There has been a surge in piracy lately and because of it Somali growth rates are higher than ever :P

Piracy has been a millenia old problem but, till the latest surge it was largely confined in SE Asia and with rather primitive methods.

Now it seems that the Somali Pirates have established a multi million dollar business and I wouldnt be surprised if they use some of their ransom funds to equip their ships with enough juice to combat small-medium army vessels.

Recently a Saudi owned tanker with 100m worth of oil was captured. Today I also read that a greek-interests cargo ship was captured with 25 people on board.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7736885.stm

I am concerned that soon the situation will get out of control, other semi-failed states will get their own pirate fleets and, as I mentioned before, their technology will improve.

It seems to be that the international effort to control the problem is limited, disjointed, without real puprose and full of disagreements. Many countries have ships and troops there but noone says 'Lets do something'. All this presence does not seem to be doing anything since the pirates are getting even bolder.

I for once would like to see a couple greek frigates going down there and kicking some ass because the shipping industry is the lifeblood of our economy


I am not sure how to solve this problems but I would prpose:

a) Something not many people know is that Insurance companies offer Kidnap and Ransom policies. Consequently it is very easy for companies to call on these policies to pay. As a result they do not pressure the governments as much as they would if they would have to cough up all the money in one go. Such policies should be reduced.

b) A real Nato-like joint force with Land Support . The pirates work as a beehive and the current effort is just chasing the bees ( the small pirate ships) away. To kill a beehive you need to strike at it and not the bees. Generaly an argument such as ' If you dont release the ship we will flatten your pirate port to the ground' works better. U need to arrest the Pirate lords, capture the ports and destroy their infrastructure to succeed.

Some spec-ops operations to kill a few pirate lords should work quite well too

c) The Somali government is incapable of acting and is largely restricted to Mogadishu nowadays. Maybe we should give the Islamists a chance since they showed in the past that they have the military muscle to handle things. Sure they ll chop of a few heads and will stone a few rape victims to death but we westerners are happily allied with other countries that follow such lovely customs (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan etc). Its not ideal, its not moral, but its practical.

My two eurocents...