Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review

My post of December 28 ("The Pirate Plague") outlined the international piracy problem in stark terms. This one explores solutions.

From the military point of view, defense of the more than 2.5 million square miles of the western Indian Ocean reminds one of the quandary T. E. Lawrence faced during World War I. He was tasked to find a way to defend up to 140,000 square miles of desert between the Levant and Medina. His answer was by insurgency, but almost a century later, the pirates are the insurgents. So the United States and other nations must conduct counter-pirate warfare.

Can security vessels help? More than a dozen warships from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the United States already have tried. And China, in a first worldwide us of its navy, is joining in the flight. But the mathematics show that they can't easily protect the 20,000 ships a year that transit 2.5 million square miles of ocean.  A simple solution is not to protect ships but to attack the pirate strongholds.  In the Wall Street Journal on December 9, Max Boot wrote of the 19th century, when colonial powers simply planted their flag in a pirate hotbed, claimed it for their own, and cleaned it out. Today, a world or regional body could provide legitimacy for such action--like NATO and the European Union did in Bosnia and Kosovo. But it takes will, and Boot reminds us that NATO doesn't even have the will to fully support the Afghanistan war.

All the same, on December 16, the 15-member United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing force. Under the resolution, nations may take "all necessary measures" to stop anyone using Somali territory or sea to plan or carry out piracy. This could include attacks on the port cities of Eyl and Haradheere, but that might involve unacceptable collateral damage. Nevertheless, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that, if the United States develops "adequate intelligence" to identify and locate the clans involved, joining in a U.N. air strike might be a future option.

Under the U.N. resolution, we could simply occupy the ports and any other lands that support piracy. The U.S. Marines carried out that mission in Haiti with the Gendarmerie d'Haiti in 1916. The gendarmerie  was commanded primarily by Marine non-commissioned officers who were commissioned into the gendarmerie. The gendarmerie thus became the de facto occupying force for stabilization operations in the country. Looking at the pirate plague, if the United States and allies had the assets and the will, they could occupy key parts of the country until a lasting government could be hammered together. But, too many Americans remember the bloody fight in Mogadishu Oct. 3 and 4, 1993, when 18 U.S. troops and more than 1,000 Somalis were killed, as shown in the 2001 movie, "Black Hawk Down."

What about defensive measures by the individual ships? Officials have advised shipping firms that pirates tend to attack between 4 a.m. and 6 p.m., and they can't board ships steaming faster than 15 knots, so their ships should try to pass through dangerous waters at night at higher speeds. Other ideas include searchlights to blind boarders, high-pressure hoses to drive them into the sea, and electrical fences on deck. Even if security vessels are in the area, pirates can reach a slow-moving ship and board it in 15 minutes, leaving virtually no response time available to the protective vessels.

Nevertheless, an international force did defeat pirates who attempted on December 17 to seize a Chinese cargo ship off the Somali coast. The task force launched two attack helicopters that forced the pirates to abandon the vessel they had boarded. In that episode, nine armed pirates in speedboats overtook the Chinese ship and boarded it. The 30-member crew sent a distress signal when they saw the pirates approach, and barricaded themselves within their living quarters. The international naval force dispatched the two helicopters and a warship. The helicopters arrived first and disposed of the pirates. Nonetheless, this was an exceptional case, when rescuing forces were near enough to act.

Some problems come from balky shipping companies. If they form World War II-like convoys with warship escorts, it lengthens their schedules, which sometimes can cost more than paying ransom. Private contractors have offered security services, but again the cost becomes prohibitive, along with legal problems involving weapons in international ports.

Furthermore, in "Buccaneers are back: The challenges of modern piracy," in the December issue of Armed Forces Journal. Peter Brookes wrote that "many shipping companies don't report hijackings out of concern for increased insurance premiums or lengthy investigations, which could hold their ships pier-side, despite an estimated $10 billion to $20 billion in annual industry losses to piracy."

It is tempting to tell such shippers, therefore, that it is their problem. But it's not. If pirates link with terrorists, a sunken ship in the strait of Hormuz, for example, could cripple world energy supplies.

All in all, security shipping and the onboard security measures discussed can help. But it seems that, unless we strike at the source, and establish a viable government in Somalia,  we can only fight the symptoms and not the cause. It doesn't take a doctor to tell us that you can't cure a plague that way.

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