Ports wouldnt allow them to dock and will treat armed ships as military ships of the country flying whatever flag its flying.
I dont think this is such a stereotypical American response. You literally have armed pirates firing on ships. An armed attack deserves an armed response. I could see loosening up these restrictions to allow handguns or even .50 guns (which must be locked away when in port).
And you thought the competition to be first through the locks was heated now!
But how did this work during WWII – many of the merchant ships were armed then, to fight off German raiders. How did they get into port at that time?
To a large extent, most of the major crises in Africa are self-inflicted. And, please, don’t anyone think that’s some kind of racist or bigoted sentiment. It only takes one gang or warlord or whatever to ruin it for the other 99% of the people and the rest of the world is all too eager to turn a blind eye to what’s really going on.
I remember growing up during the “We are the people” era of relief for Ethiopians. My elementary class helped raise money for that cause. I was shocked when I learned in high school that the drought may have been the immediate cause of death, but that it was mostly killing 4 million war refugees who couldn’t return home.
Long thread about this.
Main reason arming merchant vessels isn’t being looked at is most the attacks are non-lethal. If merchant vessels start shooting at the pirates that’s going to change the game plan of the pirates. Right now they board a ship steal what they want and no one gets hurt. In some cases like the recent one they do take hostages. A lot of larger companies look at these as a cost of doing business and pay the ransoms, again no ones dying. Merchant vessels start shooting at pirates and they will start killing people in response.
The area that the pirates operate in is the size of Texas. There is a total of 20 or so navel vessels covering this area between the US and other peacekeeping nations. The issue with putting an end to the piracy in the area is it would require going after there ports which are numerous and many are integrated in civilian populations. No government is really willing to put feet on the ground in Somalia considering the history with doing so.
During war it is different. If England or the USSR refused to let the armed merchant ships into their ports, then they would not get the supplies they wanted. And in the early part of the war only 10% of the ships leaving the US reached the Russian ports. So it was a totally different issue.