address the piracy problem. One of the most likely opening moves of any international attempt to isolate a newly nuclear-armed Iran would be a naval blockade. With international naval forces tied up in the Gulf of Aden, attempting to stave off piracy along the Somali coast, a coalition naval blockade against Iran would be even more difficult to accomplish.
There is also the question of whether or not Iran has provided supplies to Islamist militants, pirates, or both. As mentioned previously, the Somali PM has already accused Iran of supplying the militants with weapons. In addition, a cargo ship seized by pirates in September reportedly made the pirates sick, prompting some to wonder if the ship contained biological or chemical weapons that might have been destined for Somalia in the first place. (The Times of South Africa, Fox) On the other hand, a Iranian ship that the pirates intercepted several days ago contained nearly forty tons of wheat - an unlikely offering, both in substance and amount, from a sponsor to a beneficiary. Again, no conclusive evidence, and extremely limited circumstantial evidence, but enough indicators to make one wonder.
Whether Iran is covertly pulling strings in Somalia or not, the Iranian regime has a great deal to gain from a surge in Somali piracy, the economic fallout of such a surge, and the inevitable distraction of international maritime security forces dispatched to address it. Meanwhile, even if an international naval flotilla is successful in isolating the pirates, and companies like Blackwater Maritime Solutions provide effective security escort services for commercial ships running through the Suez Canal corridor, the humanitarian and security crisis in Somali seems set to continue into the foreseeable future. Without a clear, comprehensive, and proactive solution to this root cause, Somalia is poised to remain a multi-faceted problem that the world must continually react to.
A mere handful of journalists and analysts have been paying attention to the rising tide of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea over the last five years. Over the last several months, Somali pirates have not only increased the frequency of their attacks, but their attacks have increased in boldness. In addition to capturing cargo ships, yachts, and even attempting to capture a cruise ship in 2005, the pirates' most noteworthy prizes in recent months have included:
Attacks such as these had, until recently, gone virtually uncontested. However, with the capture of the Ukrainian ship, the international community finally seems to have had enough. In recent months, a number have nations have started to fight back.
An excessively stretched US Navy task force has stood a lonely watch over the last two years in an attempt to stem the tide of piracy. Unfortunately, lucrative ransoms paid to pirates in exchange for the release of people, ships, and expensive cargo loads have encouraged pirates more than the threat of apprehension has deterred them. Several nations have stepped up to provide forces for the growing de facto international flotilla.
Perhaps the most surprising addition to the flotilla has been the Russian contingent, which has fought the pirates in alongside the other contributing nations in several operations. One can only imagine the tension between the Russians and the Europeans and Americans, given both Russian aggression against Georgia in recent months, and the intensely public disintegration of the Russian navy in recent years. International naval forces aren't the only organizations pitching in: even private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide are prepared to join the fight. (AP, Wired) Blackwater purchased and refurbished the MacArthur, turning it into a sort of floating security base over the course of the last year. Beyond the actual suggestion that security contractors might be called upon to engage the pirates, Blackwater Maritime Solutions and other companies of its type could fill a lucrative need for escort through the Gulf of Aden.
So, who is actually trained to fight engagements such as these? Noteworthy maritime special forces include the US Navy SEALs, the British Special Boat Service, the German Kampfschwimmer unit and GSG 9, and the Russian Naval Spetsnaz. Unfortunately, the SEALs, SBS, and sibling units are already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the German and Russian units are not sufficiently resourced to carry out any more than a few pinprick attacks. Even so, a Ukrainian sailor who was captured on the ship carrying the tanks reportedly all but begged for the SEALs to come save him and his fellow hostages.
Piracy largely subsided under the Islamic Courts Union, a radical Islamist organization that took control of much of Somalia in 2006. However, due to their alleged ties to terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda, and their increasingly aggressive posturing against largely Christian Ethiopia (its neighbor to the east), Ethiopian troops swiftly invaded Somalia in late 2006. The limited stability offered by the ICU evaporated quickly once it was deposed, and Somalia has deteriorated accordingly. Recent Somali history consists of stonings and cross-border car bomb and suicide attacks in the semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland, and events such as these are scarcely different than the chaos in Somalia from the early 1990's on. After the ultimate failure of UN-mandated humanitarian and peacekeeping operations to change the course of Somali history, the international community has been unwilling to violate Somali sovereignty, or risk the lives of peacekeeping forces, to end Somalia's tenure as a failed state.
Although some would blame Ethiopia (and, by extension, its Western backers) for the recent rise in piracy, recent Somali history would seem to suggest otherwise. Aside from ignoring the cooperation of pirates with Islamist rebels, those who would blame Ethiopia or the West for the chaos and resulting piracy would do well to remember the Taliban, an organization whose origins were chillingly similar to those of the Islamic Courts Union. Instead of ushering in an age of stability and rebuilding an embattled Afghanistan, the Taliban's initial success at crushing corruption, chaos, and injustice after the Afghan Civil War quickly gave way to their own style of corruption, coupled with state sponsorship and hospitality for international terrorism, destruction of priceless antiquities, indiscriminate vigilantism against their own citizens on nonsensical charges, and mismanagement leading to an epic humanitarian crisis. Had the Islamic Courts Union continued to consolidate its power, they would have likely resorted to piracy anyway, in much the same way that the Taliban resorted to opium cultivation. Even without the degree of success and control that the Taliban once enjoyed in Afghanistan, Western analysts have already identified Somalia and Sudan as a sort of "new Afghanistan" - and a preferred safe haven of an al Qaeda on the run. (BBC, Times) Simply ignoring the ICU would have exacerbated this development, vice preventing it.
The solution of a stable, comprehensive, effective, internationally recognized central Somali government is obviously a pipe dream at present. In the mean time, the only present solution is a continuous threat of force against the pirates, with an inevitable employment of that force in the event that the pirates attempt to hijack more ships. Michael White, writing for the Guardian, points out that it has become obvious that the pirates have pushed their luck too far (although the author's flimsy comparison of Francis Drake to Osama bin Laden holds little water). Even so, it took the diversion of shipping around the Cape of Good Hope and the threat of a de facto closure of the Suez Canal for the nations of the world to decide that it was time to act.
Students of history will remember that piracy always thrives in times or regions in which a strong naval power is absent. With a great deal of Western naval supremacy sitting in and around the Persian Gulf, or off the coast of Pakistan in support of operations in Afghanistan, what is the state of the rest of the world's navies? The Royal Australian Navy made news this week by announcing that it would be taking what amounts to a two month holiday for Christmas in a bid to bring in more recruits. (BBC, Guardian) According to the AFP, the Japanese Self Defence Forces are also experiencing recruiting shortfalls. Even the world's merchant fleets are finding it difficult to recruit qualified sailors. These recruiting shortfalls are coupled with limited supplies of sufficiently outfitted warships in the inventories of many countries, most of whom rely on the United States to provide maritime and naval security throughout the oceans of the world.
Beyond the failure of the Somali state, and the decline of international maritime power, could foreign influence be playing a part in the pirate scourge? One country has an unrivalled history of supporting terrorism in as many forms as possible: Iran. Although analysts and journalists must be careful not to find patterns where there are none, Iran would have a great deal to gain from a surge of international piracy, and Somali pirates would be the ideal choice for an increasingly isolated Iranian regime. Even the prime minister of Somalia's transitional government has suggested the possibility of Iranian support for the country's Islamic militants.
As motorists have breathed a sigh of relief over the collapse of the oil bubble, and the corresponding collapse of fuel prices, states whose entire economy is based upon oil are in economic free fall, with the two most prominent examples being Iran and Russia. While Russia has both an arms trade and natural gas sales to fall back on, Iran's entire economy relies upon selling the crude oil that its decrepit and mismanaged infrastructure extracts from beneath the desert. Iran even called an emergency OPEC meeting several weeks ago in an attempt to cut production and "stabilize" the price of a barrel of oil at $80.00 per barrel. Iran would have a vested interest in facilitating any event that might push oil prices higher. With its extensive network of terrorist contacts, Iran might also have the means to attempt such a feat by covertly altering global shipping conditions through one of the world's most strategic sea lanes. A review of the increasing frequency and bravado of pirate attacks shows an inverse trend to the collapse of global oil prices. As the Iranian regime's financial straits become more and more dire, could they be trying to facilitate a rebound for oil prices? Far-fetched, yes, but theoretically possible? Perhaps.
And what of the significance of a Saudi supertanker being hijacked, rather than one from another Gulf state? The Iranian government has recently shored up their military forces on the Persian Gulf island of Abu Musa, an small rock near the Strait of Hormuz whose ownership is disputed between Iran and the UAE. The mini-cold war that the Saudis and the Iranian regime are currently waging against one another throughout the Middle East for the purpose of challenging one another for regional superpower status is well known. Could Iran have been "spotting" for the Somalis, either from their own coast or from Abu Musa, for the purpose of hitting Saudi oil income while trying to push prices for their own oil higher? Such a plan is, of course, unlikely; but is it theoretically possible? Furthermore, hasn't the Iranian regime proven its willingness to stop at nothing in an attempt to improve its position?
Further, the surge of Somali piracy has led countries from around the world to divert already stretched naval assets to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea to address the piracy problem. One of the most likely opening moves of any international attempt to isolate a newly nuclear-armed Iran would be a naval blockade. With international naval forces tied up in the Gulf of Aden, attempting to stave off piracy along the Somali coast, a coalition naval blockade against Iran would be even more difficult to accomplish.
There is also the question of whether or not Iran has provided supplies to Islamist militants, pirates, or both. As mentioned previously, the Somali PM has already accused Iran of supplying the militants with weapons. In addition, a cargo ship seized by pirates in September reportedly made the pirates sick, prompting some to wonder if the ship contained biological or chemical weapons that might have been destined for Somalia in the first place. (The Times of South Africa, Fox) On the other hand, a Iranian ship that the pirates intercepted several days ago contained nearly forty tons of wheat - an unlikely offering, both in substance and amount, from a sponsor to a beneficiary. Again, no conclusive evidence, and extremely limited circumstantial evidence, but enough indicators to make one wonder.
Whether Iran is covertly pulling strings in Somalia or not, the Iranian regime has a great deal to gain from a surge in Somali piracy, the economic fallout of such a surge, and the inevitable distraction of international maritime security forces dispatched to address it. Meanwhile, even if an international naval flotilla is successful in isolating the pirates, and companies like Blackwater Maritime Solutions provide effective security escort services for commercial ships running through the Suez Canal corridor, the humanitarian and security crisis in Somali seems set to continue into the foreseeable future. Without a clear, comprehensive, and proactive solution to this root cause, Somalia is poised to remain a multi-faceted problem that the world must continually react to.
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