A bit over a week ago, French naval special forces cherry-picked the crew of a Somali pirate vessel from their base after the hostages of the luxury yacht Le Ponant. You can read about the story here. Now said pirates are on their way to trial in France, which means, of course, it’s not too late to screw things up.
Piracy is undoubtedly one of the world’s oldest professions (if not as old as prostitution), as old as water-born trade. It has been making a comeback in a big way over the last decade or so. Given the sheer amount of ship traffic these days—especially with containerization, which has reduced the size of merchant crews—it makes sense. Right now the big area of piracy is around the Horn of Africa, an area that sees lots of ship traffic. This, too is predictable. The Horn has been a lawless place for a few decades now and piracy thrives in places where there are many young men with lots of guns with nothing else to do except pilfer from the ships off shore. In other words, it’s the nautical version of crime anywhere else. More traffic, unemployed young men, and no law leads to more piracy. The Horn has had issues with this recently. For example, the cruise ship that was hit by an RPG from a pirate vessel in 2005.
The big, blue water navy—descendants of the careerist battleship admirals of old—isn’t what’s needed for anti-piracy patrol, though as the French raid shows, blue water ships such as the aircraft carrier Jeanne d’Arc are helpful for making brown water and coastal operations possible. Modern pirates, like old ones, often use stealth and smaller vessels. The Somali pirates are somewhat extreme in this regard as they often engage in daylight raids and are heavily armed, but even so, they’re using relatively small vessels and infantry weapons.
Because the military can’t always be there, anti-pirate tactics and devices make sense for civilian ships: Speeding up is a good one, as is staying away from coastal waters in areas where pirates are known to frequent. Various non-lethal (or less-than-lethal) weapons such as the LRAD have also been in development, though such things always seem to have more promise than they deliver. So it makes sense to make harder targets. However, it’s not always possible. Sometimes you have to slow down, e.g., in the Straits of Malacca, which is one of the most heavily traveled waterways in the world, and, until recently, overrun with pirates, until the local governments (Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore) decided to put their own quarrels on pause and get serious with the pirates.
If you ask me, the most visceral solution is old school: A push in the water after which the proper authorities will take care of the cleanup. They won’t even charge a penny of taxpayer dollars for the service! If you feel this is too old school, machine gun bullets first add a bit of metallic piquancy and crunch. I don’t think the proper authorities are all that discriminating.
The UK, however, has really jumped the shark, deciding that pirates might well be good asylum candidates! The Royal Navy had a long tradition of piracy suppression. In fact, the “classic” era of “arr, matey” Long John Silver piracy was brought to an end in the 18th Century by the anti-piracy patrols of the Royal Navy. Piracy is, after all, not good for business. The Barbary Pirates (this is the “shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Corps’ Hymn) were finished off by the US Navy and Marine Corps in some of their earliest engagements precisely because of the loss of Royal Navy protection after the Revolution. Now, the UK seems to be willing to offer asylum to pirates. Whoever is responsible for this policy—I’m sure it’s being foisted on the RN by someone else—needs to be sent to an asylum. Hearts of Pulp, indeed. Of course, perhaps Britain is simply waxing nostalgic for the piratical past of Hawkins and Drake, in effect looking wistfully on the early history of the Royal Navy rather than the glory days of Nelson?
In sum: Vive La France! Special forces were used for what they do best, bad guys got bagged, and collateral damage was kept to a minimum. Unlike the bangers-and-mash eating surrender orangutans in London these days, Sarko’s brass monkey seems to have some balls.
April 29, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I have to say, I’m not generally a huge booster of the French, as MPA knows, but their reaction here was pretty much spot on.
Well, paying the ransom was unfortunate. (Though if it was part of the plan and they simply failed to recover all of it due to error, that’s much more forgivable!)
But bagging the pirates and hauling them off to trial—that’s excellent. Of course, an even better solution would have been to turn them over to the newly minted Somali government, both as a test of their commitment and because I’m pretty sure the punishment for piracy there is nasty, brutish, and short…
But, they are Europeans, so I congratulate them for simply making the effort—well above the expected norm, represented by the pathetic British policy.
April 29, 2008 at 3:23 pm
AOC wrote:
I have to say, I’m not generally a huge booster of the French, as MPA knows….
Indeed, why do you think I wrote the rant? 🙂
Well, paying the ransom was unfortunate. (Though if it was part of the plan and they simply failed to recover all of it due to error, that’s much more forgivable!)
The ransom was paid by the shipowners. Also note: Most of the crew weren’t even French.
As to turning the pirates over to the Somalis, that’s very much the problem in general. Often said individuals have connections with their own government and simply “disappear.” IMO that’s the big argument for turning the pirates over to the proper authorities….
There was a very nice article on this topic a few years back by the journalist William Langewiesche in The Atlantic. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s available on the web page. It seems he wrote a book on the topic, however:
Langewiesche, William (2004). The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime. New York: North Point Press.
April 29, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’d have agreed with you about the Somalis a few short months ago. But I think the new government, whatever its faults, is making a real effort to establish the rule of law, if for no other reason than to keep the aid flowing as it battles the recently deposed Islamic courts.
Hence my suggestion, as it gives the new government a moment to shine, and gives the remaining pirates something to think about long and hard…without forcing the French to do the distasteful deed.
April 29, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Ah, yeah actually one of the linked to posts says that Joe Average Somali is pretty damn sick of the pirates, too. So you’re right, it would have been a good opportunity. Of course, it’s not too late. Paris could well be negotiating with the Somalis to hand said pirates back for special treatment.
March 20, 2009 at 6:23 pm
[…] quite a year ago I waxed slightly poetic about the French Navy’s qualities in the Le Ponant mission. If you recall, this was the […]