Ahoy, Galrahn

Galrahn weighs in with a provocative analysis of the situation at sea around the Horn of Africa and declares that the USN’s approach is working precisely because it’s encouraging other counties to deploy ships and work together:
The US policy has been to do nothing and allow the development of an international response. We are witnessing [...]

Buy Them Off?

Naval War College faculty member Nikolas K. Gvosdev has an idea for dealing with the pirates:
It is interesting to note that the historical comparison with the Barbary Pirates gives us both models–force and accommodation. President Washington, for instance, did negotiate tribute arrangements to protect American shipping. Even after the “shores of Tripoli” incident, the U.S. would [...]

Pirate Petri Dish

Josh Marshall, no military guru he, is nonetheless onto something as he looks briefly at the piracy situation:
Historically, the rising incidence of piracy has frequently, if not always, been a sign of the receding reach of whatever great power has taken on responsibility for policing the sea lanes. The decline of the Hellenistic monarchies in [...]

Getting Medieval

Well, the Somalis are at it again, seizing yet another large vessel. Meanwhile, our JCS chairman is slack-jawed at the audacity of it all, pronouncing himself “stunned” that the pirates could range so far and wide for prey. One would think that our Navy hasn’t fought any ship-to-ship battles late … oh, right.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering [...]

We Need Us A Convoy

The blogs are a-twitter over the latest Somali-related act of piracy, the taking of an oil supertanker off the coast of Tanzania. Wired, EagleSpeak and Information Dissemination all have posts up. Most start by riffing off the Fifth Fleet news release announcing the seizure, which is mostly a declaration of impotence:
“Our presence in the region [...]

Scratch Two

The Brits enter the anti-piracy fight with a bang. Good for them. This isn’t a problem that’ll be solved bloodlessly.

Unions Seek Piracy Crackdown

The USN’s indifference to the piracy situation off Somalia isn’t winning this country any friends:
If civil aircraft were being hijacked on a daily basis, the response of governments would be very different.  Yet ships, which are the lifeblood of the global economy, are seemingly out of sight and out of mind.  This apparent indifference to [...]

Ahoy, Mateys

The piracy situation off Somalia has gotten rather out of hand. Visit EagleSpeak for all the gory details. The USN is in do-nothing mode when frankly a few well-aimed shots from a 5-inch gun would go a long way toward cleaning things up. Galrahn is unhappy:
When piracy, a problem that directly effects free trade, is [...]