Pirates

With the attempted Somali pirate takeover of the U.S.-flagged merchant ship Maersk Alabama, the entire world was once again expecting to see the United States again exposed as a “paper tiger”, seemingly unable to protect her citizens from purely criminal activity, as well as being unable to recover Capt. Richard Phillips unharmed. The other option would have been a disastrously failed rescue attempt. But wait! The White House authorized a rescue (including the use of deadly force if necessary), then sat back and awaited the outcome! Apparently there was no micromanagement from on high, no weeping over the social or political consequences, no left-wing humanitarian hand-wringing, and no leaks to the world’s press. Capt. Phillips was rescued, three of the pirates were killed, and I for one am quite pleasantly surprised with Mr. Obama’s response! (I don’t generally say things like that about democrats in the White House either.)

Perhaps this will sound familiar. An American skipper in the hands of seafaring rogues. Some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes under attack. Tough men from a messy patch of Africa eluding and harassing the world’s greatest powers. Well, it’s not Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, but pirates from the Barbary Coast (today’s Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya) who hijacked European ships with impunity, and ransomed the crews, nearly 200 years ago. Frank Lambert, a professor at Purdue who is an expert on the Barbary pirates, explained how those brigands, like today’s Somalis, usually kept their hostages alive, not from any enlightened sense of humanity, but rather it was simply good business. The Barbary pirates actually had an ambassador, and the pirates worked for a government. The Barbary rulers commissioned them to rob and pillage and kidnap, and the rulers got a cut. It was all official. And open. It was truly state-sponsored terrorism. And the Western nations’ response was to pay “tribute,” a fancy word for blackmail. Well, they did until the United States sent most of its then quite small Navy to explain the error of their ways…

If a country paid tribute to the Barbary pirates, the 18th-century pirates would leave its ships alone. Today, shipping companies hand over millions of dollars in ransom to the Somali pirates, a strategy that does save their cargoes, but also attracts even more unemployed Somali fishermen into the lucrative hijacking business. The Barbary pirates used small boats powered by slaves chained to the oars to attack western shipping. Crude, but they were effective, much like today’s Somali pirates who captured a Saudi super tanker, from a dinghy! Merchant ships facing the Barbary pirates were often armed and could, if the crew was willing to defend themselves, fend off an attack. Today’s merchant ships are unarmed (for fear of harming someone), and told to surrender if they can’t outrun or outmaneuver the pirates. But then, the Barbary pirates’ bravado brought about their downfall, something the Somalis might want to remember. Eventually, the American shippers got tired of paying off a bunch of knife wielding thugs in blousy pants. That’s what led Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to send in the Navy and Marines, whence “the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn, and of course the violent fall of the Barbary corsairs.

Last year, there were more than 120 pirate attacks off the African coast, and the pirates made off with more than $100 million in ransom. There are reportedly more than 1,200 pirates roaming the coast of Africa now, mostly from Somalia. Rather than the cannon, cutlass and dagger of yesteryear, today’s pirates are armed with light machineguns, RPG’s, and AK-47’s, essentially light infantry weapons easily outclassed by only slightly heavier weapons commonly carried aboard small naval patrol boats. The modern 9,000 ton destroyer USS Bainbridge could probably whip nearly warship afloat today, but it really isn’t the proper platform for running down pirate speedboats, which would be somewhat like swatting flies with a billion dollar sledgehammer. The idea is to have lots cats chasing the mice, instead of a few hulking lions wandering around off-shore. For years, military planners have been calling for the U.S. to build a fleet on small, fast, and cheap ships that can patrol inshore. This eventually lead to the Littoral Combat Ship program, and a problem laden effort to build 55 relatively inexpensive ($450-$600 million apiece) coastal patrol ships. However, even the Navy’s vaunted LCS is, at 3,000 tons, bigger than a WW II era destroyer, only slightly faster, and armed with small guns and lots of anti-ship missiles, making it appear to be another “multi-purpose” warship rather than a dedicated pirate hunter. To catch pirates I’d hazard a guess that something on the lines of the inexpensive Motor Torpedo Boats of WW II would be much more appropriate. Unless the world’s navies are allowed to attack the pirate lairs (which is highly doubtful due to international law), the world is going to need a lot of these patrol boats as well, because there are a lot of pirates out there. Reported pirate incidents from 2002 are: Indonesia: 103. Gulf of Aden/red Sea: 11. Ecuador: 12. Guyana: 12. Vietnam: 12. Nigeria: 14. Malaysia: 14. Malacca Straits: 16. India: 18. Bangladesh: 32. The numbers increase every year as the pirates get bolder, better organized, and better equipped.

It is also of interest that the number of incidents is on the rise. 106 cases of piracy were recorded in 1992. By 2002 there were 370 minor and major incidents reported. The statistics go on to say that: the majority of ships have been boarded whilst at anchor, that 10 crew members were killed by pirates in 2001 and 97 serious injuries were sustained. The professionalism and desperation of these elements is growing as the records show. "The big worry is that the attacks are getting much more violent… It's moved on from being maritime petty theft, where half a dozen robbers would steal something and escape, to much more organized, with much greater use of weaponry… They're carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades," says Andrew Linington, of the maritime officers' union. He's amazed that the attacks haven't resulted in a major maritime disaster, yet.

The world’s navies could of course wipe out the pirate lairs, sink their vessels, and kill them in large numbers, leaving the base problem to fester on, and pirates to crop up again and again. A better response would be to crush the pirate’s power, demonstrating that crime doesn’t pay, and in addition find their recruits an alternative form of employment, whatever that might be. In reality the humanitarians will weep and wail, governments will continue to waffle, navies will continue to chase their tails, shippers will continues to pay ransom, leaving nothing to change as long as the world considers that it has “bigger” problems to worry about. For Obama, his handling of the crisis showed a president who was comfortable in relying on the U.S. military, much as George W. Bush did. But it also showed a commander in chief who was willing to bring in federal law enforcement officials to handle the judicial elements of the crisis. Will Obama see any political gain? This crisis will have faded into distant memory by the time voters reach the polls in 2012.