NATO seizes captured ship but frees the pirates

Yesterday Dutch commandos freed 20 fishermen whose vessel was hijacked by Somali pirates and used to launch an attack against a tanker in the Gulf of Aden. They seized weapons but let the pirates go. According to a NATO spokesman, the pirates were set free because NATO does not have a maritime detainment policy, meaning Dutch national law would apply in this case. "The Dutch force can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands, the victims are from the Netherlands, or if they are in Netherlands waters." US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently unveiled a plan to tackle piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off Somalia. Too bad she didn't include NATO in the process. This just goes to show that despite an official NATO mission there is yet to be any type of integrated planning. Until this happens the whole multi-national flotilla will be about as effective in deterring pirates as the US Border Patrol is in stemming illegal immigration - no disrespect to the Border Patrol. The international law is in place, forces are in place, but the planning and coordination is missing. It raises questions if the will is really there. As a military planner and former commander, I can assure you the quickest way to fail in any operation is to short change planning. I feel for the troops sent on this fools errand without the authorization to act decisively and responsibly.

Pirates you say?

Pirates have been around as long as we have been traveling on rivers and seas. Like slavery, piracy is an economic driven enterprise that thrives in areas that have little to no state presence or has a state sponsor who see their activities as both profitable and politically expedient. The naval flotillas plying the waters off the Horn of Africa will have no significant effect on curbing piracy. There are too many ships to escort, too wide an area to patrol and too few armed assets to do the job. Arming cargo ships will run into legal, liability, and safety issues. It also will be minimally effective considering the income made at pirating. Arming cargo ships will likely result in only a stalemate and an arms race between the pirates and commercial ships. Think about the drug trade and the international success to suppress it in areas where there is little stability or law enforcement. To end piracy in the Red and Arabian seas will require draining the swamps in the geographic territory known as Somalia. That will entail more than just going ashore and burning out a few pirate dens. There is big money in it for the locals and unless you establish security followed by a viable economy they will spring back about as fast as you can get out of port. Good news is that the skills and talent for nation building, and that is what we are talking about, are well known and available. Bad news is that it will take at least a decade and tens of billions to do it and no one wants to foot the bill or contribute the forces. The ship owners are content to limit the liability by insuring their ships and cargo's. The insurance company are willing, at least at the moment, to endure the losses. When the pirating goes beyond the tolerance level of either the ship owners or insurance companies then some action will take place. There are only two tried and true methods for dealing with piracy and it is not arming merchant ships. Both methods have been used with varying degrees of success by nations around the world, including the US, for millennia. More to follow.