Small wooden skiffs with armed barefooted pirates have come to symbolize a huge asymmetric threat to maritime commerce. But a year ago, Navy snipers aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) killed three of four pirates holding Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips in the container ship's lifeboat. Those "shots heard 'round the world" served notice to pirates that the U.S. Navy was serious about stopping attacks on merchant shipping traffic near Somalia.
So what has happened since then For one thing, the naval presence in the region has grown in size and sophistication. And now some merchant ships—like the Maersk Alabama—carry armed security personnel when passing through those waters. But has that stopped attacks
According to a report by the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB):
In 2008, 111 vessels were targeted by Somali pirates resulting in 42 hijackings. Whilst the number of 2009 incidents has almost doubled, the number of successful hijackings is proportionately less. This can be directly attributed to the increased presence and coordination of the international navies along with heightened awareness and robust action by the Masters in transiting these waters.
Captain Pottengal Mukundan, head of the IMB, said, "The international navies play a critical role in the prevention of piracy in Somalia and it is vital that they remain."
Expanding Territory, Evolving Tactics
To counter the increased military presence and seafarer vigilance, pirates have responded with increasingly bolder tactics and better equipment that allow them to cover a broader ocean area than before.
Some attacks have been brazen, if not stupid.
According to the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur, pirates attacked a Japanese very large crude carrier (VLCC) with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) on 25 April. The ship increased speed and escaped. Although VLCCs have double hulls, there is still a serious danger of fire or explosion, not from the crude, but the volatile vapors present.
Even naval ships have been attacked. In May 2009, two pirate skiffs chased the USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE-1) for more than an hour, coming within 2,000 yards and firing small arms before the replenishment ship outran the pirates. In October of last year, pirates attacked the French Navy command-and-supply ship Somme, which turned on the attackers and captured one of the boats and the five pirates it carried. This past April, the Somme was attacked again, about 400 nautical miles off the Somalian coast. Once again, the predators became the pursued as the Somme gave chase, ran down the attack skiff and its mother ship, and apprehended six pirates.
When two U.S. Navy combatants—the USS Nicholas (FFG-47) and the USS Farragut (DDG-99)—also were attacked at night this April, the pirates were captured and their boats destroyed. Eleven of those pirates have been brought to the United States to face trial.
"Pirates have attacked the warships without knowing the consequences of it," said Mukundan. "In some cases, they were not even aware it was a warship."
"Attacks have not stopped in the Gulf of Aden," said John Burnett, head of maritime security for Maritime & Underwater Security Consultants in London, and author of Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas. "We have an assemblage of the most powerful armada ever put together, and the pirates are getting away with it right under their noses."
Even in the Internationally Recognized Transit Corridor, which is supposedly safe and is where ships are suggested to travel, "attacks are taking place," said Burnett, "and the pirates have frighteningly extended their range farther into the Indian Ocean. Today we have many attacks that take place closer to India than Somalia. The entire Indian Ocean is up for grabs."
While there is now a significant naval presence in the pirate waters, such presence is a double-edged sword, according to Nick Davis, CEO of Anti Piracy Maritime Security Solutions of Poole, Dorset, England: "There is more capability to deter and detect, but at a cost of displacing threat in an area that's three times larger."
"Naval assets make a difference, but they can't be everywhere," said Burnett. And even though warships are there in force today, how long will they stay "They're not going to hang around forever."
And despite the international naval presence, more pirates are going to sea with their ladders and guns than ever before, and operating with virtual impunity. "Two years ago there were 500 to 800 pirates operating from Somalia," Burnett said. "Last year there were 1,500 to 2,000. Young Somali men can't wait to sign up. It's a lot more lucrative than hauling in empty fishing nets."
Mike Rawlins of the Palm Beach, Florida-based maritime-security training and consultancy firm M-P.A.C.T. said the shipping industry welcomes the presence of warships:
People sleep better if they know the cops are patrolling their neighborhoods at night. Unfortunately, there aren't nearly enough cops on the water over there. While the increased naval presence has been a significant deterrence in the Gulf of Aden and within a few hundred miles offshore, pirates have successfully adapted their tactics and have attacked nearly 1,000 miles offshore. That kind of range was unheard of even a couple of years ago.
The biggest change has been the increased presence of security guards, both armed and unarmed, on board vessels in high-risk waters, said Rawlins:
The non-lethal industry is thriving out there with the latest long-range acoustic devices (LRADs), water cannons, and infrared (IR) technology. A phalanx of vessel-escort services smell the dollar signs in the water and see new business opportunities, especially as work has dried up in the Middle East. Seafarers have been encouraged to come up with their own makeshift solutions, such as running a perimeter of barbed wire around the deck. This is a throwback to the 1980s, when captains would put up so-called pungi boards on the rails. The most important tactic is the common sensibility of deploying countermeasures such as zigzagging, fire hoses, and greater vigilance.
International Naval Effort
Navies are working together in coalitions, such as the Combined Maritime Forces counter-piracy unit, Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, and the European Union Task Force Atalanta that protects humanitarian shipments. And while traditional allies have worked together for years, there are new players. Russia, China, and Iran have ships in the area, too. China's navy is showing the flag for its first out-of-area deployment in 600 years. "There are up to 27 nations participating," said Burnett. "Deconfliction is a crucial element. Some ships can't talk to each other by email. Others are using Morse code."
"The Combined Maritime Forces and CTF-151 have had a significant effect disrupting pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Somali Basin," said Lieutenant Corey Barker, a U.S. Navy spokesman in Bahrain. "Although the number of piracy attempts increased in 2009, the number of successful attacks was reduced by 40 percent from 2008."
"The most effective measures we've seen to defeat piracy are non-kinetic and kinetic defensive measures," said Vice Admiral Bill E. Gortney, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, and commander of the Combined Maritime Forces. "Merchant ships have been doing a great job stepping up and utilizing these methods to defeat piracy attempts."
Rear Admiral Beom-rim Lee of the Republic of Korea Navy assumed command of CTF-151 in an April ceremony on board the ROKS Kang Gam Chan, relieving Singapore Navy Rear Admiral Bernard Miranda, who had commanded CTF-151 since January. As of this writing, CTF-151 has ships from Bahrain, Canada, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey, and the United States. "We engaged our partners actively, especially the EU and NATO, in order to make the seas safer together," said Miranda. "We proactively enhanced cooperation with the independently deployed nationsChina, India, Japan, and Russiaso as to reach a better level of information exchange and integration."
Convoys have been organized by the Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Korean navies, and instructions are posted online about how to contact those navies to join a convoy.
But the naval response is not a panacea. Admiral Mark P. Fitzgerald, commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa and of NATO's Allied Joint Task Force Command Naples, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that "we could put a World War II fleet of ships out there and we still wouldn't be able to cover the whole ocean."
Best Management Practices
Various maritime organizations have joined together to publish "best management practices" (BMP) for ship owners, operators, and crews. Each company and each vessel has a security officer who is charged with implementing BMP.
"The BMP is a single document agreed upon by industry bodies, including ourselves," said Mukundan. "It is commonsense advice. Some underwriters are making following BMP a requirement under their business, so it makes a difference. Many owners are doing much more than what the BMP requires."
Conversely, and tellingly, out of 31 successful attacks in 2009, only one of those ships was following BMP, said Burnett.
Ships were boarded in 78 cases, and 31 vessels were hijacked, with 561 crew taken hostage, 19 injured, and six killed, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The attackers were heavily armed with guns or knives in most of the cases.
BMP guidelines point out that common vulnerabilities exploited by the pirates include "low speed; low freeboard; inadequate planning and procedures; poor visibility; low state of alert and/or lack of evident self-protective measures; and where a slow response by the ship is evident."
"We train people to harden their vessel," Burnett said. Measures include razor wire around the decks, high-resolution radar to track close-in targets, and lots of TV cameras and night vision capability that can be monitored on the bridge. "Vessel hardening is a science."
"Propeller arresters, razor wire, BMP, and a well-trained crew can more or less make it impossible to hijack," said Davis.
Another arrow in the counterpiracy quiver is the long-range acoustic device (LRAD); with its hailing and warning capabilities, it serves as both a defensive measure and a communication method. LRAD lets pirates know that the targeted vessel is aware of them, and helps defenders determine intent in deciding when to escalate force-protection measures.
"LRAD is a cost-effective way to extend the security perimeter around a vessel and to interdict pirates at a safe range," said Scott Stuckey of LRAD manufacturer American Technology. "LRAD enables crews to demonstrate their preparedness and to cause attackers to abort and seek out less prepared vessels."
When it comes to vessel hardening, the insurance industry seems to be sending mixed signals, said Rawlins. "On the one hand it has indicated a possible willingness to consider cutting premium breaks for hardening vessels, but then threatening to raise rates if said hardening encourages the bad guys to try harder and raise the risk of damage."
Armed and Dangerous
The case can be made that if the pirates are going to be using automatic weapons and RPGs, then it makes sense for merchant ships to be shielded against those weapons. Vice Admiral Fitzgerald said it is "incumbent upon the vessels [that] are sailing the high seas to either protect themselves or accept the dangers. Commercial ships should take appropriate protections, because we cannot offer 100-percent guarantees of protection as the ships go through."
Those who argue against placing armed security on merchant ships say it will escalate the violence. "However, in the past year or so, many operators once dead-set against arming their vessels have come around on this," said Rawlins.
One holdout is the International Maritime Bureau. "The IMB still believes that private armed security on board ships is not the right answer for a number of reasons, including the fact that the legal regime does not support it," said Mukundan.
When captured in April 2009, the Maersk Alabama did not have armed security on board. But when pirates attacked it again, the ship was carrying armed guards. "We would prefer to not have armed security aboard our ships, but we recognize that conditions have deteriorated to the point that they are necessary to mitigate risk on certain vessels operating in high risk waters," said retired U.S. Navy Captain Gordan Van Hook, senior director of innovation and concept development at Maersk Line Limited, the U.S. flag subsidiary of A.P. Moeller Maersk. (See his Professional Note on page 92.) "We would prefer to not have situations requiring gunfire. It is a last resort if hostile intent is determined and the pirates cannot be deterred otherwise."
While insurance rates have risen slightly, the insurance industry has been circumspect in its approach and careful not to be perceived as trying to take advantage of the situation, according to Van Hook:
Large companies participating in the collective power of P&I clubs [groups of stakeholders who establish mutual protection and indemnity funds to insure ships and cargos] still exert considerable influence on controlling rates and can opt out of coverage if costs become prohibitive. Most insurance companies encourage risk-mitigation strategies that employ the maritime industry's best management practices.
Some say that large combatants are not suited to operations involving skiffs and dhows. But others say that patrol boats do not have the endurance for long out-of-area deployments and sustained underway operations. Van Hook proposes establishing one or more floating bases to support anti-piracy operations.
"Counterpiracy, as an example of maritime security operations, is essentially irregular warfare in the maritime environment that requires forces adapted to build awareness of the environment, indigent maritime security capacity, and the ability to positively influence the local population," he said. "To that end, it requires a persistent presence that can best be accomplished by seabasing with a chain of platforms that can host small craft in sufficient numbers to interact with indigenous small-boat traffic. This concept could best be described as irregular sea control.'"
"Somali pirates are just opportunistic," said Italian Navy Captain Massimo Anati, who has written on maritime security issues. "They are not soldiers, politically motivated insurgents, or terrorists. They are opportunistic predators. If the prey is reacting, or proves to be a difficult one, they just change for an easier one."
Attack the Scourge at its Source
Virtually everyone admits that the problem must be dealt with ashore, but nobody is stepping up to enter Somalia with a military force to wipe out the pirates' nests. "Somalia is the most failed of the failed states," said Anati:
It has been without a government since 1991. The average monthly income is below $50. Given the choice between starvation, or at least a very hard life, and getting some easy money with a pirate life, is perhaps no surprise that many young Somalis go for this latter solution. It is our responsibility to make the pirate choice a dangerous one, but also to give these youths a chance to live in a country with peace and stability.
The military presence makes a difference, but more attacks are occurring across a wider expanse of ocean, and there are more pirates than ever. As Burnett put it, "There's nothing to stop them in continuing this business plan of theirs."