Yesterday's Special Forces strike on a car bearing a top al Qaeda operative in Somalia appears to have been a slam dunk. Target killed, body retrieved for positive identification (along with the possibly quite substantial intelligence to be gained from his kit and co-decedents), no casualties, and no collateral damage.
It is important to maintain a low-profile but steady tempo of operations in this theater. AQ has a substantial presence, linked with the corrupt rubble of warlords and wan shadows of 'government,' almost certainly partaking to a non-trivial degree of pirates' booty. Full-scale attacks on those pirates' shore facilities would be geopolitically problematic to say the least. However, targeting a distributed set of nodes in their network, along with more effective maritime countermeasures could take us a long way. Stemming the spread of AQ's influence abroad, while making life difficult for those who would disrupt the flow of international trade (which can ill-afford the added stress), and thus enforcing global rule sets in the very darkest heart of the Gap is what I would call a win-win-win.
As for the obligatory scold from al-Reuters about the threat of reprisals for this strike...what can I say. They don't like it when you shoot at them. It gets in the way of their carefully crafted plans for killing people and taking their stuff.
Not insubstantial props are owed to President Obama for signing the Executive Order which greenlit this mission. I really would like nothing more than to see much more of this sort of seriousness on matters of security from him.
Showing posts with label Piracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piracy. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Avast, Me Hearties!
Via Strategy Page, comes this update on the state of the piracy business on the high seas off the Somali coast. Business, it appears, is not booming:
It's that last bit that's really got my attention. As much as I feel the piracy situation warrants very serious attention, up to and including military involvement, the latter would not be my first choice, given the nature and scale of the mission, and the fearsome expenditures (to uneven benefit) it demands. Stepped-up patrolling is helpful and necessary, but maritime laws put suffocating constraints on the Navy's rules of engagement, not to mention the maddening tangle of statutes on the disposition of prisoners. And the geopolitical implications of any direct action against headquarters ashore give me a headache even to contemplate.
It is encouraging, then, to hear of merchant vessels' crews training in countermeasures against pirate pursuit and boarding. They are learning to zig-zag a freighter at flank speed (and so creating dangerous wakes for pursuing speedboats), training with water cannon and long poles, stringing barbed wire across vulnerable spots to repel boarders. They are setting up "panic rooms," provisioned with food and water, and (perhaps most importantly) radio gear. These all make a world of sense and have apparently been hugely successful. Holed-up sailors can call for a patrolling ship, sticking pirates with the choice of waiting for the Navy on a ship they can't operate, or beating a hasty (and trackable) retreat. It's a nice 'force multiplier,' since it gives time for sea-borne assets to reach the scene (which means they don't have to try and be everywhere at once).
Indeed, given the legal complexities involved in arming merchant ships (e.g., many ports won't let ships with unlocked weapons --or any weapons at all-- come in and dock), it would even make sense for small teams of Special Forces operators to make the rounds of merchant vessels, providing training in defeating would-be invaders. Providing SF expertise on everything from passive countermeasures to hand-to-hand combat could in many cases obviate the need for weapons lockers, and make in-theater military assets more effective.
Ultimately, anything that makes the job of pirating more expensive, difficult, and risky is worth doing. If this can be done without so heavily leveraging the (already-stretched) wealth of nations by calling upon their militaries, then so much the better.
So, to the rigging, m'lads!
August 24, 2009: Off Somalia, 136 ships have been attacked so far this year, and 28 (21 percent) have been taken. Last year, the pirate success rate was 40 percent. Moreover, 80 percent of the attacks defeated do not involve the foreign warships now patrolling the coast. The merchant sailors, and the ship owners, have adopted defensive measures that have become remarkably successful in defeating pirate attacks.
It's that last bit that's really got my attention. As much as I feel the piracy situation warrants very serious attention, up to and including military involvement, the latter would not be my first choice, given the nature and scale of the mission, and the fearsome expenditures (to uneven benefit) it demands. Stepped-up patrolling is helpful and necessary, but maritime laws put suffocating constraints on the Navy's rules of engagement, not to mention the maddening tangle of statutes on the disposition of prisoners. And the geopolitical implications of any direct action against headquarters ashore give me a headache even to contemplate.
It is encouraging, then, to hear of merchant vessels' crews training in countermeasures against pirate pursuit and boarding. They are learning to zig-zag a freighter at flank speed (and so creating dangerous wakes for pursuing speedboats), training with water cannon and long poles, stringing barbed wire across vulnerable spots to repel boarders. They are setting up "panic rooms," provisioned with food and water, and (perhaps most importantly) radio gear. These all make a world of sense and have apparently been hugely successful. Holed-up sailors can call for a patrolling ship, sticking pirates with the choice of waiting for the Navy on a ship they can't operate, or beating a hasty (and trackable) retreat. It's a nice 'force multiplier,' since it gives time for sea-borne assets to reach the scene (which means they don't have to try and be everywhere at once).
Indeed, given the legal complexities involved in arming merchant ships (e.g., many ports won't let ships with unlocked weapons --or any weapons at all-- come in and dock), it would even make sense for small teams of Special Forces operators to make the rounds of merchant vessels, providing training in defeating would-be invaders. Providing SF expertise on everything from passive countermeasures to hand-to-hand combat could in many cases obviate the need for weapons lockers, and make in-theater military assets more effective.
Ultimately, anything that makes the job of pirating more expensive, difficult, and risky is worth doing. If this can be done without so heavily leveraging the (already-stretched) wealth of nations by calling upon their militaries, then so much the better.
So, to the rigging, m'lads!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Blood In The Water
I've been thinking quite a bit about pirates lately. Mainly, I've been hoping that we've not come to a time in which that statement will no longer be funny (AAaarrrr).
First things first. President Obama deserves a definite "attaboy" for this one. End to end, the President appears to me to have handled it spot-on right. He authorized force, but did not appear to try and micro manage on an operational level. Also, he did so on the D-L, and so refrained from complicating the operation by giving it too much focus from the Head of State/Government (drawing derision from some on the Right for focusing on domestic issues, and so appearing to denigrate the seriousness of the unfolding situation). He has also said many of the right things about how the US plans to treat piracy in the days to come.
It's this last part which is so very very crucial, though. As important as it was to treat the Maersk Alabama incident with due seriousness and strength, it is arguably at least as much so to stand strong against piracy at large. These attacks on the lawful conduct of trade on the high seas signify an efflorescence of anarchy which simply cannot be tolerated. It is an assault on the fabric of Civilization itself. I know: sounds a little histrionic. After all, what's a few fire ants to a wildebeast?
Part of why pirates are funny today is that they are so quaint and dated. There's a reason for that. The laws on what do do with pirates in the 18th and 19th centuries made for a lot of stretched necks over those peg legs. Faced with all those laws and guns and ropes, would-be pirates judged it prudent to look to other career options. So, quaint.
Now, what happens when a growing group of people discover that the ropes are gone, and the guns are muzzled under labyrinthine layers of legalisms? What happens when they start making more money on one run than their families had made in many combined generations before them? Suddenly, not so quaint.
People will tend to do what they can get away with, if it serves their ends as they define them. Part of what civilization does is to constrain the "what they can get away with" part. In return, it extends the range of defined ends which people may act to serve. On the whole, folks tend to do pretty well out of the bargain. But successful populations can tend to attract predators. At best, they develop defenses which keep the wolves at bay. At worst...well, pass the horseradish, Elaine.
Quoth Andrew McCarthy:
Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging, wrote Samuel Johnson. Perhaps it is time to revisit this concept. Operating in international waters, and so perceiving and exploiting great huge chasms in the carapace of law enforcement, these marauding parasites are proving all-too adroit in using the timidity and inertia of our civilized societies to their advantage. They are testing the will of those societies, and that will must not be found wanting. These pirates must be interdicted in the act, very harshly punished for the perpetration, and find no safe harbor for the planning and exploitation of their rapine escapades.
We may be able to buy time by attempting to circumvent the corridors which these pirates patrol (though the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean routes are crucial and devilishly difficult [impossible?] to by-pass). But ceding territory (and I'm not just talking about geography here) to opportunistic predators is little more than an invitation for them to take more ground. And they know it.
Whether it is a reluctance to use military force, an aversion to the idea of armed and trained merchant crews, or a porous babble of maritime statutes, we are in danger of setting some very perilous precedents here. If we do not push back against these eruptions of chaos, we simply enrich the medium in which they proliferate. President Obama has been speaking some of the words, and taking some of the actions which indicate that he is aware of the deep connection of this issue and the wider counterinsurgency which we currently wage. I will continue to watch very carefully the ways in which this is handled in the days and months to come.
Let's hope we have more than a bit of the captain in us.
First things first. President Obama deserves a definite "attaboy" for this one. End to end, the President appears to me to have handled it spot-on right. He authorized force, but did not appear to try and micro manage on an operational level. Also, he did so on the D-L, and so refrained from complicating the operation by giving it too much focus from the Head of State/Government (drawing derision from some on the Right for focusing on domestic issues, and so appearing to denigrate the seriousness of the unfolding situation). He has also said many of the right things about how the US plans to treat piracy in the days to come.
It's this last part which is so very very crucial, though. As important as it was to treat the Maersk Alabama incident with due seriousness and strength, it is arguably at least as much so to stand strong against piracy at large. These attacks on the lawful conduct of trade on the high seas signify an efflorescence of anarchy which simply cannot be tolerated. It is an assault on the fabric of Civilization itself. I know: sounds a little histrionic. After all, what's a few fire ants to a wildebeast?
Part of why pirates are funny today is that they are so quaint and dated. There's a reason for that. The laws on what do do with pirates in the 18th and 19th centuries made for a lot of stretched necks over those peg legs. Faced with all those laws and guns and ropes, would-be pirates judged it prudent to look to other career options. So, quaint.
Now, what happens when a growing group of people discover that the ropes are gone, and the guns are muzzled under labyrinthine layers of legalisms? What happens when they start making more money on one run than their families had made in many combined generations before them? Suddenly, not so quaint.
People will tend to do what they can get away with, if it serves their ends as they define them. Part of what civilization does is to constrain the "what they can get away with" part. In return, it extends the range of defined ends which people may act to serve. On the whole, folks tend to do pretty well out of the bargain. But successful populations can tend to attract predators. At best, they develop defenses which keep the wolves at bay. At worst...well, pass the horseradish, Elaine.
Quoth Andrew McCarthy:
“Civilized” is a much-misunderstood word, thanks to the “rule of law” crowd that is making our planet an increasingly dangerous place. Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn’t recede willingly before the wheels of progress.Like the Jihadis or the narco-terrorist, or the garden-variety street sociopaths, Pirates feast on the neglected flanks of the the civilizational beastie. They use its unwieldy bulk to their advantage through brutality and guile. And to the extent to which they perceive vulnerability, they concentrate their efforts with terrifying intensity. I am more than passing concerned that the legal niceties which can make Western Civilization so cushy may also be encouraging the re-emergence of these "atavistic barbarisms." When a group of dinghy-borne yahoos with AK-47s, RPGs, and handguns can command a $20m ransom (which they then split with complicit officials of a rubble-state like Somalia), and face no penalty greater than a jail cell which is better than their homes, and the real prospect of returning to those homes ere long, it's fair to say that their inhibitions will not win the day.
There is nothing less civilized than rewarding evil and thus guaranteeing more of it. High-minded as it is commonly made to sound, it is not civilized to appease evil, to treat it with “dignity and respect,” to rationalize its root causes, to equivocate about whether evil really is evil, and, when all else fails, to ignore it — to purge the very mention of its name — in the vain hope that it will just go away. Evil doesn’t do nuance. It finds you, it tests you, and you either fight it or you’re part of the problem.
Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging, wrote Samuel Johnson. Perhaps it is time to revisit this concept. Operating in international waters, and so perceiving and exploiting great huge chasms in the carapace of law enforcement, these marauding parasites are proving all-too adroit in using the timidity and inertia of our civilized societies to their advantage. They are testing the will of those societies, and that will must not be found wanting. These pirates must be interdicted in the act, very harshly punished for the perpetration, and find no safe harbor for the planning and exploitation of their rapine escapades.
We may be able to buy time by attempting to circumvent the corridors which these pirates patrol (though the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean routes are crucial and devilishly difficult [impossible?] to by-pass). But ceding territory (and I'm not just talking about geography here) to opportunistic predators is little more than an invitation for them to take more ground. And they know it.
Whether it is a reluctance to use military force, an aversion to the idea of armed and trained merchant crews, or a porous babble of maritime statutes, we are in danger of setting some very perilous precedents here. If we do not push back against these eruptions of chaos, we simply enrich the medium in which they proliferate. President Obama has been speaking some of the words, and taking some of the actions which indicate that he is aware of the deep connection of this issue and the wider counterinsurgency which we currently wage. I will continue to watch very carefully the ways in which this is handled in the days and months to come.
Let's hope we have more than a bit of the captain in us.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Exam Week (UPDATED)
And the Global Tests keep on coming.
In addition to the Iranian bluster, the North Koreans' big splashes, Russia's rearmament plans, and a host of others, we can now add this to the growing pile of gauntlets at President Obama's feet. The fact that these Somali pirates have now seized an American-flagged merchant vessel could be a game-changer in the US' response to these on-going challenges to the lawful conduct of trade on the high seas. It could create just the opportunity to deploy the considerable resources of the US' intelligence-gathering and other tactical capabilities to a degree which might not have been justified when it was other nations' ships which were getting jacked (though I personally feel that such justification has existed all along, since it is in the US' interests to protect trade, even if it is not its own vessels which are involved...yes, Mike, I know you don't agree with this!).
The way to pass this test is to assemble a Delta or DEVGRU team, gather real-time intel about the status of the vessel and its assailants and captives, and strike, hard and fast, while the iron is hot. Ideally, this would be followed by gathering and swiftly acting on the products of interrogation of any pirates who survive the engagement, and striking at the base from which these brigands operate. Longer term, dummy merchant vessels (or real merchants, with SF operators on board) should randomly ply these waterways, with satellite and (armed) UAV support. That would put a badly-needed caution to these miscreants, and show the world that the USN is anything but a paper boat.
I await any evidence that the current Administration possesses the vertebrae for this.
Maybe Obama will manage to Sparknote this one in time to seem less of a doormat (you know, those things on which people wipe their shoes...which is a damn sight worse than having them thrown at you).
UPDATE: Well, that was quick! Looks like the military didn't need to get involved in this one at all. Instead, it appears that a bold and alert crew saw and seized an opportunity to re-take their vessel. If indeed one of these pirates is in custody, then this was a very bad day for their ilk (I expect counterinterrogation training is not high on the list of skill sets for these jagoffs).
Bravo to the valiant crew of the Maersk Alabama!
UPDATE 2: This article from the CSM nicely lays out the issues and the stakes with regard to this incident. Meanwhile, my thoughts go out for the speedy return of the good captain.
In addition to the Iranian bluster, the North Koreans' big splashes, Russia's rearmament plans, and a host of others, we can now add this to the growing pile of gauntlets at President Obama's feet. The fact that these Somali pirates have now seized an American-flagged merchant vessel could be a game-changer in the US' response to these on-going challenges to the lawful conduct of trade on the high seas. It could create just the opportunity to deploy the considerable resources of the US' intelligence-gathering and other tactical capabilities to a degree which might not have been justified when it was other nations' ships which were getting jacked (though I personally feel that such justification has existed all along, since it is in the US' interests to protect trade, even if it is not its own vessels which are involved...yes, Mike, I know you don't agree with this!).
The way to pass this test is to assemble a Delta or DEVGRU team, gather real-time intel about the status of the vessel and its assailants and captives, and strike, hard and fast, while the iron is hot. Ideally, this would be followed by gathering and swiftly acting on the products of interrogation of any pirates who survive the engagement, and striking at the base from which these brigands operate. Longer term, dummy merchant vessels (or real merchants, with SF operators on board) should randomly ply these waterways, with satellite and (armed) UAV support. That would put a badly-needed caution to these miscreants, and show the world that the USN is anything but a paper boat.
I await any evidence that the current Administration possesses the vertebrae for this.
Maybe Obama will manage to Sparknote this one in time to seem less of a doormat (you know, those things on which people wipe their shoes...which is a damn sight worse than having them thrown at you).
UPDATE: Well, that was quick! Looks like the military didn't need to get involved in this one at all. Instead, it appears that a bold and alert crew saw and seized an opportunity to re-take their vessel. If indeed one of these pirates is in custody, then this was a very bad day for their ilk (I expect counterinterrogation training is not high on the list of skill sets for these jagoffs).
Bravo to the valiant crew of the Maersk Alabama!
UPDATE 2: This article from the CSM nicely lays out the issues and the stakes with regard to this incident. Meanwhile, my thoughts go out for the speedy return of the good captain.
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