Feral Jundi

Frédéric Gallois, the deputy general manager at Gallice Security, a specialised security firm, said that keeping a team of four armed agents on board a vessel can cost between $4,000 and $8,000 a day.
Paul Tourret, the director of Institute Supérieur d’Économie Maritime, ISEMAR, a research institute that specialises in sea-based economic activities, estimated that the extra costs to a ship due to the risk of piracy can reach up to $50,000 a day.- Link to quote here.

That is an interesting quote up top, and I am always on the look out for cost estimates on transits. ISEMAR specializes in sea-based economics, so I tend to perk up when think tanks like this put out figures. Although on their website, I was not able to find any documents about armed security costs.  Perhaps some of my french readers could help me out here?

But the real story here is the one below.  That insurers are now getting behind the idea that armed guards on boats is a heck of good idea, compared to their other options. Or compared to the future of West’s navies.

They mentioned below about the defense cuts of Western navies, and the reduction of force size over the coming years. This is a very important point to bring up when it comes to today’s anti-piracy efforts. Eventually today’s war planners and strategists will come to the realization that using large Destroyers to take out tiny little pirate boats is not exactly cost effective. Especially when those navies still continue to falter when it comes to protecting commerce.

Cook said private firms would play an increasing role as navies face spending reviews, citing prospects of a 30 percent decline in the size of Western navies in the next 20 years. “They’re taking the policemen off the block,” he said.

The other statistic that was interesting was this one from ISEMAR. I would have thought that number would have been bigger? Especially if Peter Cook of SAMI said he has 58 member companies? I would be curious if SAMI or any other maritime groups agree with this number?

French maritime economics institute ISEMAR said there were about 1,000 private guards being employed by ships to counter Somali pirates.

Finally, with all of the increased use of armed security, the reduction in naval forces, and increase in pirate attacks and complexity, I have to think that the legal authority for how armed security is used will change. I have argued in the past that defense industries do not profit from the end of their venture. That they profit if the client they protect, continues to be attacked and threatened. But with offense industry, a different market force is set up to where companies profit from the ‘destruction of an enemy’ that threatens a client. That an offense industry work’s itself out of a job.

When countries really think about it, and try to understand what the economics are with how the pirates operate, and how private force ‘could’ operate to counter it, perhaps there might be some pragmatic choices made on the legal front? The question is, how do you reduce the numbers of pirates and attacks, and how can private industry be used to accomplish such a thing?

Specifically, I suggest to bring back the Letter of Marque and Reprisal, and create an offense industry to ‘expulsis piratis, restituta commercia’. It is the legal ‘sledge hammer’ in the tool box of states, and it is just sitting there getting rusty.  As piracy becomes better funded, more violent, more organized, and more rampant, eventually states will have to re-evaluate what is ‘inherently practical’; and change their view on what is ‘inherently governmental’ in order to stop this. –Matt

Marine Insurers Backing Armed Guards as Piracy Threat Grows
By Gus Trompiz
September 20, 2011
More ship insurers are backing the use of private armed guards on merchant vessels at sea to combat Somali piracy as attacks and the resulting costs are set to rise in coming weeks, industry officials said on Tuesday.
Pirate attacks on oil tankers and other ships are costing the world economy billions of dollars a year and navies have struggled to combat the menace, especially in the vast Indian Ocean. Seaborne gangs are set to ramp up attacks in the area after the monsoon season ends.
A famine crisis in Somalia could also draw more people into piracy, marine insurers said.
“Piracy is clogging the arteries of globalization,” said Emma Russell with underwriter Watkins, a member of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market. “No vessel with armed guards has yet been taken,” she added.
Industry delegates at the annual conference of the International Union of Maritime Insurance (IUMI) said there were more than 20,000 transits a year in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Speakers at the conference said the hiring of private armed guards to accompany ships is increasingly seen as an effective deterrent against pirates and as a complement to overstretched navies, many of whom face budget cuts.
Ship owners and insurers have until recently been reluctant to accept the use of armed private contractors. They have hesitated partly due to legal liabilities and risks, including the problem of bringing weapons into some territorial waters and due to the fear of escalating violence.

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