Naval patrols fail to deter pirates

[Adsos Letter]

Source: International Herald Tribune

ON THE ARABIAN SEA: Rear Admiral Giovanni Gumiero is going on a pirate hunt.

From the deck of an Italian destroyer cruising the pirate-infested waters off Somalia's coast, he has all the modern tools at his fingertips - radar, sonar, infrared cameras, helicopters, a cannon that can sink a ship 10 miles, or 16 kilometers, away - to take on a centuries-old problem that harks back to the days of schooners and eye patches.

"Our presence will deter them," the admiral said confidently.

But the wily buccaneers of Somalia's seas do not seem especially deterred - instead, they seem to be getting only wilier. More than a dozen warships, from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the United States, have joined the hunt

The pirates are recalibrating their tactics, attacking ships in beelike swarms of 20 to 30 skiffs, and threatening to choke off one of the busiest shipping arteries in the world, at the mouth of the Red Sea.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/16/africa/pirates.p...

[Sex Pistol]

1. I wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to use satellites to track these punks back to their harbors

and deal with them there?

[Posteritatis]

7. Satellites aren't realtime and there's thousands of ships in the region

Good luck following the correct twenty-footer...

[Sex Pistol]

11. Good point. I guess this is going to be an aggravating and costly thing to deal with.

Perhaps a few decoys with Blackwater knuckleheads on board would be the way to go. Still, that course of action will not be cheap either.

[rpannier]

2. This keeps up much longer and they'll be using air power

They'll just drop bombs from overhead and take them out using helicopters.

They need to start doing a better job of protecting the ships.

Some ships have wire around the ship that makes it difficult to board.

[Turbineguy]

3. With Blackwater getting involved

we will turn it into an industry. Then we will need to keep the pirates in business.

There is no will to deal with these guys. Paying ransoms that are invested wisely to expand operations? Letting arrestees go back to their base?

Getting this under control requires a distasteful ruthlessness, not deterrence.

[Thor_MN]

4. They need a decoy ship. Take an old cargo ship, fly a ransom paying flag

and fill it with soldiers. Cruise until attacked, sink the pirates, change the siloutte of the ship, the flag and name, rinse and repeat.

[shadowknows69]

5. After the USS Cole bombing was there any research done?

On detecting these smaller craft that seem to be able to pull right up to major ocean vessels without any warning? We can see a Russian carrier from 1000 miles off but a dinghy can sink a battleship.

[Mike Daniels]

6. The UN voted to allow navies to cruise Somalian waters

and you don't need to be in active pursuit to enter said waters.

There can only be so many places where the pirates can store away these tankers while awaiting payment. I would think it wouldn't be too hard using nautical charts and satellite imaging to determine the likely spots and to basically put a blockade up around those pin-pointed areas so that the pirates can't bring any more tankers into "port".

[slackmaster]

8. The navies are operating under rules of engagement that severely limit what they can do

My brother was working the pirate problem off the horn of Africa for several months this year. His hands were tied in negotiations. He could only do what his squadron leader at a US base authorized.

In one situation that resulted in hostages getting freed and a captured ship released, he had to let the pirates go free not only with their lives but with all of their weapons. If he had been given permission he could easily have captured or killed them all.

[sofa king]

9. Time to haul out the Q-ships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship

Edit: Just as Thor_MN suggested above.

[gratuitous]

10. I suppose reviving Somalia's economy is out of the question

You know, make it possible for Somalis to work, earn a living and raise a family without resorting to piracy? Or would that be appeasement, which we all know is just soooo wrong?