Feral Jundi

   I don’t care what any of the experts think on this one.  It doesn’t take a defense analyst or a counter piracy expert to look at these two stories, and the one I posted about the chemical tanker and fertilizer ship being taken, and deduct that the current strategy is not working.

   Look at this first story I posted below. The Dutch capture 13 pirates, and they had to release them because no one wanted to deal with them?  And then they had to give them food and fuel so they could ‘make it home alright’? How sweet of us. Pfffft. This is lunacy.  No wonder this whole piracy thing is increasing, because it is the ultimate criminal venture to be in.

   The next story really spells out the failure of the strategy.  We have a massive flotilla of navies from all over the world, that costs millions of dollars to operate every day, and this is what we get out of that investment? An increase in successful pirate operations?  Who the hell is in charge of this mess?

   The strategy I propose is pretty simple. Make it mandatory that all ships have armed security, and they all have the means to contact a Naval quick reaction force via protected communications. Put the cost of security and proper communications on the shipping industry, and only use a few key Naval vessels for back up.  If a ship gets into a fight with pirates, then they put out the distress call to the closest strategically placed Naval QRF, and do the best they can to hang on until they get there. Hell, we could just have armed drones flying around all day to act as back up. But just as long as there is competent and well armed security on these boats, then this will give the boats enough time to out maneuver the pirates or hang on until help gets on station.

   We could also hunt them down at sea, but good luck with that.  It would take thousands of boats, canvasing the sea, all with the right to search and seize vessels.  Even then, these pirates will just hide on a fishing vessel and pretend to be safe, until the hunting vessels are gone.  I say if we are going to hunt them, then you use really good bait, which is why it is so important to have armed ships with a Naval QRF to back them up. That QRF should also be in the form of aviation, and not some slow cruising boat that would take an hour to get where it needs to be. That is my idea of a a QRF on the ocean.

   The second part of my strategy is all about dealing with the land problem, and that requires eradicating any threats to the government, and giving the government the time and support necessary in order to establish a solid governance over the land. But it all requires a professional army to do a proper job of cleaning up that resistance, and establishing control over key corridors and areas. Anything is possible, just as long as you have the manpower and resources to contribute to the effort.  You could either use a competent PMC (something similar to Executive Outcomes) or try to get an organized and well trained Army that is not busy with the current wars we are in.  Good luck with that last one.

   The point being, is that we really cannot be effective at sea, if we do not have a land based component of our strategy. Until we do what we have to do, these pirates will only continue to get more wealthier, more bold, more greedier, and probably more dangerous because now they can afford the good stuff. –Matt

Edit: 12/31/2009 – Further proof of the failure.  Look at these numbers. (I posted the rest in the comments section)

Mr. PHAM: Unfortunately, and I hate to rain on the parades of the world’s navies, but they haven’t sent an unambiguous message. Since August of 2008 to mid December 2009, the combined navies of the world have stopped 706 pirates. Of these 706, 11 were killed in the altercations with the navies. Four hundred and eleven, however, were simply catch and release because the various countries of the world can’t agree on rules for prosecution.

And so the pirates look at this and say the chances of actually being caught and actually having to suffer some legal penalty, 46 convicted out of 706 stopped, your chances are pretty slim.

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Captured Somali pirates get away scot-free

December 18 2009

The Dutch navy frigate HNLMS Evertsen has released 13 Somali pirates who were captured earlier this month. The European Union failed to find a country willing to put them on trial on suspicion of piracy and ordered their release on Thursday.The pirates were kept in detention on the ship’s aft deck, which was “an unpleasant situation” according to the Dutch Defence Ministry. They were released near Djibouti and transferred to their own ship, which had been towed all the way by HNLMS Evertsen.

HNLMS Evertsen was part of an EU mission off the Somali coast. The men were arrested when they attempted to hijack a merchant ship.

No takersThe Netherlands’ Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop said he regrets that no country appears willing to try the pirates, despite EU treaties with Kenya and the Seychelles. Tanzania also turned down a request, even though the pirates were using a stolen Tanzanian ship whose crew they were holding hostage.

Mr Van Middelkoop says it is frustrating for the navy crew that they had to release the men they captured. “But this EU decision does not detract from the effective way the ship and its crew operated over recent weeks. The decision to release the captives should not reflect negatively on the men and women aboard HNLMS Evertsen. Their mission was a successful one and contributed to the fight against piracy off Somalia,” Mr Van Middelkoop said.

Story here.

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AP Enterprise: Year after warships come, piracy up

By KATHARINE HOURELDDecember 25, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya — A helicopter fired warning shots toward a suspected pirate skiff, where six Somali men sat among assault rifles, grappling hooks and an aluminum ladder. But before it could be boarded by sailors from a nearby warship, the men threw all the gear overboard.

With little evidence to convict them, the would-be pirates were let go, along with their boat and enough fuel to get to Somalia. Nothing was done to prevent the men from rearming and trying again.

The high-seas encounter last week illustrates how the multinational naval force deployed a year ago to try to stem piracy has had limited success. Experts say the attacks won’t stop unless pirate havens inside Somalia are eliminated.

But that goal remains elusive. The U.N.-backed Somali government can barely hold a section of the capital, let alone go after onshore pirate havens. Foreign governments are reluctant to deploy ground forces.

Pirate attacks nearly doubled in 2009 over a year earlier, despite the deployment in December 2008 of the European Union Naval Force – the first international force specifically to counter Somali pirates.

Somali pirates currently hold at least 10 vessels and more than 200 crew members for ransom.

Still, proponents of the force note the pirates’ success rate has been cut roughly in half since the patrols began.

“A lot more ships would have been taken if we weren’t there,” Cmdr. John Harbour, the force’s spokesman, told The Associated Press. He said the pirates had not seized any ships in the heavily trafficked Gulf of Aden since July, which he called evidence of the force’s impact.

Somali pirates tried to board at least 209 vessels this year through mid-December, seizing 43 of them, the International Maritime Bureau says. That compares to 42 successful attacks out of 111 attempts in 2008, before the EU Naval Force deployed.

The pirates have responded to the presence of the sleek gray warships from NATO, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and China by turning their attention to less protected waters.

To carry out raids beyond the heavily patrolled maritime corridors, pirates have begun using captured vessels as motherships, enabling them to attack vessels as far as 1,000 miles off Somalia’s coast, Harbour said.

“We can’t say that anyone has won the war against piracy, it’s still very much ongoing,” said Cyrus Mody at the International Maritime Bureau. “There is still a significant amount of piracy. It has not reduced since last year.”

Even with the rise in pirate attacks, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of vessels that travel each year through the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean are targeted. That means there is little pressure for governments to deploy ground forces to neutralize pirate havens in Somalia.

Governments are already reluctant to intervene in Somalia, haunted by memories of the U.S. intervention in 1993 that escalated into a fight against warlords, culminating in the “Black Hawk Down” battle that killed 18 American servicemen.

Naval forces who intercept pirates usually follow a “disrupt and deter” policy, as in last week’s raid. The forces confiscate any weapons or other equipment, then release the suspects with enough fuel to return to Somalia, avoiding long, costly trials ashore. Generally only those caught red-handed in piracy are detained.

Once pirates are aboard a targeted vessel, naval forces do not try to intervene for fear of hostages being killed or wounded.

Still, even if there were more arrests, Somalia’s poverty-stricken population provides plenty of men willing to try piracy to get a share of the multimillion dollar ransoms. Only by imposing control over the shore can piracy be brought under control, experts say.

“It’s not going to be solved by racing around the Indian Ocean with warships, capturing pirates,” Rear Adm. Peter Hudson, the commander of the EU Naval Force’s counter-piracy efforts, said in Nairobi recently. “The long-term solution, of course, is ashore in Somalia.”

Northern Somalia shows how efforts on the ground can translate into success.

The gains are starting to occur in the semiautonomous region of Puntland, which wants a share of the $250 million pledged to Somalia at a U.N.-sponsored international donor’s conference in April to help stabilize the nation and fund humanitarian work.

Author Jay Bahadur, who has spent time in Puntland researching a book on piracy, said last January there was only one police checkpoint on the outskirts of the regional capital of Garowe, long a pirate boomtown. By June and July, there were many more and authorities had begun to launch raids against suspected pirates, he said.

There has also been a local backlash against pirates, he said, because they indulge in un-Islamic behavior like drinking and using prostitutes, and their spending of ransom money has triggered soaring inflation.

“The climate on the ground is more and more anti-pirate,” Bahadur said.

The increased security on land and at sea has forced the pirates further south, away from their former base at Eyl town in Puntland and into the strongholds of Haradhere and Hobyo, according to Bahadur and Harbour.

But there is no such security presence in the south, large swaths of which are controlled by al-Shabab insurgents. Controlling piracy is not a priority for either the weak government or the insurgents as they fight for control of the battle-scarred capital of Mogadishu.

Somalia itself does not have the resources to fight piracy. Its navy has only three working boats. The head of Somalia’s small navy, Adm. Farah Ahmed, said several countries have pledged aid but haven’t delivered.

Given Somalia’s lawlessness, limited resources and the difficulty of pursuing every pirate in a vast ocean, pirate attacks will remain a problem for years to come, experts say.

Still, Harbour said the naval force is confident it is preventing piracy from getting worse.

“We are policing the waves against criminals,” he said. “No police force can achieve a 100 percent crime-free area, but we are definitely making a difference.”

Story here.