Contemporary Maritime Piracy: International Law, Strategy, and Diplomacy at Sea
James Kraska. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011. 253 pp. Intro. Appendices. Index. $49.95.
Reviewed by Commander John Patch, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The scourge of maritime piracy persists, especially in the Horn of Africa region, yet many defense and maritime leaders struggle to understand this arcane criminal phenomenon. Among the many recent books on piracy, few approach the tangled web of international law and treaties in a way that makes clear to the layman that countering piracy requires a far more nuanced effort than simple “batteries release” orders.
Commander James Kraska, a U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General Officer at the Naval War College, provides an important addition to the navalist’s bookshelf with Contemporary Maritime Piracy. Kraska is a recognized expert on maritime international law, especially as it applies to piracy and related maritime crime. This book is a treatise on the important reality that international regimes can only influence behavior on the micro level when they are consistently known, and more important, enforced by all states.
In early chapters, Kraska provides a brief overview of the genesis of international maritime law and the accepted common good of freedom of the seas. Like other authors, he illustrates how the definition of piracy is often a point of confusion and angst, especially that piracy is a criminal act and one not subject to international law within a state’s territorial waters.
The benefits of the global commons carry with them common responsibilities stressed in Kraska’s later chapters, which cover international agreements and legal precedents. These responsibilities essentially require that any nation witnessing piracy has a duty to intervene and, if necessary, prosecute pirates for the sake of sustaining expected norms of behavior. Beyond providing value as a useful reference on the many applicable U.S. and international laws and treaties relevant to piracy (all provided in an appendix), Kraska clarifies why U.S.-flagged vessels are constrained from acting in ways that might otherwise seem reasonably permissible.
He links contemporary U.S. high-seas policy and strategy to the idea that powerful states can support international regimes, provide military and law enforcement wherewithal for antipiracy operations, and facilitate the prosperous commercial use of the maritime commons with standards of expected private-industry behavior. Kraska also does a great service in educating readers on the highly successful U.S. interagency processes developed surrounding the Maritime Operational Threat Response implementation plan from the 2005 National Strategy for Maritime Security that carried over into the current administration.
Contemporary Maritime Piracy summarizes the many complex private, international, and nongovernmental maritime-sector organizations that have responded to Somali piracy, highlighting the positive gains from these collaborative efforts. Even experts on maritime affairs have trouble keeping up with such organizations as the International Maritime Bureau, the International Maritime Organization, and the International Chamber of Shipping. These entities have their roles (and sometimes, agendas) in stressing international regimes and warning users of the maritime highways that prudent antipiracy measures can obviate all but the most stressing piracy threats. Kraska also describes the many passive and active antipiracy defenses sanctioned by these organizations and takes on the debate over whether private merchant vessels should employ armed security teams. Finally, he sums up the various multinational and allied military-law enforcement task forces created since the Somali piracy spike in 2007–08.
The author provides a brief overview of important historical periods when piracy was prevalent, stressing that the local problem usually only expanded into a regional crisis when the activity was sanctioned, or at least tolerated, by a specific state. In an interesting anecdote, he describes how London was complicit in allowing Barbary states’ attacks on American merchant shipping to aid domestic British markets.
Kraska’s greatest contribution is that he manages to avoid an overly legalistic approach that laymen would surely find incomprehensible. He relates the legal rules and international norms in a way that a U.S. warship commanding officer will find useful.
Kraska argues that “Piracy is not a crime or offense under the law of nations, but rather international law affords special jurisdiction over the crime by any state.” The only shortcoming worth mentioning is that he does not emphasize enough that the United States has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty, thereby complicating U.S. leadership efforts in the maritime domain.
Soldiering On in a Dying War: The True Story of the Firebase Pace Incidents and the Vietnam Drawdown
William J. Shkurti. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2011. 339 pp. Pref. Maps. Photos. Notes. Bibliog. Index. $34.95.
Reviewed by Colonel John McKay, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
Under the Nixon administration’s troop withdrawal timetable, redeployment of all U.S. military units from Military Region III (encompassing Saigon), Republic of Vietnam, was to be completed by June 1972. Military withdrawal from Vietnam, minus advisers to Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) units, was achieved by August 1972. U.S. presidential elections took place two months later. In October 1971, two incidents of combat refusal occurred at isolated Fire Support Base (FSB) Pace, strategically situated three miles from the Cambodian border.
Soldiering On in a Dying War, an epitome of scholarship, scrupulously examines these incidents and gives them their rightful significance. William J. Shkurti, adjunct professor at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, served as an artillery officer with B Battery 2/23 Artillery in 1970-71 before it deployed to FSB Pace on 23 May 1971. The two incidents, examined within the context of the Vietnam War and the strategic drawdown begun in the summer of 1969, involved men of B Company, 1/12 Cavalry, on 9 October; and D Company, 1/12 Cavalry, on 13 October.
An infantry company of 1/12 Cavalry, along with a company of the ARVN 6th Airborne Battalion, provided the defensive elements, supported by four Quad .50s, for two 175-mm guns, and two 8-inch howitzers of B Battery 2/23 Artillery at 100 square meters around FSB Pace. Operating in the geographical area of the South Vietnamese/Cambodian border and MR III, were regimental-size elements of the 5th, 7th, and 9th North Vietnamese Army (NVA) divisions. The defenders of FSB Pace contended primarily with elements of the 209th Regiment of the 7th Division. Though of Viet Cong origin, by 1971 all these units operated as conventional NVA formations.
In the first incident, 6 of 15 men of B Company 1/12 Cavalry refused to go on a night ambush patrol. As the patrol order was later rescinded, no formal charges were brought. Moreover, the incident was the catalyst for a letter and cassette tape subsequently delivered to Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA); about two-thirds of B Company, including 12 sergeants, signed the letter. The second incident, involving D Company 1/12 Cavalry, boded worse: 20 of 26 men of the 3rd platoon refused to go on a daylight patrol in the same vicinity of the aborted night ambush. Courts-martial were threatened. It was only through the fine leadership of the battalion S-3 (operations officer) that the entire patrol departed the base perimeter within 30 minutes of the initial refusal.
Darkening events bracketed the October 1971 FSB Pace incidents. In November 1969, revelations of the My Lai massacre surfaced; in March 1971 an entire company of the Americal Division was relieved and replaced for refusing orders to advance against enemy forces; and on the night of 29-30 March, FSB Mary Ann, 80 kilometers south of Danang, was overrun. Thirty-three U.S. soldiers were killed and 76 wounded, to 10 VC killed. Operations Lam Son 79 (8 February–25 March 1971), and Toan Thong 1/71 (31 January–mid-March 1971), seriously called into question “Vietnamization.” Outright defeat of the South during the Easter Offensive of April 1972 was averted only through U.S. firepower and logistical support directed and coordinated by on-ground U.S. advisers. No U.S. advisers remained in 1975.
Meticulous research and judicious use of primary sources ground this superb study. Shkurti conducted 41 interviews with primary participants and carefully culled official records of committed units. He excels in selecting and incorporating secondary sources and demonstrates an acute scholarly appreciation of the extreme complexities of a distant war.
The United States continues to struggle with the meaning of that war. Racial tensions; drug abuse (overblown by the Nixon administration); fragging incidents; U.S. media reporting; disciplinary actions; the reliability of allies; unit leadership and morale; and the impact of U.S. public opinion—Shkurti examines each issue, including other incidents of combat refusal during the drawdown, dispassionately and impartially.
The Vietnam War still resonates. U.S. military personnel are scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, and the military drawdown in Afghanistan is due to be completed in 2014. Current policymakers and military planners should read this book for its hard-learned lessons, poignantly conveyed. As Shkurti aptly quotes from Arnold R. Issac’s Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983): “What the United States lacked in Vietnam was not persistence but understanding.”
The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA
Richard L. Holm. Mountain Lake Park, MD: Mountain Lake Press, 2011. 568 pp. Index. $30.
Reviewed by Commander Peter B. Mersky, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
This new memoir is a deeply personal look inside the spy agency. Author Richard Holm served as a field agent on assignments that took him from Southeast Asia to the Congo as well as to many European postings. He spent two years in Laos well before most Americans could find it on a map. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and President John F. Kennedy sent U.S. teams into the hinterlands to assist in covert operations against the communists, especially aiding the mountain people known as Hmong—dedicated fighters with a distinctive culture and tribal pride who required diplomatic finesse and a true understanding of their needs.
Holm quickly adapted to his exotic setting and became accepted by the Hmong, who braved harsh communist retribution to fight alongside their American advisers. He describes the early aid programs designed to help the Hmong maintain themselves while serving U.S. interests in their hidden jungle villages.
Perhaps one of the most important elements of Holm’s book is his account of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a long section of which extended through Laos. Without this primitive but effective logistics route that ended in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong could not have maintained their offensive against the South and its American allies. This was a campaign that lasted throughout the long war, and many lives and munitions were expended in risky attacks against the around-the-clock traffic on the trail.
Occasionally, Holm drops little bits of information such as the fact that the Nationalist Chinese operated in Laos in the early 1960s. He also writes that a few of his young agency associates were actually junior U.S. Marine Corps officers deeply immersed in U.S. operations in the early stages of the war. This makes for very colorful reading.
Holm’s next tour was in then-Belgian Congo, in the midst of a bloody civil war. The situation there appears to have been much more complicated than the one in Laos. The Congo had disorganized factions that adhered to often incomprehensible beliefs. Once, a group broke into a host’s house while she was playing her piano, under the superstition she was using the instrument to send messages. These “Simbas”—members of a wild, dangerous faction—were bloody mercenaries who waged almost genocidal warfare.
Holm’s stay in the Congo was cut short by a near-fatal plane crash. Flying as an observer in the rear seat, he and his pilot along with the crew in another T-28 were making a reconnaissance of the area. Typically for that part of Africa, the weather was deteriorating rapidly, with lowering clouds. Fuel was running low, and before he and his pilot realized it, they were quickly losing flying “room” around the hills. Rather than bail out over hostile territory, they decided to ride their plane in. The horrific crash left their T-28 in flames. Badly injured, Holm barely escaped the wreckage.
The author devotes much of the middle of the book to his ultimate rescue and return to the States and Walter Reed Army Hospital. He writes gratefully of his treatment and of how the CIA supported him and his devastated family. He writes, “When the chips were down the CIA spared no expense to support and help me in any way possible. I have never forgotten.” These chapters are often difficult to get through as he describes the excruciating pain and often frustrating reconstructive surgeries required for his rehabilitation.
He also gives an account of the pivotal period of 1971–73, when the CIA was beset by a series of administrative upsets, including the firing of the well-respected Richard Helms by President Richard M. Nixon and his replacement by the bureaucratic James Schlesinger—a major disruption for the agency that did not bode well.
Holm’s ultimately satisfying career took him on assignments to many other parts of the world, where he made contact with colorful agency personalities, some famous, others unknown to the public. Perhaps indicative of the man’s fortitude and professionalism, he seldom mentions his earlier injuries, which could have permitted him to retire with dignity but much too early in the career he had sought.
The Craft We Chose is well worth reading, not just for the details of the CIA’s inner workings but as a chronicle of how one American dealt with adversity to continue serving in the line of work he had, indeed, chosen.
Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific
Michael Sturma. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2011. 248 pp. Intro. Illus. Notes. Bibliog. Index. $29.95.
Reviewed by Norman Polmar
There has long been a need for a comprehensive account of U.S. submarine gun actions in the Pacific during World War II. This book, by Australian historian and author Michael Sturma, provides such an account—despite two significant shortfalls.
Early in the war there was a considerable desire to use deck guns against small Japanese ships because of the malfunctioning torpedoes provided to U.S. submarines until the spring of 1943. But there were relatively few opportunities for surface actions in the early days of the conflict, as U.S. submarines sought out Japanese warships and merchant vessels.
By 1944–45, however, the number of major Japanese surface targets had dwindled, as had the limited Japanese antisubmarine effort. At the same time, more U.S. submarines were available with torpedoes that worked, seeking out the fewer major Japanese targets. Using the outstanding research and writing by John Alden, Sturma analyses the dramatic increase in submarine gun actions as U.S. undersea craft sought out targets and penetrated into the coastal waters of Korea, China, and the East Indies, as follows: 1942: 51 submarine gun attacks; 1943: 121 submarine gun attacks; 1944: 201 submarine gun attacks; and 1945: 641 submarine gun attacks (7 1/2 months). These incidents, some described here in great detail, were made against small surface warships (such as patrol craft and minesweepers), cargo ships, barges, landing craft, sailing vessels, sampans, and other craft.
Beyond firing on enemy ships and small craft and many “neutrals,” U.S. submarines used their deck guns to bombard enemy islands. The main targets were small craft. These included fishing boats, as submarine commanders rationalized that such actions were no different than the mining of Japanese waters to prevent food being imported from Korea and China—which the Allies believed could eventually force Japan to surrender.
Gun actions often left survivors from the victim ships and craft and, with the submarines already on the surface, there was often the issue of “enemy” survivors. Here Surface and Destroy provides two highly significant chapters: “Survivors” and “Japanese Prisoners.” The first describes non-Japanese survivors taken on board submarines, often after a “neutral” fishing craft or sampan was sunk by gunfire. The second addresses Japanese survivors.
These are fascinating accounts. The thread running through both chapters is how these prisoners often became valuable cleaners and sweepers. Taught never to surrender, the Japanese survivors, given dry clothes and food, usually responded to questioning. Many were befriended by the submariners, and at times when returned to base were taken away in handcuffs by Marine guards, much to the chagrin of the submarine crewmen.
Early in the war U.S. submarines were mostly armed with a single 3-inch/.50-caliber or 4-inch/50 deck gun, plus machine guns. As the war progressed, the 4-inch gun became standard and the 5-inch/25 deck gun became available. By war’s end some submarines had two 5-inch guns plus two 40-mm Bofors guns and several machine guns, including the ubiquitous 20-mm Oerlikon cannon.
Surface and Destroy fails to discuss the largest guns fitted in U.S. submarines—the 6-inch/53—except for the brief comment that the Nautilus (SS-168) fired her “huge” guns to support Marine commando landings. No mention is made of how many submarines were so armed (three, each with two 6-inch guns) or in what gun actions they were involved. This is a serious shortcoming.
Another flaw is Sturma’s extensive deliberations on the morality of the U.S. and Allied submarines using deck guns to destroy small craft, especially fishing boats. He discusses international law as it relates to submarine attacks and compares bomber crews and submarine crews using torpedoes, both never seeing the enemy as “people.” A consideration of this issue is warranted. The author, however, laces nearly every chapter with it. He repeats passages from submarine patrol reports that cite the devastation wrought by deck guns, to the applause of commanders and sailors. From the patrol report of the Segundo (SS-398):
“These guns are superb and wicked.” When the Segundo got into a gunfight with two patrol vessels a week later, the guns were praised as doing “a beautiful job.”
The Pacific submarine campaign was part of total war, and submarine gun actions were a necessary part of that conflict. The book tells how American submariners did kill men in the water, among them troops who would otherwise have been saved by Japanese ships to later fight Americans. Yet once survivors were taken on board, U.S. submariners exhibited unequaled compassion and even friendship toward these victims. This makes an interesting contrast to Japanese treatment of Americans taken on board their ships.
One is left with the perception that the author’s moral issues were “the message” of this book. Still, this is an important book. The writing is excellent and the research meticulous, with 35 pages of notes provided for the reader. Despite its shortcomings, it is well worth reading.