Somalia redux

[unixronin]

SFGate has an analysis of the issues surrounding the Somali pirate problem.

In private, however, U.S. officials acknowledged there were way too few to counter a rising scourge of piracy along the lawless Somali coast.

Even as more Navy ships, including the guided-missile frigate USS Halyburton, arrive near the Horn of Africa, there will be fewer than two dozen international warships patrolling an area nearly five times the size of Texas.

“It’s a big area and you can’t be everywhere at once,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Thursday.

[...]

Outside advisers have recommended expanding the task force mandate to hunt pirate “mother ships” far from shore.  These nondescript larger vessels shelter the small speedboats that pirates usually use to quickly close on a commercial ship and scramble aboard.

The only problem with this is that, until they attack, it’s very hard to tell a pirate gang mothership towing pirate skiffs from a fishing fleet mothership towing fishing skiffs.

Whitman’s statement is true, as far as it goes.  But you don’t have to be everywhere at once.  You just have to be where the pirates are.

But how do you know where the pirates are, or where they will be?

Well, the thing is, you don’t care where the pirates are ... except when they attack.  And in order to attack, they have to go where the ships are.  And you know where the ships are.

I have a modest proposal.

It goes like this:

1. Station two or three multinational “depot ships” at each end of the pirate-infested stretch of ocean off the Horn of Africa.  Patrol only the borders of the area, but keep air support on standby in case needed.
2. Every ship entering that stretch of ocean swings by one of the depot ships.  When it does so, a squad of Marines board.  (Or Royal Marine Commandos, or French Naval Commandos, or Legion Étrangére, or Spetznaz.)
3. When the ship leaves the dangerous area, it swings by another of the depot ships, where its Marine detachment disembarks, ready to board the next merchant ship travelling in the opposite direction.

To attack, the pirates have to come to the ships.  But under this plan, the Marines will always be there first, waiting for them.  Better trained, better armed, with the advantage of superior numbers and a superior tactical position.  It will go very badly for the pirates, particularly if the nations involved agree to return to the old standard of piracy carrying an automatic death penalty.  In the unlikely event that the pirates are able to muster a large-scale coordinated attack against a single ship in an effort to overwhelm its Marine detachment, the Marines on board call in air support, which simply sinks everything in the vicinity of the target vessel.

Piracy off the Horn of Africa will very rapidly become a very, very non-profitable proposition.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

As noted elsewhere, this is Obama's first sharp-end crisis, even though it's a small one ... and, faced with four Somali pirates in an out-of-fuel lifeboat, the Commander in Chief of the world's most powerful military blinked.

This is not a good sign, and I'll bet plenty of unfriendly eyes saw and noticed.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Some of his experts must have been unavailable. {/snark}

Being unable to make tough decision in a hurry is a truly bad sign. To cave in such a trivial situation is unthinkable.

The real solution is to impose a Sharia court on the coast of Somalia to try the pirates. If they impose death, oh well. We set up international courts in other parts of the world, why not there. And we will use prevailing law, like some of the militants want, to deal with the problem. It could be the start of a new government, if it was supported properly.