Somalia, a parched and inhospitable land, nonetheless occupies one of the world's most important geo-strategic locations. The maritime hijackings that are occurring off its coasts are arguably the most significant manifestations of piracy since the end of World War II. For the United States and other members of the international community that significance is not primarily economic: Less than one percent of all ships transiting the region are even at risk of being attacked, and fewer still are captured and held; most that do fall victim are old, slow, poorly managed, or, in a few cases, just unlucky. Rather, the significance of this maritime depredation is that it shows effects of state failure can be felt more than 1,000 nautical miles offshore. It demonstrates that the international maritime trading system is vulnerable. Yet that vulnerability attracts only minimal political engagement.
Piracy takes place because it can. Suppressing it requires political will. One of the mistakes made about Somali piracy and the options to deter it is to assume that because piracy in the Strait of Malacca has been largely eliminated, the same model can be applied off Somalia. In fact, the situations differ substantially.
Piracy is a chronic problem in Southeast Asia, where a hotbed of such activity long has been the Strait of Malacca. Most piracy there originates in Indonesia, which until the recent rise in Somali piracy, was the most piracy-prone nation in the world. For a number of reasons, Indonesia did not place a high political priority on piracy suppression. Some of those reasons, such as the prioritization of resources, were understandable. Others, such as the probable involvement of Indonesian armed forces units in piracy, were not rationales with which the rest of the world could sympathize. Regardless, Indonesia greatly resented the international criticism that flowed from its policy.
Flexing Military and Economic Muscle
Japan, dependent as it is on the secure passage of oil through the strait, made persistent efforts throughout the 1990s to cajole Indonesia and the region's other littoral states to take firmer action.1 By 2001 Tokyo had secured agreement for the establishment of ReCAAP (Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia). But substantial action still was not taken until after the United States proposed the Regional Maritime Security Initiative in 2004 and the Joint War Committee of Lloyd's of London in 2005 designated parts of the strait a war zone for insurance purposes. Those two pressures—the suggestion that the United States would deploy naval forces to the strait to deal with the problem unilaterally, and the imposition by Lloyd's of an economic cost that the littoral states could not disguise, manipulate, or ignore—prompted Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia to take action jointly to head off unacceptable international interference and to breath effective life into ReCAAP's cooperative procedures.2
The multilateral maritime security measures that the three states initiated (joined later by Thailand) were a substantial advance over the weak bilateral arrangements that had been in place—dating to 1992 in the case of the Singapore-Indonesia Patrols. The new measures were implemented as the MALSINSO trilateral patrol agreement (2004), supplemented by the "Eye in the Sky" aerial surveillance (2005). Together they became the Malacca Strait Security Initiative. The agreement has shortcomings: inadequate numbers of aircraft; lack of night-vision equipment; rudimentary communications; limited patrol frequencies; and coordinated (not joint) patrols—meaning vessels are constrained in approaching another state's territorial limit. The right of "hot pursuit" into another state's territorial waters was never even on the agenda. Additionally, while coordination at the tactical level reportedly was excellent as a result of the supplementary Malacca Strait Patrol agreement of 2006, which addressed information-sharing and the standardization of operating procedures, organizational differences within each service impeded operational cooperation.3
The arrangements put in place by the three (now four) littoral states were supplemented by the entirely separate multilateral ReCAAP agreement, the most significant element of which, the Information Sharing Center based in Singapore, appears to have worked well. It gives every indication of independence and objectivity when it comes to incident-recording and has not, thus far at least, come under the sway of the littoral states that historically have been keen to downplay the number of piracy attacks occurring in their waters. It also follows up on incidents to determine their outcome, something that the privately funded International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center based in Kuala Lumpur has not done in recent years.
For its part, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has led a maritime-safety implementation process, one from which the word "security' had been deliberately omitted. That was not necessarily a retrograde step, as all components appear to be flowing toward a unified goal embracing both safety and security. Taking each part separately may, in fact, have helped expedite the process by leaving space for prevailing and variable political circumstances and by providing ways to circumvent longer-term sensitivities over issues of sovereignty.4
Coincidence Plays a Role
Several other coincidental factors, however, probably had a much greater impact than the various security and advisory initiatives: First, for most of the 1990s China had been the main destination for cargoes pirated in the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea; the Chinese government's clampdown on internal corruption, starting in 1998, closed that market. Second, the retirement of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed in 2003 opened the way for his successors to cooperate more closely with other states. Third, the anti-corruption drive launched by Indonesian President Susilo Yudhoyono soon after he came to power in 2004 almost certainly curtailed the pirates' domestic political protection and made it harder for the armed forces to use such overtly criminal means to supplement their budgets. Fourth, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 appeared to sweep away all piracy operation at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca, while the moves the U.S. government made following that tragedy to improve U.S.-Indonesian relations removed obstacles to closer cooperation across the expanse of defense and security. In other words, the littoral states had functioning governments that were open to international persuasion and assistance and could take steps of varying effectiveness to address the piracy problem. They were amenable to discussion and negotiation.
Furthermore, action taken by states acting unilaterally rather than in cooperation with neighbors resulted in some worthwhile successes. Malaysia's establishment in 2005 of a new national agency to coordinate the activities of several separate police and enforcement bodies, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, appears to have improved asset use and patrol frequencies. On the other side of the strait, Indonesia also showed increased resolve: A show of naval force in 2005 led to a number of arrests, according to the IMB, and in 2006 an important pirate gang was detained.5
That is not to say the problem of piracy in the Strait has been eliminated; it has merely been reduced to a level that barely affects international shipping. Because those measures have for the most part only been operative during a period when the incentives for piracy have been low, questions inevitably arise about how effective they would be if strong incentives resurfaced, leading to a substantial upsurge in piracy activity.6
Why the Malacca Model Won't Work
Cooperation among states requires the conjunction of perceived self-interest and political maturity. So the suggestion that the Malacca Strait model can be applied off Somalia falls well short of the mark, for Somalia is a failed state. The other states in the region have varying levels of governmental competence but all lack the economic resources to tackle the problem. Regional consultative mechanisms are weakened by local rivalries, most particularly between Ethiopia and Eritrea, both of which have interfered in Somalia's domestic politics in pursuit of their own interests—as have Libya, Qatar and Iran.
Larger regional players, the African Union and the Arab League, are interested in the political problem of Somalia, but have little interest in piracy. Among international institutions, the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO are engaged with varying degrees of effectiveness and understanding. The insurance industry has raised rates for shipping in the Gulf of Aden, but that has not had the effect it had in Southeast Asia, where governments were sensitive to increases in business costs and to the impression that they were unable to control their own territories.
In that region, the existence of reasonable interlocutors meant maritime states could work with littoral states that responded to political pressure and financial inducement. No such interlocutor exists in Somalia. To compensate, the U.N. Security Council has passed a series of resolutions authorizing states to take all necessary measures allowable under international law to suppress piracy, including entering Somalia's territorial waters and even pursuing pirates onto Somali territory, providing they have secured the prior approval of the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (TFG) based in the capital, Mogadishu.7 The latter requirement is largely a fig leaf; the TFG controls barely more territory than that covered by a good-sized suburban shopping mall. It apparently was inserted at the insistence of Indonesia, which was fearful that its absence might set a precedent that could be applied subsequently along the shores of the Malacca Strait.
The effect of the Security Council measures primarily has been political, not legal. They have given states the encouragement needed to cooperate with one another and enabled governments that have encountered internal opposition to the conduct of anti-piracy operations overseas, such as Japan, to argue that they were working to support the interests of the international community. In further efforts to offset the absence of strong local states, the Bush administration, taking its cue from Resolution 1851, led the formation of a Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia. Initially comprising 24 governments and five international and regional organizations, by September 2009 the group had grown to 45 governments, seven organizations and two observers. The group met for the first time in January 2009 and regularly after that to address a number of issues including: improving information and operational support, the establishment of a counter-piracy coordination mechanism, strengthening judicial frameworks, strengthening commercial shipping self-protection measures, better public diplomacy, and tracking financial flows relating to piracy. It also approved the creation of a U.N.-administered trust fund to help defray the costs incurred by regional states when prosecuting pirates.8
After the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would work though the contact group with international and regional partners to find solutions to the problem. Unfortunately, the high-profile hijackings of that ship and others, such as the Saudi-owned supertanker MV Sirius Star and the arms-carrier MV Faina, have drawn attention away from the real problem
allowing the failed policy of minimal involvement with political groups within Somalia (other than the largely irrelevant TFG) to continue down its pointless path.In January 2009, representatives from 17 regional governments met in Djibouti under the auspices of the IMO, though the meeting was not directly related to any particular Security Council resolution. That group adopted the Code of Conduct concerning the Repression of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in the western Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden (the "Djibouti Code") which clearly was inspired by the Southeast Asia ReCAAP agreement.9 As of May 2010, the code had been signed by 14 governments and planning was under way to establish three regional information coordination facilities: a Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Mombasa, Kenya; a sub-regional center in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania; and an information center in Sana'a, Yemen.10 What is not clear is how those new facilities might materially improve the reporting arrangements already in place, focused on the U.K. Maritime Trade Office in Dubai, supplemented by the U.S. Maritime Liaison Office in Bahrain and the EU reporting center operating out of the Northwood Headquarters close to London.
Finally, international law gives several states potential jurisdiction in piracy cases—for example, the flag state, the nationality state of any crewmember, and in some cases, coastal and port states. Despite that, the only practicable solution to both the logistical impediments and political reservations that states with warships off Somalia face when it comes to capturing and prosecuting pirates is to hand them over to a state in the region.11 The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union reached formal agreements with Kenya in late 2008 and early 2009. Kenya, however, made it clear that it could not be the sole repository for all pirates captured in the region; that other states needed to play their part. The United States and the European Union subsequently concluded similar agreements with the Seychelles and Tanzania, while the Europeans have agreed to provide Kenya with additional funds for prisons and holding facilities.12
Answer Is in Somalia, Not on the High Seas
So far, the desire of the U.S. government and others for a positive and long-term outcome for Somalia has been manifested through their collective naval power. It is a perfect metaphor for the desire not to become involved to any worthwhile extent in the often messy and protracted business of reaching a solution to the failed state that is Somalia. Yet naval action is the least efficient and cost-effective form of piracy suppression. As the British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston remarked in 1841, referring to naval action against slavery: "Taking a wasps' nest . . . is more effective than catching wasps one by one." The U.S. Navy cannot operate in a policy vacuum. Despite that, people appear to want to continue to believe, in the teeth of the evidence to the contrary, that throwing more ships and more aircraft at the problem eventually will force pirates back into their lairs. In 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates poured the cold water of reality on that view.13 Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the heads of many other navies, subsequently endorsed his judgment.14
Somali piracy is an economic activity. It is conducted by well-organized criminals who are exploiting the differences in the value currently placed on human life in Somalia and the value placed on it by the seafaring nations whose ships pass Somalia's shores. The criminals have made a rational assessment of risk. The political dimension within Somalia is important not because Somali piracy is politically motivated, but because it lessens risk. That is how politics generally has aided piracy throughout history. What is required is finding a way of increasing the pirates' sense of risk, solving the political problem, or both.
For while the disincentives for poor Somalis to take to the boats remain almost insignificant—and despite the fact that an unknown number, but quite possibly hundreds die at sea every year—only a relatively limited number of politically influential clan members facilitate those criminal operations. Raising the political and economic disincentives on these individuals to engage in or finance piracy will yield results more quickly than attempting to change the economic equation that drives so many recruits to willingly risk their lives at sea.
The United States needs to reconcile the tension that exists between its desire to suppress piracy and its need to prevent Somalia from becoming the next Afghanistan. To date the United States and its partners have for the most part treated Somalia as a unitary state and approached its problems using military means, recently through proxies who acceded to only minimal levels of control or direction. Neither approach is tenable any longer. If piracy is to be suppressed and the Islamist insurgency is to be defeated, the United States needs to place greater emphasis on regional, sub-state approaches and pursue a more political path
because both problems are tied to regional and clan rivalries that are played out within Somalia.Sub-State Players Are the Key
The priority is to work with Somali sub-state actors: first, recognize Somaliland or at least establish a diplomatic presence there as a channel for political and economic support; secondly, work with other Somali sub-state entities, Puntland in particular, to achieve political stability. Of all the sub-state entities apart from Somaliland, Puntland is potentially the most viable. It is also the epicenter of the piracy problem. It may be that Puntland's current political leadership is too contaminated by links to piracy to be able or willing to affect any worthwhile change. If so, it is imperative to engage with the next layer down: clan and religious leaders who form the bedrock of Somali society, many of whom are alarmed by the distortion of social values that piracy has brought in its wake.
In return for recognition and engagement, the United States and its partners would demand the suppression of piracy and the corruption that sustains it; stabilization of the currency; and political reform. The measures of whether Puntland was fulfilling its side of the bargain would be obvious: for a start, piracy would decline, expatriates would begin to return, the economy would begin to stabilize, and reforms along the lines of those achieved in Somaliland would emerge. Achieving this would not be dependent on military intervention; in fact the presence of foreign forces would almost certainly be counterproductive.
If that were to be the course chosen, then U.S. and Coalition naval power could be employed more purposefully, cutting off all the political players in Somalia from external sources of weapons, supplies and recruits, thus encouraging those entities to negotiate seriously. If the United States and its partners could bring those negotiations to a successful conclusion, Somali pirates would be squeezed between more effective land-based policing in Puntland, whence they originate (and possibly in the rest of Somalia) and coordinated maritime policing. The political vacuum in which those navies currently operate would be filled. In such an environment, Somali pirates would find no place to hide and the threat to regional stability would be reduced.
Northern Somalia is a harsh environment, yet together Somaliland and Puntland support the majority of the Somali population. What rich agricultural land Somalia possesses lies in the river valleys of the south. The north is pastoral country supporting herds of goats. Economic opportunity capable of generating the levels of return that have been earned from piracy in Puntland is going to come from the exploitation of oil and gas, minerals and fish and, perhaps in due course, from tourism. It also will come from the fact that the Somalis are a hard-working, entrepreneurial people. If piracy has demonstrated anything it has proved Somalis are not afraid of taking risks. Building bulwarks against al-Shbaab, the violent Islamist group allied to al-Qaida, whose influence is expanding in the south, is not about turning on the spigots of aid, but working with clan leaders throughout the north to create the security that will encourage direct foreign investment and induce members of the large Somali diaspora to seek out business opportunities in their homeland. Aid, as necessary, should be spent on transportation, education, health and law enforcement infrastructure. The money saved by stopping naval vessels plowing the seas should provide enough.
1. John F. Bradford. "Shifting the Tides against Piracy in Southeast Asian Waters." Asian Survey, Vol. XLVIII, No. 3, (May-June 2008), pp. 483-484.
2. Ibid., p. 485. Lloyd's "war zone" designation was lifted on the Malaysian side of the strait in 2006, but remains in force on the Indonesian side. The U.S. show of force was essentially no more than that. Bradford quotes a senior Malaysian official saying in 2006 that U.S. maritime security assistance did not affect the sovereignty of Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore.
3. Martin N. Murphy. Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money: Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 83-88; Catherine Zara Raymond. "Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Malacca Strait: A Problem Solved
" in Bruce A. Ellerman, et al, eds. Piracy and Maritime Crime: Historical and Modern Case Studies. Newport Papers 35. (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2010), pp. 114-117; Ian Storey. "Securing Southeast Asia's Sea Lanes: A Work in Progress." Asia Policy, No. 6, (July 2008), pp. 112-120 at http://nbr.org/publications/asia_policy/AP6/AP6_E_Storey.pdf; Bradford. "Shifting the Tides against Piracy in Southeast Asian Waters," p. 482.4. Raymond. "Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Malacca Strait: A Problem Solved
" pp. 117-118.5. Bradford. "Shifting the Tides against Piracy in Southeast Asian Waters", pp. 480-481; Storey. "Securing Southeast Asia's Sea Lanes: A Work in Progress", pp. 117-118.
6. For indications that a problem nearly 2,000 years old cannot be conquered in just a few and might, if circumstances were to change, once again become a threat to international shipping see Murphy. Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money, pp. 91-93; Eric Fr
con. "Beyond the Sea: Fighting Piracy in Southeast Asia." RSIS Commentaries, (21 December 2009) and the first quarter 2010 reports from both ReCAAP and the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).7. United Nations Security Resolutions 1816, 1838, 1846, 1848 and 1851 (2008) can be downloaded at http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_resolutions08.htm
8. Lauren Ploch, et al. "Piracy off the Horn of Africa." Congressional Research Service R40528, (28 September 2009), p. 19 at http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40528_20090928.pdf. This trust fund remains unfunded at the time of writing.
9. James Kraska and Brian Wilson. "Combating Pirates of the Gulf of Aden: The Djibouti Code and the Somali Coast Guard." Ocean and Coastal Management, Vol. 30, (2009), pp. 1-5.
10. Ploch et al, "Piracy off the Horn of Africa." p. 22.
11. James Kraska and Wilson, Brian. "Fighting Pirates: The Pen and the Sword." World Policy Journal, Winter 2008/9, p. 45 at http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/wopj.2009.25.4.41.
12. "Seychelles to set up court to fight piracy: UN." Agence France-Presse, (6 May 2010) at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hVDT4FlA1YSp28sv3lj1bQ3kSI5Q; Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala "Tanzania agrees to prosecute Somali pirates." Reuters, (20 May 2010) at http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE64J0E820100520; Eric Ombok. "Kenya agrees to resume prosecution of pirates." Bloomberg.com, (19 May 2010) at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news
pid=20601116&sid=azIUMy04Fuak#13. Peter Spiegel. "Gates says Somali government is key to problem." Wall Street Journal, (14 April 2009) at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123967368677815883.html
mod=googlenews_wsj; Jonathan Saul. "INTERVIEW-UK navy chief says navies won't eradicate piracy'." Reuters AlertNet, (8 January 2010) at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6071KK.htm; W.G. Dunlop. "Anti-piracy efforts treat symptom, not disease: navy chiefs." Agence-France Presses, (13 May 2010) at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jk8JeTNHcH1N_4ZcMf5Oa66eUKVg14. Andrea Shalal-Esa. "Fight against pirates also needed ashore: US Navy." Reuters, (4 May 2009) at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0440838820090504