Tag Archives: Counter-Piracy

Strategic Outlook

More Mahan and Corbett

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The Battle of the Nile, 1798

In my last post I criticized those who overemphasize the size of a fleet as a measure of its operational effectiveness, using the historical example of the Royal Navy’s fleet modernization efforts prior to the First World War.  I did not offer any alternate criteria by which to judge what an optimally sized U.S. Navy would look like.  With discussions of what insights turn-of-the-century theorists such as Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Corbett would have on modern maritime strategy so popular right now, however, I thought there might be value to apply their models of sea power to evaluate the composition of today’s U.S. Navy.

Responding to a critique that the current fleet is the smallest it has been since 1917, Under-Secretary of the Navy Robert Work noted that the ability of the current fleet to accomplish its missions is as great as it has ever been, arguing that at a century ago “we didn’t have any airplanes in the fleet.  We didn’t have any unmanned systems.  We didn’t have Tomahawk cruise missiles.”

Critics of what they perceive as a too-small fleet claim that quantity is important because “presence” is necessary for command of the sea.  On its face this is logical, as without enough combat power at the right spot and right time, victory is impossible.  Having more ships makes it theoretically possible to concentrate a larger force at the decisive point, as well as providing more resources in more places to deter against the enemy, wherever they may be.  The only restriction in a navy’s ability to provide presence is the amount of resources that a state has at its disposal.

Mahan was opposed to any notion of presence itself providing any particular utility, expressing a preference for offensive fleet action, even when that end was accomplished by a fleet inferior in total size to that of its foes.  His optimal navy was “equal in number and superior in efficiency” to its enemies at the decisive point within “a limited field of action,” not necessarily everywhere.  It protected national interests “by offensive action against the fleet, in which it sees their real enemy and its own principal objective.”  Mahan would have not approved of an emphasis on presence as an objective, for his description of the undesirable alternative to his above strategy was one which requires the “superior numbers” needed to provide “superiority everywhere to the force of the enemy actually opposed, as the latter may be unexpectedly reinforced.”  Trying to outnumber the enemy everywhere at sea is an impossible end state in any situation in which a pair of opponents have remotely comparable resources upon which to draw.

Corbett’s view of sea power is more compatible with the notion that presence is important.  Corbett felt that what he called “Command of the Sea” was “normally in dispute” and that the most common state in maritime conflict was that of “an uncommanded sea.”  In that context, presence in terms of more ships means that a navy can employ its forces in more places, with command thus achieved.  It would be easier to achieve this state of command through presence in asymmetrical situations in which the smaller force is overmatched both in terms of quantity and quality.

War at sea often revolves around two factors: the ability to locate the enemy, and the ability to employ decisive force against the enemy first.  Until navies began to use aircraft in the early twentieth century, the only way to locate an enemy fleet was to actually see it from onboard ship (or ashore).  Until the introduction of wireless communications, the ability to pass any intelligence thus derived was also restricted to line-of-sight or the speed of a ship.  Mahan noted the difficulty to locate and track a fleet when he said that they “move through a desert over which waters flit, but where they do not remain.”

By having more ships (assuming they effectively employed them), a navy would theoretically have a better chance to locate the enemy on favorable terms.  Nelson could sail across the Atlantic (and back again) and around the Mediterranean without finding the French fleet because his “sensors” were limited to the visual range of his fleet.  The conflict between the German and British navies during the First World War was largely one in which the two fleets were unable to achieve their tactical objectives because they could not find each other (at least under tactically favorable circumstances).  In a more modern example, the American victory at Midway was made possible by SIGINT.  Because the US Navy knew that the Japanese intended to attack Midway, its fleet was placed in a position where they were more likely to find the Japanese first (even then however, each fleet was limited in their ability to locate the enemy to the range of their aircraft).

A smaller fleet which is enabled in its ability to project combat power over a larger area through technology to engage the enemy on its own terms would seem to be just as important as a large fleet.  Today’s U.S. Navy, with access to a historically unprecedented web of information made possible by sensors and surveillance assets in the air, on the surface and under the water, has the ability to win battles against a capable enemy because those sensors mean it can deliver ordnance against enemy targets first.  However, one of the more astute criticisms of Under-Secretary Work’s defense of the current fleet size is that it only works in war, not other situations in which it is not clear “whether replacing ships with aircraft is a legitimate approach towards maritime battlespaces in peacetime when that same effort has been largely ineffective dealing with other low intensity maritime problems like narcotics and piracy.” 

The debate over presence revolves around strategy and objectives, and whether the size and composition of a fleet matches up with those objectives.  If the U.S. maritime objective is the ability to operate at sea in any contested theater, then having a sensor-enabled battle force in which surveillance assets make decisive action possible before the enemy can act is more important than surface presence in terms of many ships.  Conversely, if the most important objective is to provide maritime security against illicit actors such as pirates or drug smugglers, then presence is more important.  As the linked post above from Galrahn notes, a UAV can enable kinetic offensive operations from another platform located far away, but it cannot board a suspect vessel and detain the crew.

The debate between the advocates of presence and a high-end battle force is actually one over the relative importance of the Maritime Security and Sea Control missions, and the resources devoted to each at the expense of the other.  Unfortunately, without a crystal ball, there is not a straightforward answer as to which is the more necessary one for the US Navy to conduct.

Lieutenant Commander Mark Munson is a Naval Intelligence Officer and currently serves on the OPNAV staff. He has previously served at Naval Special Warfare Group FOUR, the Office of Naval Intelligence and onboard USS ESSEX (LHD 2). The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official viewpoints or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Current Operations

Shore-based Counter-Piracy in Peril

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Who will keep the lights on?

Just as independent analysts and pirates themselves attest to the impact the Puntland Marine Police Force is having on piracy in northern Somalia, pushing bosses from their bases and offering a shore-based solution nearly everyone says is needed, Robert Young Pelton of Somalia Report details the program’s backers, the UAE, has suddenly halted funding (h/t James Bridger):

Around one hundred mostly African and South African expats and their approximately 800 Somali Marines of the Puntland Marine Police Force (PMPF) were left stranded with no cash for food, fuel or salaries.

Back at the PMPF base, just west of Bosaso airport, there now sits millions of dollars in heavy construction equipment, fixed and rotary wing aircraft, ocean-going ships, RHIBs, heavy transport trucks and 4X4 vehicles that suddenly became idle.

This calls into question the plateau in pirate attacks in the first half of the year from the north of the country, as gains on the ground might be reversed with a let up in pressure. According to Somalia Report‘s article, the decision may have come as a result of pressure from the UN which has been critical of the program. Read the full article for speculation on the program’s future.

 

The announcement also comes on the heels of a report on the human cost of piracy by Oceans Beyond Piracy with a telling rundown of numbers. The following analysis is from gCaptain:

The report found that a total of 3,863 seafarers were fired upon by Somali pirates, down 8% from 2010.  Of those, 968 came in close contact with armed pirates who were able to board their vessels and a total of 413 of them were rescued from citadels by naval forces.

 

A standout number in the report was that the number of seafarers taken hostage in 2011 dropped by 50% with a total of 555, most likely driven by increased security measures taken by crews including the use of  armed.  In 2010 a total of 1,090 had been taken hostage.

 

The report adds that a total of at least 1,206 hostages were held captive by Somali pirates in 2011, including the 555 seafarers who fell victim during 2011, 645 who were captured in 2010 and remained captive in 2011, and 6 tourists and aid workers kidnapped on land.  The report estimates that the average length of captivity was over 8 months, up 50% over 2010.

 

Tragically, 35 hostages died during 2011 including; 8 who were killed by pirates during an initial attack or after being taken captive; 8 died from disease or malnutrition while being held; and 19 died in crossfire while being used as human shields and during hostage rescue attempts.  Another 3 hostages died after release as a result of abuse they had suffered while in captivity.

 

In contrast, it is estimated that 111 pirates were killed in 2011 with 78 killed as a result of encounters with naval forces, 30 killed by fellow pirates, and 3 by Puntland police.

 

LT Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founding director of the Center for International Maritime Security and holds a master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College.
 
The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy. 

 

Strategic Outlook

Towards an Enduring Counter-Piracy Partnership: Prospects for NATO-AU Cooperation

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This is the first guest post from our new affiliate, the Atlantic Council of Canada. This post originally ran on the Atlantic Council of Canada website on 06 Mar 12. 

By James Marcus Bridger

The newly created Puntland Marine Police Force undergoes training

One would be hard pressed to find an article analyzing Somali piracy—be it journalistic, academic, or militarily focused—that does not make the claim that this maritime problem can only be solved on land. In the four years that the international community has attempted to address this crisis, however, a coherent and coordinated onshore strategy has yet to emerge. The development of indigenous counter-piracy capacity in the affected states of the East African seaboard has, despite rhetoric to the contrary, received scant attention from donor states.  Authorities in the epicentres of Somali piracy—the autonomous states of Puntland and Galmudug—have largely been left to fend for themselves. Mistakenly, the international response to Somali piracy remains blinded by a military-centric focus on naval shows of force.

An American think-tank project, The Oceans Beyond Piracy report, calculated the total annual cost of counter-piracy military operations to be $1.27-billion USD. Using the same methodology, the annual operating cost of NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield has been placed at $293-million, while a figure of $450-million has been given for the EU’s Operation Atalanta. While both of these missions have been extended to the end of 2012, it is unlikely they will be able to continue indefinitely in an age of fiscal austerity and military cutbacks. Economic constraints have already forced the number of ships deployed to Operation Atalanta to fall “below the red line” of a six vessel deployment, according to EU Military Committee chairman, Hakan Syren. NATO was similarly forced to divert naval resources away from the Horn of Africa when they were need for operations off the coast of Libya. There is also the danger that naval efforts may fall victim to their own success: a drop in incidences of piracy may cause a scaled down naval presence, but as the pirate structures onshore would remain intact, the gangs would only have to wait for coalition forces to withdraw before returning to sea.

A sustainable solution to the piracy crisis therefore requires a coordinated strategy tailored to address the root causes that allowed the practice to take hold in Somalia’s pirate-prone states and flourish in the wider region. The explosion of piracy first witnessed in 2008 has been attributed to the decline of local institutions in the autonomous state of Puntland, particularly its inability to pay its once-effective police and coastguard forces. As security in Puntland has improved over the last two years, the piracy nexus has shifted south to the weaker sub-state of Galmudug. Offshore, the pirates have been able to expand the scope of their operations from the mouth of the Red Sea to the Mozambique Channel due to the underdeveloped maritime security capacity of regional states. As piracy expert Martin Murphy notes, effective policing at sea requires “boats well equipped with radar, communications, well trained and honest crews … shore based command and control facilities … reliable intelligence about pirate activity [and] air support and surveillance”, all measures which are prohibitively expensive for the developing states in the region to implement.

Part of the mandate of NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield is to “facilitate and support the development of regional states’ capacity to conduct effective counter-piracy operations.” In practice however, capacity building has accounted for only a fraction of Ocean Shield’s budget and has not been conducted through any centralized organ. Two possible channels—the Djibouti Code of Conduct and the UN’s Somali Trust Fund—received only a combined total of $5.95-million in international assistance in 2011, a fraction of the amount spent on military operations.

Towards an enduring counter-piracy partnership

If Somali piracy is to be combated in a sustainable manner, it is imperative that NATO—in conjunction with partner states and organizations—begin shifting resources away from a military-centric counter-piracy strategy and towards a program for regional maritime security capacity building that enables regional authorities to meet the challenges of piracy by themselves in the long-term.

While a number of channels for capacity building have been created, a report by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs recognizes that, “there is no single coherent strategy for building coast guard capacity in the maritime area, and no comprehensive framework for the efforts.” In order to rectify this problem, NATO and the African Union (AU)—working through regional sub-bodies—should establish a new “Maritime Security Dialogue.” When attempting to lay the foundation for a joint capacity building program there are five main areas that need to be considered: regional naval cooperation, equipment and vessel procurement, training, intelligence coordination, and engagement with Somalia’s autonomous units.

While ships assigned to Operation Ocean Shield have already made a number of port visits to African partner nations, it is advised that NATO deepen this engagement by conducting more joint counter-piracy exercises with regional players, particularly those that fall outside of the current international patrol areas. In order to increase the indigenous capacity of regional states, NATO members should consider donating vessels and equipment that is ready to be decommissioned. Given that the pirate gangs are often better equipped than regional coastguards, it is also advisable that boats and navigation equipment seized from pirates be turned over to regional authorities, rather than destroyed as is commonly the case.

NATO is comprised of the most highly trained and specialized maritime forces in the world and it is imperative that this expertise be offered to the regional states that will become the bulwark against piracy when the international flotilla eventually departs. While individual NATO members have engaged in bilateral training programs, it is in the interest of regional cooperation and interoperability that a common training center be established, perhaps building on existing programs in Djibouti or Nairobi.

In order to tackle piracy and other maritime crimes in a more informed and coordinated manner, East Africa requires a headquarters that functions as an intelligence sharing and reporting center. Given the role that members of the Somali diaspora play in raising capital for pirate ventures, intelligence sharing is particularly pertinent to the tracking and prosecution of pirate financiers.

Expansion of pirate operations between 2005 and 2011

A committed international engagement with Somalia’s autonomous regions—primarily Somaliland, Puntland, and Galmudug—is the most important aspect of a long-term counter-piracy policy. While it is imperative that NATO and its members do not interfere with the process of political reconciliation currently underway in Somalia, it is crucial that these sub-state units are treated as autonomous actors within the Maritime Security Dialogue, as it is currently not possible to build a national Somali coastguard in the absence of an effective central government.

NATO and other foreign actors have traditionally been reluctant to engage local institutions, as it was feared that they were corrupt and infiltrated by pirates. However, this situation has changed dramatically in recent years, as the government of Puntland has arrested and imprisoned more pirates than any other nation. The newly created (and largely self-financed) Puntland Marine Police Force (PMPF) has recently launched raids against the pirate hubs of Eyl, Garacad, and Bayla. Given that it can take up to seven hours to reach pirate beach camps from the PMPF’s garrisons, Puntland’s counter-piracy efforts would be much more effective if NATO donor nations provided all-terrain vehicles and funded the development of roads, radar stations, and other forms of basic infrastructure. Jay Bahadur, one of the few Western journalists to spend significant time in Puntland, has also recommended that NATO and other foreign partners help fund the PMPF and other local police services. Local intelligence networks could also be improved simply by providing coastal communities with cell phones and establishing an anti-piracy tip line that would provide modest rewards for information about the activities of pirate gangs.

The benefits of a better way forward

In order to bring an end to Somali piracy, NATO and its partners will have to work more closely with the AU and its member states to build up indigenous maritime security capacity both within Somalia’s autonomous states and the wider region. While relations between the AU and NATO have been strained and mutually suspicious at times, counter-piracy capacity building offers a unique opportunity to build a more trusting and cooperative relationship between the two organizations. Aside from mitigating the financial and human costs of piracy, the recommendations outlined above should also serve to increase regional integration, deter and disrupt other types of maritime crime, and bring a plethora of economic benefits to the region.

NATO and its partner organizations have recognized that indigenous maritime security capacity building offers the only sustainable solution to the piracy crisis, but there appears be a lack of institutional will to change course. At present, NATO’s partnership policy does not cover funding or equipment procurement, and this will have to be modified to make capacity building truly successful. Capacity building will require significant initial investments, making it imperative that bilateral donors coordinate their efforts with other members of the Alliance and synergise their efforts with international organizations such as the EU and UN. If the international community is successfully able to change course, NATO, the AU and the wider world will reap the benefits of a more effective counter-piracy policy long after the bandits have been driven from the sea.

James Marcus Bridger serves as a Content Editor and Senior Research Analyst with the Atlantic Council of Canada as part of the Department of National Defence’s Security and Defence Forum Program. He holds a MA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, where he specialized in International Relations. James’ current research focuses on issues of African and maritime security.

Any views or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and the news agencies and do not necessarily represent those of the Atlantic Council of Canada. This article is published for information purposes only.

Capability Analysis, Current Operations

The Counter-Piracy Failure: Andromeda Strain

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We Won but We Failed: What We Should Learn

Quicker to learn?


In Andromeda Strain, the scientists of the Wildfire Team struggled against their pathogen foe, (spoiler alert) only to have their problems solved by circumstance and environment. An entire plot was written about a crisis team that, in the end, accomplished nothing. East African piracy, while by no means eradicated, looks perhaps to have peaked, and public interest waning possibly even faster. Sure, the Maersk Texas was attacked in May, but this single blip on the radar is a paltry show compared to the still-notable number of small-boat attacks off the coast of India, yacht abductions, and beach resort kidnappings.

Unfortunately, after almost a decade of engagement, the West’s maritime Wildfire team has had almost no hand in the changes on the high seas. A series of military incursions by neighbors, newfound vigor in the AU mission, and rise of PMC’s at sea have changed the state of play and cut the mission short, leaving a real possibility for naval leadership to miss the lessons learned from their recent miscalculations.

As the counter-piracy mission is fresh in our minds and before the threat fades into the jaws of vengeful regional militaries, we should use the opportunity to recognize and assess our failures as a force in countering piracy on the high seas.

The West Reacts to the Pathogen

In scope, the naval response to the threat of piracy appeared robust. Dozens of warships plied the waters in search of high-seas bandits. Area patrols ran alongside convoy escorts. Several multi-national coalitions (NATO, U.S.-led Combined Military Forces, the EU) ran operations concurrently with the independent efforts of ten or more countries at any one time. The Indian navy recently captured a stunning 61 pirates after a pitched gun battle. Over 20 nations now meet for the annual Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) conference to build a united front against piracy. Maritime Patrol Aircraft and UAVs from multiple nations surveil the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC), pirate anchorages, and the open ocean. There was a reasonable expectation that such a massive military drag net might stymie piracy. However, the result was a better skilled and better organized pirate. As Napoleon said, “You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.”

Piracy’s Adaptation and Resistance

Until military action ashore cut short the party, coastal raids with small skiffs developed into multi-million dollar kidnapping operations with captured tankers converted to motherships. Pirates used UHF communications, skilled hostage negotiators, and money changers in Dubai. Merchants deactivated their automatic identification system (AIS), a system used for vessel safety during the height of piracy around the Straits of Malacca, as pirates at large used it as a homing beacon. Pirates adapted to the law-enforcement rules of engagement used by the respective patrolling navies, hiding or disposing of all pirate paraphernalia and making it next-to-impossible for maritime enforcers to get the convictions occasionally sought. Many pirates moved to new areas altogether, shifting operations away from patrols and avoiding the range of immediate military responses.

The focus of piracy shifted from capturing cargo to capturing people. Kidnapping was the name of the game. Due to an inability to enforce arrangements, some companies paid full ransom for captured employees and only received a fraction of their personnel in return. EUNAVFOR even reported more brazen tactics of avoiding capture, namely the threatened and actual torture of hostages.

This adaptation, combined with the lack of political stability, created threats beyond endangering global commerce. With Al-Qaeda operating in Somalia next to Al-Shabab, endless opportunities presented themselves for terrorist networks to simply generate profits through partnership or create havoc with vessels purchased from pirates. Rather than siphon off fuel for profits, the pirates could sell a vessel wholesale to terrorists who could use the vessel as a massive explosive in a civilian port, blockage in the mouth of a harbor, or a suicide battering ram against an unsuspecting warship. Capture-and-switch tactics with maritime commercial vehicles had precedent; the 1998 hijacking of the Petro Ranger being a case in point. It only takes a savvy pirate with the right connections to profit from the sale of hijacked tankers for acts of terrorism. Piracy is a crime of opportunity, and human beings are always good at finding new ones.

Breaking the Sea-Shore Learning Cycle

The key to breaking the adaptation puzzle is to boost the intensity of the counter-piracy dosage. One can have the best weapons in the world, but it won’t matter unless the operational concept is correct. The U.S. was weak on piracy, an inch-deep mile-wide river. Pirates waded easily across to tell their compatriots what they’d seen, creating a deadly sea-to-shore innovation cycle that improved pirate learning. This must be solved through more vigorous piracy prosecution, more aggressive rules of engagement (ROE)/posture, and a shore kinetic solution.

Instead, the U.S. released many captured pirates back into Somalia, only prosecuting those that attacked the rare U.S. flagged vessel. The idea behind this policy is that piracy is a crime, not a national security issue. If the vessel’s flag would not prosecute, there could be no trial or detention. Piracy is however very much a national security issue – not only does it drive up the cost of shipping and goods, but pulls mission-ready forces from other duties to keep the costs from rising higher. Sailors deployed to counter-piracy missions can attest to lengthy force protection details off the coast during RHIB transfers of detainees to shore. These temporary detentions were a waste of time and money, punishing piracy with nothing more than a few days in the ship’s center-line passageway with three squares meals and regular washes. The idea that pirates “learned” something from their capture was correct. The lesson was that they likely would survive encounters with U.S. warships and be returned to their anchorages. At the very least, more suspected vessels should have been diverted and escorted to ports where their hulls, cargo, and crew could be inspected and held if necessary. U.S. tactics involving capture had little meaning without a resolution other than emancipation. At worst, such impotent gestures actively undermined the authority of the U.S. presence.

Actions Louder than Words

These operations would have been aided by more lenient ROE and a higher level of aggressiveness in the U.S. posture toward piracy. This is a complicated subject as the rules were designed to maximize legitimacy and minimize controversy and liability. It is frustrating to read message traffic insisting on defining pirates clearly caught in the act as “suspected.” Pirates, when positively identified, are hailed and warned, but rarely destroyed. A comical irony is that an escort for a pirated vessel provides, if anything, little more than military protection for the pirates on the vessel.

Better ROE would be more aggressive, allowing the engagement and destruction of vessels with known associations to piracy. Once the chance to surrender is given, threats must be made good. To counter the use of human shields, a counter-offer must be made to pirates. The normal method, as I witnessed it, is that U.S. warships hail pirate vessels, occasionally fire warning shots, then are deterred by the presence of human shields or pirate threats to kill their hostages.

Ending Incentivization

Just as the U.S. has a standing policy not to negotiate with terrorists, the same should be clearly applied to pirates: remove the incentive to use hostages. Piracy is not about ideologies, but competing costs and benefits. The U.S. concept of operations places far too much stake on the presence of hostages, further imperiling mariners by encouraging their capture. Military policy should make hostage-taking and the use of human shields a non-factor. If uncooperative, all pirate vessels should be engaged with disabling or destructive fire. Rather than reducing the equation to capture or an escape with hostages, warships should amend the options: capture or death. If hostages are used as shields or threatened with death, the pirates should understand that they only further endanger their own lives by risking lethal retaliation. If hostages are killed by pirates, the responsibility lies with the pirates, not with the military endeavoring to save them. This is an unpleasant idea, but kinetic operations of this kind can rarely be conducted without at least a trace of regrettable collateral damage. Military planners should recognize this unfortunate inevitability and pursue the larger goal of protecting future mariners and an entire region’s stability.

Not Just the Sea

One development that did prove effective was stationing warships at pirate anchorages. This led to a better picture of piracy operations, their frequency, and capabilities. However, partially due to the presence of hostages, the infrastructure remained largely undisturbed. From only a few miles off the coast, a swath of defenseless pirate infrastructure was often in view of my own vessel. I remember SUVs brazenly shadowing us along the shore as we maneuvered close to the land. Small vessels were clearly visible transiting to and from shore with supplies for anchored pirated vessels. Pirate skiffs were propped up in clusters above the tide near supply shacks and rows of vehicles. Pirates came to rely on these facilities to coordinate their operations at sea while simultaneously maintaining a large stable of captured vessels and hostages. With rare exception, these shores were left alone, covered in equipment ripe for destruction. Again, military leaders were naturally worried about hostage collateral damage. Yet naval gunfire can be used to great effect against safe targets at pirate anchorages. UHF towers, clusters of empty vehicles, supply vessels, unattended skiffs, and the assorted support facilities onshore are all easy targets for naval gunfire. This is not only less expensive than leaving the pirates alone, launching 1.5 million dollar Tomahawks, or drone strikes, but terrifying for pirates realizing they could be bombarded at any moment with a ship offshore. This scorched-earth policy for pirate shore facilities should be common practice.

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger (and smaller) Boat

America’s military counter-piracy medication comes in the form of ships-of-the-line, namely DDGs and a few FFGs. While versatile craft, these are inherently conventional, centralized combatants designed for confrontations with modern navies. They are expensive, complicated blue-water craft weighed down with anti-submarine, anti-surface, and anti-air capabilities unsuited for the task of counter-piracy. VLS, AEGIS, torpedoes, Harpoon, towed arrays, sonobuoys, etc. have little to no use here. These platforms have a limited aviation capability and little room for detainees caught while on patrol. There are even FFGs deployed to Somalia without helicopters, making them next to useless when it comes to responding to calls for help outside of 20nm. Additionally, unlike the conventional warfare areas, there is no formal training regimen for these ships that deals with piracy specifically, their assigned mission.

Amphibious platforms, on the other hand, have the supplies and space to contain detainees for long periods without impacting crew effectiveness. Amphibious platforms also bring vital improved air assets/compatible flexibility not sufficiently present in CRUDES. The USS Oak Hill’s certification to carry riverine boats last summer demonstrates amphibious ships’ versatility with the ability to deploy patrol boats in concert with multiple air assets. Rather than a single ship and helicopter covering hundreds of miles of coastline, a whole swarm of air and sea assets, bolstered by a large detainee space and afloat support facility, become available in a single platform. These kinds of coastal patrol operations were executed to great effect during Vietnam using Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels as bases to deploy Patrol Boats-Riverine (PBRs) and helicopters. A similar concept would be a far more effective counter-piracy force structure off Somalia.

Andromeda Strain: Not Walking Away Empty Handed

As regional entities take turns carving out pieces of the vacuum in which pirates operated, we will naturally let out a sigh of relief and enjoy a chance to walk away from the piracy issue. We must not, however, allow our efforts to be for naught; we must at a minimum take with us the important lessons from our failed efforts. Piracy is a crime of opportunity. It can only be deterred by changing the cost-benefit analysis and removing the chances to commit the crime. The United States’ incomplete capture strategy, backed up by weak actions/ROE, only taught pirates that, with a little innovation, the usual result of a run in with an American vessel was a free ride home.

Matt Hipple is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.