You know, this PM has a point. We are investing a lot of troops and resources to Afghanistan, but there are other centers of gravity for the enemy that we should be focusing on. One of them is Somalia, and the enemy is gaining momentum there as well. Money and manpower issues come to mind as to why we are not ‘surging’ into Somalia.
He also mentioned another fantastic point. For the amount of money we are spending on all of these massive navies to go after small little boats with pirates in them, we could certainly re-evaluate that process and use that money for a better return on investment.
We could instead force the shipping industry to provide their own security, and then the costs could easily be passed down to the companies, and then to the consumer. It is already happening like that, but instead of security costs, the shipping companies are having to pay for increased insurance do to kidnappings. I say lower the kidnapping potential by increasing security on the boats. Invest in security, and not insane insurance costs that only go up as the pirates capture more boats. That makes economic sense.
Also minimize the naval presence out there, and focus on being a quick reaction force or QRF to all these security contractors on boats. The taxpayers of all the countries are paying for these massive naval operations that are not effective. It’s like using elephants to kill mice.
Thanks to David who sent me the article below this one, this only strengthens the point that large navies are not that effective at stopping all of these small scale attacks. They cannot be every where and at all times. But security on boats can be on scene at the right time, and every time. The monopoly on the application of the use of force, must be loosened, and there must be an effort to allow and even encourage the hardening of these boats.
But back to the money. Just imagine if instead of spending millions every day for all of these navies, to instead put that down on a land based strategy with some teeth? It could happen, but it will take a re-thinking of the proper allocation of money and manpower for this to take place. It would also take political will to communicate why this needs to happen. –Matt
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Somali PM Calls for Plan Like US Afghan Strategy
05 December 2009
VOA News
In a letter published Saturday in the British newspaper ‘The Times,’ Omar Sharmarke said Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, announced in a speech Tuesday, ‘marks a sea change in international support to troubled countries.’
Somalia’s prime minister is asking for U.S. President Barack Obama’s vision for Afghanistan to be applied to his country.In a letter published Saturday in the British newspaper The Times, Omar Sharmarke said Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, announced in a speech Tuesday, “marks a sea change in international support to troubled countries.”Prime Minister Sharmarke said Somalia needs similar aid, to restore an effective government and train security forces, to police Somalia’s waters to ensure only Somalis profit from the fish, oil, and gas, and to launch a vocational training program for young people. Mr. Sharmarke said the chaos and conflict Somalia has endured since the last stable central government fell in 1991 may appear “beyond repair,” but he said it can be fixed.Referring to warships sent by the international community to combat Somali pirates, he said his proposal would cost a quarter as much, and would “solve the problems rather than simply chasing them round the Indian Ocean.”On Tuesday, Mr. Obama announced he would send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to fight insurgents and accelerate the transition of responsibility to Afghanistan’s own security forces. He also pledged to support Afghan ministries, governors and local leaders, while holding them accountable for corruption.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
Story here.
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Admiral: Sea Too Large to Stop All Pirate Attacks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 1, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — International naval forces will never be able to completely secure the vast area of ocean where Somali pirates are hijacking ships off East Africa, the commander of the EU Naval Force’s counter-piracy efforts said Tuesday.
In the latest attack, pirates captured the Greek-flagged tanker Maran Centaurus on Sunday while it was carrying 275,000 metric tons of crude oil, the ship’s owners said. That is equivalent to about 2 million barrels of oil worth roughly $150 million, said Ben Cahill, head of the Petroleum Risk Manager service at PFC Energy.
The naval commander said the Maran Centaurus was traveling east of an area that the EU Naval Force advises tankers to steer clear of, so that it wouldn’t necessarily have expected to have been attacked. Pirates now hold 11 ships and 264 crew members off the coast of Somalia, said Rear Adm. Peter Hudson.
”The news of a few days ago of a 300,000-ton tanker being seized is illustrative of the problems in protecting and policing an area of the world’s oceans that amounts to an area of about 1 million square miles,” said Hudson, the commander of the EU Naval Force’s counter-piracy operations.
Hudson also said the fact that pirates are now attacking ships as far as 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the Somali coast presents a large challenge and that the EU force will never fully secure such a large area. The EU Naval Force’s strategy in the smaller Gulf of Aden is to lengthen the amount of time it takes pirates to get on board so that a warship or helicopter can be dispatched to the scene.
”The difficulties in an area as large as it is in the Indian Ocean with the short number of assets that we have is that … the pirate can keep going and keep going and keep going until it’s successful in getting on board, because there’s nothing there to stop it,” he said.
Hudson said oil tankers like the Maran Centaurus can be tempting targets.
”She’s a big ol’ girl, almost a quarter million tons. They’re not speedy, they sit low in the water … so a determined pirate like this one can be successful,” Hudson said in Kenya during an extended trip to East Africa.
As pirate activity has increased off East Africa, some ships have begun carrying armed guards. The EU Naval Force said Tuesday that a Spanish fishing vessel with a private security team on board fired warning shots at pirates during an attack Sunday, fending off the hijack attempt.
However, fuel tankers like the Maran Centaurus do not have armed security because of how flammable the cargo is, a determination Hudson said he agrees with.
”At the moment the consensus is, and I think quite rightly, let’s be very wary before we bring military groups, armed guards, civilian guards onto fuel tankers full of fuel and gas,” he said.
Bigger tankers like the Maran Centaurus are too large to use the Suez Canal and must sail south around Africa to Europe or the U.S., said Samuel Ciszuk, an analyst for IHS Global Insight. But if attacks increase, those tankers will have to steer clear of a large part of the northwest Indian Ocean and southwest Arabian Sea, adding days to the trip.
The operating costs will then rise, not only for fuel and wages for the crew but insurance premiums, Ciszuk said.
Somalia’s lawless 1,880-mile coastline has become a pirate haven. The impoverished Horn of Africa nation has not had a functioning government for a generation and the weak U.N.-backed administration is too busy fighting an Islamist insurgency to go after pirates.
Hudson said the piracy problem is not going to be solved ”by racing around the Indian Ocean capturing pirates. The longterm solution is onshore in Somalia.”
The Maran Centaurus is only the second oil tanker captured by Somali pirates. The Saudi-owned Sirius Star was hijacked a year ago, leading to heightened international efforts to fight piracy off the Horn of Africa. That hijacking ended with a $3 million ransom payment. The ship held 2 million barrels of oil valued at about $100 million and was released last January.
The EU Naval Force escorts humanitarian aid to Somalia, including World Food Program aid. The force has escorted more than 50 convoys and 300,000 tons of food into Somalia, Hudson said.
Story here.