Pirates go 1 for 2 on the Maersk Alabama

[Apocal]

Courtesy of AP

Guards aboard the Maersk Alabama used guns and a sound blaster Wednesday to repel the second pirate attack in seven months on the U.S. vessel at a time when ships are increasingly hiring armed security teams to thwart hijackings.

...

The U.N.'s Maritime Safety Committee says members should "strongly discourage the carrying and use of firearms by seafarers for personal protection or for the protection of a ship." The concern is that bringing guns aboard ship will encourage violence.

...

When the Maersk Alabama was attacked last spring, the ship, like most in the region, had no armed guards.

"Due to Maersk Alabama ... embarking security teams, the ship was able to prevent being successfully attacked by pirates," said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. "This is a great example of how merchant mariners can take pro-active action."

Ultimately, I think measures like the above are just a band-aid solution to a slashed wrist. A more medium term solution would be simply figuring out a way to work the diplomacy and put some hurt on Eyl, but long term, Somalia is fucked up and it's either going to continue to be fucked up or somebody is going to have the do the scut work of fixing it.

[Daniel2112]

Somalia desperately needs a Doctor Doom or M. Bison to take it over.

[Torr Samaho]

this piracy problem would have been solved swiftly in the time when you just parked a battleship on someone's coast and shelled everything into rubble if the guy didn't comply. not elegant, but effective.

leaving such old fashioned methods aside, trying to appease the pirates by not using armed guards to escalate violence is stupidly wrong. they'll just laugh in the face of such attempts and continue their business unless there's no one to stop them.

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Torr Samaho

this piracy problem would have been solved swiftly in the time when you just parked a battleship on someone's coast and shelled everything into rubble if the guy didn't comply. not elegant, but effective.

It didn't work back when pirates were flying pirate flags, why would it work now?

[blackseven]

I had read somewhere that insurers refused to insure ships with armed crews, seeing paying ransom as cheaper than the possible consequence of armed crews.

I am glad to see this is changing. It's not a long term solution but individuals under attack/held for ransom rarely care about the long term.

[dacis2]

Originally Posted by Lord Squishy

It didn't work back when pirates were flying pirate flags, why would it work now?

It might if you used nuclear shells though.

[Commander 598]

Originally Posted by Lord Squishy

It didn't work back when pirates were flying pirate flags, why would it work now?

Because the guns can actually hit something now?

If I'm not mistaken naval artillery played a hand in the Barbary Pirate's downfall too.

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Commander 598

Because the guns can actually hit something now?

If I'm not mistaken naval artillery played a hand in the Barbary Pirate's downfall too.

I was actually thinking of the Barbary Wars when I wrote that. Actually, it's historically interesting to note. In 1816 and 1824, Algiers was bombarded by British naval artillery fairly significantly. Each time, the pirates promised they would stop and wouldn't do it again. Each time, they resumed pretty much as soon as the British sailed away. It wasn't until about 1830 when the French conquered Algiers and occupied it that the piracy actually stopped.

[Hectonkhyres]

Originally Posted by Daniel2112

Somalia desperately needs a Doctor Doom or M. Bison to take it over.

Wait... was that or M. Bison or and M. Bison. Because I am thinking that the latter is a piece of fanfiction that I must have.

[Daniel2112]

I said 'or', not 'and'. And I'm afraid I don't do fanfiction. I'm a shitty writer.

[Apocal]

Originally Posted by Daniel2112

Somalia desperately needs a Doctor Doom or M. Bison to take it over.

Whatever Somalia has a lack of, ridiculous levels of villany is not one of them.

Originally Posted by Torr Samaho

this piracy problem would have been solved swiftly in the time when you just parked a battleship on someone's coast and shelled everything into rubble if the guy didn't comply. not elegant, but effective.

Well, I respectfully disagree with that. As a short or medium term solution, it's worked, but ultimately it took something that addressed the underlying causes to actually get rid of piracy or a serious, long-term investment in anti-piracy measures that slowly ground away at the profitability of the practice.

leaving such old fashioned methods aside, trying to appease the pirates by not using armed guards to escalate violence is stupidly wrong. they'll just laugh in the face of such attempts and continue their business unless there's no one to stop them.

Yes, I find the UN's stance on the matter highly out of context. Violence in this case is, well not really good, but it's better than the alternative of non-violence. Mutual violence has the potential to kill or injure pirates, on top of anything else that it may or may not accomplish, so at some level the cost-benefit analysis is going to shift away from piracy.

Whether or not that is a strong enough anti-piracy measure in and of itself I don't know, though a gut feeling tells me it's not enough. Also there is the question of scale, if only maybe one in twenty ships will have armed guards onboard, the cost-benefit analysis is going to remain with piracy. If something like one in three were armed, it would be another matter and probably significantly influence pirate thinking.

Originally Posted by Lord Squishy

It didn't work back when pirates were flying pirate flags, why would it work now?

QFT. Gunboat diplomacy is, at absolute best, a medium term solution to a long term problem. Generally, it tends to be only a short term solution, only being effective as long as presence is maintained. In which case, it's basically fucking pointless, because you could have just stood off the coast looking menacing and achieved the desired result.

At worst, the pirates beat the system and either A. win a standup fight making you look like a goddamned fool or B. slip out from your grasp and commit piracy while you are there and you look like a goddamned fool.

Originally Posted by blackseven

I had read somewhere that insurers refused to insure ships with armed crews, seeing paying ransom as cheaper than the possible consequence of armed crews.

I am glad to see this is changing. It's not a long term solution but individuals under attack/held for ransom rarely care about the long term.

Hmmm... it's not so much law as a question of liability. Remember the largest payout was something under ten million for the ship, cargo and crew and all were more or less intact, as they were taken without a fight. Whereas one can easily imagine a bloody gunbattle where the crew succeeds in defending their ship, but two or three are killed and a few others seriously wounded, so greiving families sue over the decision to put weapons in their hands without sufficient training to be killed.

And morally, they are right: if you're going to arm people and expect them to engage the pirates, they have to have the training to back that up. It's not enough to simply hand them a gun and say, "Go beat those pirates!"

Originally Posted by Commander 598

Because the guns can actually hit something now?

If I'm not mistaken naval artillery played a hand in the Barbary Pirate's downfall too.

If you're referring to the American episode there, while heady stuff for a new Navy and Marine Corps, it hardly accomplished what it set out to do. America paid, just like the European powers, with far bigger, badder ships and in greater numbers, paid.

Originally Posted by Lord Squishy

I was actually thinking of the Barbary Wars when I wrote that. Actually, it's historically interesting to note. In 1816 and 1824, Algiers was bombarded by British naval artillery fairly significantly. Each time, the pirates promised they would stop and wouldn't do it again. Each time, they resumed pretty much as soon as the British sailed away. It wasn't until about 1830 when the French conquered Algiers and occupied it that the piracy actually stopped.

Exactly. Another good case study in this regard is the Carribbean, piracy was a sustainable enterprise until navies really started focusing their attention on things and putting anti-piracy measures in place to ensure that a pirate's life was going to be short but full of excitement.

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Apocal

Exactly. Another good case study in this regard is the Carribbean, piracy was a sustainable enterprise until navies really started focusing their attention on things and putting anti-piracy measures in place to ensure that a pirate's life was going to be short but full of excitement.

Yes. You can't stop piracy off the coast of Somalia with half-measures. Arming freighter crews and doing random patrols is fine, but it will never, in and of itself, stop piracy. You need a much heavier military anti-piracy presence, or you need to invade and occupy the beaches or something of a similar nature.

Ironically, the most effective and cost-efficient manner of doing this might be to mine the Somali shoreline, all moral and legal considerations aside.

[Xort]

I recall when we shipped L2s for afghan we put two guys on the ship with a sat phone to watch over the tanks. One day they get a call about a possible pirate threat. "What do you want us to do about it, you didn't get us any guns or ammo."

What we need is an international aggrement to let ships have a secure weapons locker they are able to open once outside national waters or in national water that respect the right to self defense.

The problem will go away once it becomes unviable to be a pirate.

[Apocal]

Originally Posted by Xort

What we need is an international aggrement to let ships have a secure weapons locker they are able to open once outside national waters or in national water that respect the right to self defense.

We're never going to have an international consensus on arming what, at the end of the day, remain private citizens. While I personally think it's stupid as fuck to not allow ships to carrying a few M240s*, I can't think of a single western nation that wouldn't scream bloody murder at having vessels pulling in with those kinds of weapons, to say nothing of foreign ports, especially whose governments are paranoid to a ridiculous degree. It's not really nationalistic chestbeating either, I'm pretty sure when we say armed, we mean with like piddly-ass battle rifles and shit, when virtually all pirates have at least access to RPGs and a handful of the better-fitted vessels are sporting 14.5mm HMGs and 20mm chainguns.

Additionally, there is the issue that not all sailors are the most trustworthy individuals, especially those coming from third world nations. It's a legitimate concern with having arms onboard, although I suppose with sufficiently secure stowage, it's manageable.

*They only use AKs now because they, more often than not, don't need anything bigger. If we bust out small arms on more ships, I don't think it'll end piracy, just make it better armed to meet the challenge.

I personally consider a 7.62 MMG with a stabilized mount as the bare minimum for action at sea, i.e. if you're bringing it from the arms locker and proning out to use the bipod, you're still wrong and stupid. Anything less and a RPG has longer effective range. Larger is certainly better and there are very few pirate boats out there that would long stand in the face of something like 25mm chaingun. It'd practically be a get out of piracy free card.

[Magni]

Originally Posted by Xort

I recall when we shipped L2s for afghan we put two guys on the ship with a sat phone to watch over the tanks. One day they get a call about a possible pirate threat. "What do you want us to do about it, you didn't get us any guns or ammo."

What we need is an international aggrement to let ships have a secure weapons locker they are able to open once outside national waters or in national water that respect the right to self defense.

The problem will go away once it becomes unviable to be a pirate.

Being allowed to do that won't change it for most shipping companies. Simply put, for most companies, especially the bigger ones, it's simply cheaper to pay a ransom once in a while rather than arming and training all their crews. (And, incidentally, paying those same crews actually enough to let them consider risking their lives for their cargo despite the known track record of the Somalis to not kill or abuse their hostages.)

[Enosh]

Originally Posted by Apocal

or somebody is going to have the do the scut work of fixing it.

yeah "fixing somalia" isn't a realy popular thing with the general public

[Apocal]

Originally Posted by Enosh

yeah "fixing somalia" isn't a realy popular thing with the general public

Neither is being bilked for cash by armed thuggery at sea.

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Apocal

Neither is being bilked for cash by armed thuggery at sea.

It's cheaper to be bilked for cash. It worked for pretty much everyone with the barbery pirates, after all.

[Apocal]

Originally Posted by Lord Squishy

It's cheaper to be bilked for cash. It worked for pretty much everyone with the barbery pirates, after all.

It is cheaper, I'm aware. I'm also aware that it makes you look like a wuss to the general public and it's cheapness may very well be a false economy in the people's eye.

"Why are we spending so much on this big-ass Navy if we're just gonna turn around and spend it on paying off pirates?"

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Apocal

It is cheaper, I'm aware. I'm also aware that it makes you look like a wuss to the general public and it's cheapness may very well be a false economy in the people's eye.

True enough, but most people wouldn't know history if it came up and pissed in their faces.

"Why are we spending so much on this big-ass Navy if we're just gonna turn around and spend it on paying off pirates?"

Because our navy is very good at smashing big things, but utterly useless for smashing a million guys in a million motorboats with RPGs, damn it.

In a more practical sense, we have a reasonable historical analysis of what it would take to end the Somali pirate problem. Piracy is not a new issue. But crushing it in foreign waters was expensive, especially if they had shore bases in those foreign territories. It either required a massive deployment of naval force to suppress the pirates, itself an immense undertaking, or it requires going in and occupying the pirates' home base and letting them wither and die on the vine. But we know what it would take to occupy Somalia, and that's damn well more expensive than the quarter of a billion dollars a year we might be paying in ransoms.

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Silver Paladin

The Barbary War disagrees with you. It took 2 wars, but they did eventually stop.

The Barbary Wars were utter failures.

[dacis2]

I understand that Tomahawks and all are expensive, but what about just closing all the ports down with heavy minefields? I'm sure that the Somalis don't have any serious mine countermeasure capabilities.

[Enosh]

Originally Posted by Apocal

Neither is being bilked for cash by armed thuggery at sea.

indeed, but there is the whole issue of "it doens't affect me, so why should I give a shit?"

[Reaper_93]

The difference between Piracy and Terrorism, in this instance, I think is the key one.


Terrorists will continue to do stupid shit like attack shipping, mine roads, et c. whether they appear to be winning or not.


Pirates will stop attempting to pirate things once they can't make any money on it or it is much too risky. See the last big outbreak of piracy: the 1700s in the Carribean. Once a big enough local military presence was established to protect the area it basically just kind of petered out because the military will ALWAYS outgun pirates by a fairly significant margin, if not on an individual basis then in sheer weight of numbers.

If a country with a large navy went on an Imperialism binge into Somalia it'd fix piracy, at least. That technique has been proven effective

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Reaper_93

Pirates will stop attempting to pirate things once they can't make any money on it or it is much too risky. See the last big outbreak of piracy: the 1700s in the Carribean. Once a big enough local military presence was established to protect the area it basically just kind of petered out because the military will ALWAYS outgun pirates by a fairly significant margin, if not on an individual basis then in sheer weight of numbers.

If a country with a large navy went on an Imperialism binge into Somalia it'd fix piracy, at least. That technique has been proven effective

Er... Barbary pirates?