Well, this point is the same for any interesting conversation. You could rile against armchair healthcare experts arguing about the virtues of public versus private health case, instead of leaving it to the real experts. I hope you are not suggesting we should all just shut up about everything except who looks the cutest on American Idol!
It is pretty clear for this specific topic that nations do handle this with different strategies and philosophies. Is this because their military or law enforcement experts have different opinions? Or is it because the upfront cost (additional risk to existing hostages) is too much to bear for some entities? There is a legitimate debate here.
None of this would be an issue if we policed the strait with sufficient naval forces. it’s not like these inflatable boats can crush modern naval vessels in straight-up combat; they rely on there not being any naval vessels present.
The problem isn’t that we can’t stop pirates, it’s that we can’t do it cheaply. Bulk shipping makes money by moving huge volumes at relatively low cost; the margin is slim and they can’t afford a lot of spending on self-defense. One or more navies could supply protection, but the governments involved have so far not chosen to do so, either for political or cost reasons.
But as with all theft, the perpetrators are making a cost-benefit analysis of the likelihood of being caught at all, let alone the degree of punishment. Until getting caught (or intercepted by naval forces) is prohibitively likely, the punishment won’t matter much because the odds of suffering it will be low.
Their modus operandi requires keeping control of a multi-thousand ton ship for months waiting for payment, after they have already informed the owners that they are committing a crime. These aren’t hit-and-run tactics we’re talking about.
The reason is that the pirates move to waters away from the patrolling naval vessels – and there will always be areas away from the patrols until one of two things occurs:
massive, expensive influx of additional naval patrols (a naval “surge” if you will)
the institution of a system of expensive (but probably cheaper than a surge) convoy.
Naval historians have pointed out that nations usually* resist convoy as a solution – because having all the ships travel together involves waiting to assemble the convoy and overloading the port when they all arrive at once – but convoy is unparalleled in its ability to protect merchant shipping. Convoy is also offensive in nature – it is designed to put warships in the only place the merchant ships are; pirates (or submarines in the two world wars) will have to expose themselves to the naval forces or simply desist.
Great Britain did institute convoy at the very start of WWII, but the US resisted it until after devastating losses.
After 1943 in the Second World War, losses were overwhelmingly only among single ships sailing outside of convoy. But that’s partly because the convoy system exposed U-boats to devastating counterattack and eventually the Germans withdrew from the intolerable losses and gave up attacking convoys at all (until late war technologies gave them hope of resuming the convoy battles).
Until we do go to a convoy system, the pirates can simply keep their weapons hidden and pretend to be fishermen – hell, they might as well actually fish – until they see an unescorted merchantman. They can keep the initiative in this battle (unless we’re prepared to slug it out on the ground in-country) up and until we get smart and put in a convoy system.
Q-ships are also a good idea but will not substitute for organized convoys.
I’m interested in how based on your link you established there was no cargo stolen. More then half of the ships list the cargo as unknown.
I recall Europe having a delay on Nintendo Wii’s around Christmas because pirates stole a large number of them. The the future units were diverted around the area to avoid the theft delaying them for weeks.
I’m not arguing that theft of cargo is making anywhere near the amount of money that ransoming ships and crews has for the pirates. I’m arguing they still have reason to attack ships even if the US decides to stop all ransom payments.
The pirates are often not highly educated and are not necessarily taking negative consequence into account. They are thugs who are willing to commit crimes in order to profit. I don’t imagine they would stop robbing people aboard ships or hoping for sell able cargo aboard the ships just because it became less profitable then when they could ransom people and ships.
Sailboat In the grand scheme of things these pirates are gnats. The sorts of solutions you suggest are incredibly expensive and frankly the cost doesn’t justify the added expense. It is heavily patrolled by several navies, and being 300 miles away in terms of the Indian Ocean is really not that far at all.
What should be done is have profiles made of the different pirates. Get pictures of them during any handoffs, and then send in teams to take them out after the hostages are safe. Or do what was done this time in the absence of paying the ransom.
Maybe dedicating a satellite to the Motherships would be useful. If a ship is used as a mothership in one of these scenarios the nation that pays the ransom could pay the US Government for a tomahawk strike on that Mothership when it leaves port.
There are all sorts of ways to kill the pirates without acting like we still like in the 19th Century.
Only 44 of the 92 ships were listed as having unknown cargo. Of those 44, 19 were tankers, bulk carriers, tugboats, fishing boats or in one case a cruise liner, and none of these are going to be carrying cargo suitable for stealing. Of the remaining 25, only 10 were actually captured. That’s 10 ships with potentially stealable cargo, over a four year period, for all the pirates in the area put together.
Are you claiming that tankers, bulk carriers, tugboats, fishing boats, and cruise liners have nothing of value to steal?
Making piracy less profitable isn’t going to stop people who have nothing and are willing to do anything to make a buck from resorting to piracy.
They ships traveling through that area are one of the only things of value they can prey on. Even if you make them less valuable they are still worth more then anything else they have access to.
Currently the least costly way to deal with the pirates is to pay the ransoms. Until a country is willing to put feet on the ground in Somalia the problem isn’t going away.
The boats that pirates are using are unsuited to taking large amounts of freight off another ship. This goes double for tankers (which carry unpackaged liquids like LNG or oil) and bulk carriers (which carry unpackaged bulk cargo like grain or coal). These are goods that are shipped in loads of 10,000 tons or more in order to be cost-effective, and you’re not going to get a worthwhile amount without stealing the whole ship.
Tugboats are for transporting ships or oil platforms, not small cargo.
You could steal fish, if you wanted, but that isn’t going to earn you very much money either.
And as I already said in an earlier post, every cruise liner attacked escaped, including this one.
Ok so you’ve established there is nothing but ransom value in these crews and ships. I highly disagree but we can move on from that.
The new policy will be to prevent American companies from paying ransom. How do you plan on enforcing this? How many American sailors will lose their jobs as a result of such a policy? How many ships do we let get destroyed and crews killed before the pirates accept we are actually holding true to our ban of ransom.
The most obvious method is to simply retake the ship before the company pays. Otherwise, you combat it the same way you combat anyone trying to fund organised crime: by using the country’s financial intelligence agencies.
What makes you think any would?
Where is the profit in destroying ships, deliberately pissing off the most powerful navy on the planet, in a misguided attempt to intimidate a country which has developed a reputation for going off half-cocked and bombing countries it doesn’t like?
You might be surprised, and in a thread not too far from this one:
As to the armchair quarterbacking mentioned above: I agree it’s silly and amateurish to suggest specific tactics. However there is an enormous difference between the policies of the various nations to date–pay ransoms–and a general policy of no ransoms and no negotiations.
The latter is a broad policy which is perfectly reasonable to discuss from an armchair. It’s along the lines of “Should a government have universal health insurance?” as opposed to a pretense of tactical expertise in implementing such a policy.
I hold that the current practice of individual shippers paying ransoms to buy off their own particular boat endangers everyone else and promotes a behaviour for which there is no upper limit. Ultimately there is no reason to consider that piracy would even be limited to Somalia. And since we in the US cannot–or should not–constrain the policies of other countries, I suggest we at least protect our own ships by not allowing them to be the sucker prey.
Had the policy I suggest in the OP been adopted from the beginning, I maintain we would not be currently dealing with a problem of any kind except for some original handful of ships, and an additional 200 hostages would not currently be hostages.
So we attack the ship risking the ship and the crews.
The companies choose who they hire. Why would they hire ships or sailors who put their product or lives at higher risk than that of other countries?
There is no profit in destroying the ships or killing the crews. Its what you do when people fail to pay ransom so the next person in line might be more willing to negotiate.
As it is now this is not a loss of life conflict. It is about money. Escalating the conflict will cost lives and will costs tax payer money in favor of money from private companies. Another solution to the problem would to be banning companies from using those shipping lanes. The main reason these businesses choose to pay ransoms and ship through that area is it is still cost effective.
Requiring companies to pay for armed escorts would also put a damper on pirate activities.
If your looking for an excuse to blow people up your course of action is a good one. Of all the bad people in the world the Somali pirates are pretty low on my list. If your looking to make the world a better place through military action I’m sure we could start somewhere else.
Well it would work in the sense that it would suppress piracy by either convincing the pirates to find another line of work or erasing human life within 30 miles of the Somalia coast. It’s just not going to work in the sense of being acceptable to today’s values about collateral damage.
Does anyone else see an analogy between this debate and the constant gun debates we have here? (I see idiot-pacifist Der Trihs has already put in his two cents.) The old cry of “Force doesn’t solve anything! You can’t defend yourself, you’ll only get yourself killed! Resistance will just make attackers escalate!”
:rolleyes:
While a Q-boats would be impractical, what would be the problem with putting seal teams on any ships willing to host them while traveling through hostile waters? The expense to the host company or nation would be negligable compared to the cost of ransom and the increase in insurance rates.
Ships that have teams on board could get satellite or some sort of UAV overwatch to have forewarning of vessels venturing close enough to be a potential pirate. Just WAGing on the last part, no real idea of capabilities, but it seems reasonable.
Or are there laws or some other prohibition against this?
