Elendil’s Heir: I support your theory, but it is a unpopular view. You are embracing the concept of a Strong, benevolent America acting with UN Sanction as Police Man to the World. The reality is not too many nations are buying our Benevolence currently and the UN has not sanctioned us to act on their behalf.
I love the concept but it cannot work today. I think you also need to realize how many American would not support such a policy.
Jim
I’m trying to figure out how this would work. The area of the seas where piracy takes place now, off Africa and Indonesia are very far from any US source of supply. So the logistics would be very difficult. Further, the sheer amount of ocean to be monitored is staggering, especially when you look at the amount of coastline and number of small islands in and around, say, the Malacca straits. The cost would be very high.
Ah. Well, then the U.S. Navy probably should have a hand in protecting said places. It’d just be practical.
Perhaps instead of sending ships, some kind of training programme could be started? Say, send out a couple of ships and train the local anti-piracy forces? Seems to me that’d be acceptable to more nations than parking a few battleships off your coast would be. 
Thanks for expanding. Yep, that’d be a good reason to help out there in some way.
IIRC pirates were considered everybody’s enemy; there was ( or is ) a legal term for it. I don’t remember the Latin, but it meant something like “Enemies of mankind in general”.
Quite probably, but that doesn’t mean they’d go out of their way * to attack them. An enemy who is causing you no personal harm, and is unlikely to in the future, just isn’t as important as a war or pirates in your own* waters or shipping lanes.
Hostes humani generis. And the criminality of piracy is jus cogens – a “peremptory norm” no state has the power to derogate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy#Piracy_in_international_law
An exception might be made for “privateers” – in essence, pirates licensed by their country, in time of war, to seize cargo from an enemy state’s vessels. The U.S. Constitution explicitly authorizes Congress to issue “letters of marque and reprisal.” But privateering was renounced by European states in the 1856 Declaration of Paris, and other countries, including the U.S., renounced it in the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions. So the exception probably no longer applies anywhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer
I read the news report, and it said that a couple of the wonded pirates were getting medical treatment! why? shouln’t they have been just disposed of?
Execution without trial, you mean?
Trials for one; after all, you should at least prove they are pirates. Plus, where are they getting their weapons and craft; where are they selling what they steal ? That should be found out as well.
International law does not, nowadays, mandate the death penalty for piracy, AFAIK.
A deeply humble view from a former Navy sailor:
I’m glad to see some discussion on this, because I’m confused for an entirely different reason from most folks:
The US Navy and our NATO allies have been chasing down pirates for years, but suddenly it seems to be newsworthy. Also, pirates have been a bad problem in many regions (the Med) pretty much always, but out of the blue this shows up on the networks, even though they seemed to take little interest up until this cruise ship incident a few months ago.
I don’t know whether this is some kind of PR push where we’re trying to drum up good press for the US, or whether it has just caught people’s interest like kidnapping sometimes does (kidnapping goes on all the time, but you’ll suddenly see 4 incidents in a row that make the national news).
As far as whether it’s a good idea, I have many points of data but no opinion to offer on how they should be tied together.
-It’s really good practice for other more obviously Navy-oriented tasks, like enforcing embargoes or defending our own waters, that we don’t have to do very often, but need to do really, really well when the time comes. Realistic simulation is hard to come by, so practice is good, but comes at a cost.
-It’s dangerous. A guy in our battlegroup boarded a ship that had been snatched by pirates. They easily subdued the individuals involved, but while he was searching the ship, which wasn’t in the best shape, he fell into a damaged area and was impaled through the abdomen on a spike of sheet metal. I give this example because I experienced it firsthand so I’m not repeating some “my sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s girlfriend” story, but it was an incident that was common enough to be unremarkable within the Navy.
-Not all countries “recognize” the same territorial waters. International law says 12 miles, but let me tell you, we got within 100 miles of Iran and had the Iranian Navy up our behinds instantly (US ships make them especially nervous, and while I know we didn’t intend them any distress I guess I might feel the same in their shoes). This sort of thing really complicates matters when you’re boarding for reasons that might not be internationally agreed-upon.
-It’s a huge deal for the people involved. In some parts of the world a family will live on a ship and have every ounce of their worldly goods onboard. If pirates get them, it’s gone forever, and this is not an infrequent occurrence. Unfortunately, their governments usually lack the resources, and possibly the desire to help them.
-Yep, it sure does happen “on the high seas” with great regularity. 12 miles from land isn’t much, even in a fishing-size boat, and anything beyond that is open territory.
-I found it very uncomfortable to interrogate each and every ship we came across via the radio. Our anti-piracy intentions were good, but the Masters of the merchant vessels we called were not always pleased. If I were in their shoes, I can’t swear I wouldn’t feel similarly affronted.
-It puts us on the defensive if any violence occurs. Take for example today’s report that the Somalis are claiming that the people we killed and arrested were, in effect, patrolling for the safety of their own citizens. I’m not sure anyone believes Somali militiamen, but someone else who wanted to hurt us, badly, in the international press could do something similar.
-We would ALWAYS render medical care to anyone taken from a pirated ship, or really anyone else we bring onboard our vessels. First off, honorable people treat their prisoners decently, period. When we’re the ones with all the power ($2 billion warship versus wooden dhow), it would be disgusting to behave dishonorably. Secondly, we’re the richest people who have ever lived on the face of the earth; it won’t kill us to spend $50 on healing them. We usually end up giving them a whole new set of clothes and some of the best food they’ve had in months, too. Most of the people we catch committing piracy are doing it to try to relieve their own poverty. This doesn’t make it ok, but does give the issue some perspective.
Thanks, Spacekat. Good to hear from you.
Do you think Q-ships of some kind (as mentioned in the OP) might be useful? Look helpless, let the bad guys come to you, then drop the fake bulkheads and blast away…
News reports last night described a battle between US Navy ships and suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia.
This CNN account illustrates the difficulty of the US Navy, or any other, policing the oceans.
According to the cited account, Somali militia were patroling of their coast and the battle was with a couple of their boats. Apparently we didn’t know that the Somalis were doing this.
Or something. Somehow the word never gets passed.
Piffle. :rolleyes: :dubious:
The Somali militias do not represent a government, only one more outlaw gang.
The difference between a “pirate” & a “militiaman” is whether or not somebody is watching, or if you get caught.
Navy Boats (not to mention ships) are some of the most expensive pieces of equipment in the US inventory, they are manned by extreamely well trained men and women; and that training doesn’t come cheap. The smallest ships that would be blue water, and able to carry on independant operations would be Frigates; then destroyers, you certainly wouldn’t want to use a cruiser for that kind of work (remember each of this ships cost serveral billion to build and outfit).
We are already patrolling as much of the ocean as we can; without breaking up battle groups. Breaking them up would allow us to patrol maybe 6-7x what we do now (at an increased cost for resupplying), bringing us to a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a precent of the ocean.
Who is going to give MORE money to the US military? (we have been drawing down that budget for decades now)
Probably, but you can’t be sure, can you?
And, by the way, this comes awfully close to saying that whatever Somalis might do to defend themselves is borderline outlawery and the US will unilateraly determine what constitutes self defence.
Eh? The Horn of Africa and the Red Sea are on the commuter route between the Med/Europe and the Gulf. I was under the impression that US Navy ships were forever pottering back and forth through that bit of water. Having them detour for a week or two to do some anti-piracy work would be hugely popular, especially if they did it at set times to allow the more risk-averse to form convoys. This is something yachtsmen have been begging for.
And as far as Indonesia goes, I thought Singapore was one of the Navy’s key logistics bases for the 7th fleet?
I agree with you about the difficulty of patrolling that amount of sea - it would be very challenging. Although nowadays radios and GPSs are so cheap, it would probably be more a matter of persuading pirates that someone with lots guns will show up reasonably soon after a distress call goes out - that should be easier to achieve. 1-800-helphelphelpPIRATES!!!
I am as bemused as everyone else by some of the things that the US get up to, but don’t you think you are extending the benefit of the doubt a little further than necessary in this case? I am not aware of any somali ‘militia’ defending anything other than their own income and status in the last twenty years or so.
Pirates don’t operate far from ‘protection’ be it shore lines where they can hide, ports they can pull into; etc. Even at flank speed, the chance of getting to anything more than 50-60 miles away in any kind of prompt manner is almost nill. Add to that, pirates don’t care about international vs. territorial waters, the US navy would; so they would need police abilities inside territorial waters (and airspace); with the area we are talking about, good luck getting unrestricted access (and that is what it would require, as you wouldn’t be able to get enough warning to ‘get permission’ in most cases).
Call 1-800-anything wouldn’t work either, you would have to make a distress call over a GUARD band (or the Naval Emergency bands); which is already what is done. At that point, if they are in international waters, EVERY avalible boat is supposed to give aid (which the US Navy already does). Adding a cruise up and down for a few weeks would not to much more than the Navy is already doing, convoys only work if you are sending HUGE amounts of cargo on regular basis, with ships of similiar speed, ect. During a major war, that is easy to set up; during normal business, it isn’t likely to happen.
I’ve heard the same arguements about the US military; yet I think most people in the US would like other countries respecting our sovereignty