Modern day piracy on the high seas? Most people thought that the halcyon days of pirates, brigands, corsairs and buccaneers lived on only in movies, but a new generation of pirates has emerged to threaten ocean-going trade. Today's profiteers have rediscovered the wealth and impunity that made legends of yesterdays swashbuckling rascals. As ludicrous as it sounds piracy has become a booming growth industry in Africa - as deadly and dangerous as it is profitable.

Modern-day piarcy on the high seas claimed broad attention on April 12, 2009 when U.S. Navy Seals fatally shot three pirates holding an American cargo-ship captain hostage after seeing that one of the pirates "had an AK-47 leveled at the captain's back," a military official said Sunday. The captain, who'd been held hostage in a lifeboat was rescued uninjured. Capt. Richard Phillips' ship, the Maersk Alabama, was boarded by pirates 350 miles off Somali coast. Phillips negotiated an deal whereby the pirates would hold him hostage, but release his crew.

This was not the first time pirates had hijacked a ship and held the ship and/or crew for ransom, but it was the first time that daramatic military action was undertaken. Typically, the ransom demands have been met, but the outcomes can also prove deadly.

On Feb. 22, 2011, pirates killed four Americans who had been sailing around the world. U.S. forces had been "closely monitoring" the Quest for three days with four Navy warships tasked to recover the yacht. US Navy ships included: the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the guided-missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf, the guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Bulkeley.

Negotiations were taking place between the U.S. forces and the pirates when the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Sterett, which was about 600 yards away. The RPG missed, but gunfire broke out on the yacht. Several pirates then appeared on deck with their hands raised to surrender. U.S. special forces boarded the yacht, but all four American hostages died of their wounds.  

This event was unusual and, in fact, piracy is booming business.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reports that there were 376 attacks on ships worldwide in 2010, with 172 of those attributed to Somali pirates. In 2009, there were 410 incidents. Among the 2010 assaults, 53 vessels were hijacked and 40 of those were attributed to Somali pirates. Over 1180 crewmen have been held hostage, but surprisingly, only 8 crewman or hostages were killed.
 
Experts estimate that the average ransom paid is about US$3.0 million. However, industry insurors claim that the ransom cost is only a fraction of the total financial damage incurred. The highest reported ransom payment, to date, was $9.5 million for a Korean tanker, hijacked off the Indian coast. Estimated annual losses run between $13-15 billion.

Despite the surge in pirate activity states have done little to thwart the attacks, or to punish the perpetrators in court. Prosecutions and convictions - some of which included the death sentence – have been a rarity. The UN reports that over 700 pirates that had been captured by security forces were subsequently released.

Pirates of yesteryear never dreamed of such profits at so little risk.

An veritable armada of warships has been deployed to patrol the waters being plundered by Somali pirates. Their main area of operations includes the Gulf of Aden corridor, which leads to the Suez canal. However, the pirates have become more sophisticated and daring, and have extended their operations to more than 1,000 miles from the mainland. The pirate operating area is simply to vast to patrol effectively, or economically.

Shipping companies have instituted defensive training programs for crewman and some have hired security personnel to “man the guns.” One of the effective defensive measures has been for the crew to barricaed itself in a ‘citadel.” This is a safe, reinforced room, stcoked with provisions to sustain a seige and equipped with communications to summon assistance. Sixteen hijackings were averted when crews took refuge in their citadel.

A Selected Pirate History

Today’s pirates carry on a long legacy of lawlessness on the high seas. Among the most notable of pirates past are the Barbary Pirates and the pirates of the Caribbean (not the Disneyland version).

 
The Barbary pirates ravaged coast of North African ("Barbary Coast") in the western Mediterranean Sea, calling threatening shipping in the ports of Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, and Tangirs. They were active between the Crusades the early 19th century.

During this era the primary treasure sought by the pirates was human slaves; as many as one million residents along Mediterranean seacoasts and islands were captured and sold as slaves. But these pirates never captured the public’s imagination. It was the swashbuckling pirates of the Caribbean that were later memorialized in books and film – from Long John Silver in Treasure Island to Errol Flynn and Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.

The classic era of Caribbean piracy extened from the mid-1500’s into the early 1700’s. Most of these pirates hailed from England, France and the Netherlands and their most common targets were ships of the Spanish fleet that dominated the world’s ocens during that period. Pirates sought refuge in such exotic, tropical towns as Tortuga, New Providence and Port Royal. Their demise came at the hands, or guns, of the Royal Navy, when England surpassed Spain as ruler of the high seas.

After the American Revolutionary War, England, itself, adopted old-time tactics of the Barbary pirates, attacking American merchant ships and suppressing crewman into service of the Crown. These activities help lead to the War of 1812 – the second war for independence - between the United States and England.

Soon, pirate scallywags and scoundrels vanished from the seas and to become glorified in books and tall tales os adventure, before moving into Hollywood lore.

A century, Piracy resurfaced in Asia on a small scale in and around the narrow Straits of Malacca, but it took the war-ravaged and desperate Somalis to launch a rennaisance of piracy in the late 1990’s.

Following is an article written by Michael Frodl, in which he describes the risks of increasing piracy that could result from the less than diligent international efforts to confront moder-day pirates.

Somali Piracy Tactics Evolve; Threats Could Expand Globally 

April 2010 
By Michael G. Frodl 

Underwriters and shippers are as concerned about what the United States and other powers won’t do against Somali pirates, as they are about what the pirates will do against ships they insure, own and operate.

While the Gulf of Aden is a relatively safe passage for the deployment of warships through a narrow corridor in a vast gulf, some Somali pirates have retaken the initiative in the waters of the Indian Ocean off East Africa.

Continuing to treat Somali pirates as a homogenous, if not a monolithic threat, is not working. 

The current approach is showing diminishing returns on investments in anti-piracy. The deployment of modern warships costs easily more than a billion dollars a year, if not more, to sustain. Risks to shipping and the costs of underwriting continue to rise in the ocean where 60 percent of global commerce transits.

Meanwhile, the return on investment in piracy, which basically involves arming and supplying a handful of men and sending them out on a mother ship and two skiffs, only continues to rise.

Staying on the present course guarantees that the next generation long-range Somali piracy business model will entrench itself. It is funded not just by record-breaking ransoms and local investors’ money, but also by the flow of capital from foreign criminal gangs. Pirates now threaten sea lanes all the way to India and soon will threaten sea lanes all the way to the Strait of Malacca. This is a model capable of being exported worldwide.

After the deployment of warships in the Gulf of Aden in late 2008, the underwriting and shipping communities were comforted. By the summer of 2009, it had become obvious that the navies of the world were thwarting northern Somalia’s pirates. But by October, that same response inadvertently incited the more professional pirates of the eastern Somali shoreline, some led by former Somali naval officers, to pivot back into the waters of East Africa and expand long-range operations even into the high seas of the western Indian Ocean.

Those pirates are now extending operations to waters rich in prizes such as the Gulf of Aden.

Underwriters and shippers are therefore apprehensive again, given the new and expanding lead that pirates of southern and central Somalia gained over the world’s navies by late 2009.

Deployment of unmanned aircraft by the United States to the Seychelles to patrol local waters and the sending of a small contingent of French marines and Spanish private guards to protect tuna fishing boats off the islands was too little, too late. Somali pirates are operating mother ships and making attacks with impunity a thousand miles from Somali shores.

The latest targets include not just tuna fishing fleets, but long-range high seas traffic.

The Somali pirate gangs operating from southern and eastern ports such as Kismayo, Harardheere and Hobyo are preparing for more activity. Somalis have become adept at forward support: a technique first used in Gulf of Aden raiding, in which pirates relied on makeshift bases in Southern Yemen to resupply and refit, thanks to locals whose cooperation was likely bought with a promised share of the ransom. Evidence of forward support was discovered in the Seychelles early in 2009.

Other credible intelligence indicates that at least one Somali gang has two mother ships lurking off the Maldives with orders not to come home until they hijack a large crude carrier or something similarly big by early 2010. It’s obvious that these mother ships are relying more on local support than on a long “logistical tail” from their homeport.

The ability to operate free from significant homeport support and instead rely primarily on forward support represents the “third generation” of Somali piracy. The first generation consists of largely opportunistic pirating within 50 miles of Somali shores, especially in the Gulf of Aden, which has occurred for centuries. The second generation consists of more premeditated and longer distance raiding into the Somali Basin and around the Seychelles and involves mother ships that juggle dependence on bulky stores on board, with continued logistical support from home ports. The third generation Somali pirates will venture beyond the limits of even traditional Somali fishermen and threaten new sea lanes, including the vital East Asian energy lanes just off India’s western shores.

Underwriters and shippers are justifiably worried about the world’s navies playing catch-up in the central western Indian Ocean. The members of the world’s leading seafarer union have already called for a boycott of the entire Indian Ocean.

It is doubtful that deployment of long-range aerial surveillance in the central western Indian Ocean will make much of a difference if insufficient surface naval assets can engage the pirates and thereby deter and disrupt their operations.

The East Asian sea lanes are as rich in energy and other resources as the lanes that pass through the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal. It is not a matter of if, but when, the third generation of Somali piracy begins to inflict serious losses on those lanes off India’s shores.

The worst-case scenario could be set in motion by the European Union and NATO by diluting anti-piracy resources in the Gulf of Aden.

As a result of the Somali pirate threat expanding unabated while the temperature rises between India and China, shipping and underwriting could become even riskier and even more expensive. The global economy, a system that relies on cheap and secure long-distance delivery of goods, energy and other resources, would take a major hit just as it is trying to get going again.

While many strategic thinkers write about geopolitics, few write about what can only be called “mare-politics”, or the principles of geopolitics applied to the oceans — despite the fact that the Indian Ocean boasts as many energy resources as Central Asia.

Combining the dearth of ocean-based strategic thinking with the dependence of the global economy on high seas transport creates a dangerous blind spot that denies world leaders the advice and guidance they need. It also lulls them into thinking that the influence nations have on land extends equally to the oceans. That is a dangerous miscalculation. One direct lesson from such strategic thinking is that on the high seas of the Indian Ocean, as any other sea, the brunt of the solution will have to be carried by private ships transiting by themselves, not by governments or by their navies.

All nations also need to work more closely with shippers and insurers to counter pirates, if only because governments and navies can’t and won’t move as fast or effectively as the private players already in place. The major lanes that run on the high seas between India and Africa are in a space where no navy or navies can ever provide real protection.

Private sector players should adopt a combination of measures, including better development and use of public and private intelligence, implementation of “best management practices” to deter and defend against pirate attacks, and improved underwriting solutions to help absorb the costs of attacks.

These three approaches, when smartly integrated, can afford ships the most cost-effective risk management, and in a time period shorter than what any government or navy can make available realistically.

If Somali pirates are allowed to demonstrate new prowess, not only will they earn even more international criminal support, but they also will become the envy of pirates in other parts of the world. This is not idle speculation: a long-range attack against an oil tanker off Benin by Nigerian pirates was attributed to envy-inspired copying.

The biggest impediment to Somali-style piracy going global is having a failed state where pirates can park a stolen crude carrier within sight of shore without fear of being bothered by the local authorities.

Fourth generation Somali pirates may simply kidnap premium, high-value hostages such as the ship’s captain and chief officers, and while negotiating their lucrative release, use them as human shields on mother ships that constantly move all over the Indian Ocean with impunity.

Rather than repatriate hijacked ships all the way back to distant Somalia, or abandon them and their cargo on the high seas at a loss, the Somali long-range raiders may spin valuable ship and cargo off to local insurgent groups or pirate gangs as payment so they are allowed to continue hunting unmolested in their waters.

About the only real threat to Somali pirate expansion these days is from other pirates.

Most pirates of the eastern Indian Ocean and East Asia don’t have much use for crews anyway and may settle for such a division of spoils: some have networks ready not just to liquidate cargo but also ships, which are given new names, paint jobs and papers almost overnight. Those eastern pirates who don’t agree to this arrangement will probably settle for a share of the ransoms Somalis collect.

Fourth generation piracy is sure to appear sooner than later if we keep leaving the initiative to the best Somali gangs. Current counter-piracy approaches make it ironically even easier for them to reap most of the rewards, as their less capable competitors are eliminated, leaving the ocean and its richest prizes for them.

The Somali piracy business model could soon go “viral” and export itself to not just to the rest of the Indian Ocean, but the rest of the world. And there will be nothing to stop it.

 

 

Johnny Depp as the fictional
Cap'n Jack Sparrow