By Victor Mallet, Madrid correspondent
President Barack Obama is doubtless busy right now, what with his forthcoming China visit, the Afghan war, US healthcare reform and the fragile global economy. But I am afraid there is another yet another crisis that neither he nor any other world leader can ignore for much longer: piracy on the high seas.
Pirates operating from the coast of Somalia are no longer a little local problem in the Gulf of Aden, to be solved by a few more navy patrols, merchant seamen wielding fire hoses and the payment of the occasional million-dollar ransom to a pirate king.
On Monday, pirates opened fire on a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker, the BW Lion, 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu. Although they failed to seize the ship, the long-range foray was a dramatic demonstration of the skills and resources these modern buccaneers now have at their disposal.
So far this year, Somali pirates have launched at least 174 attacks, hijacked 35 ships and taken 587 crew hostage, according to figures gathered by Reuters. The fate of the 36-strong crew of the Alakrana, a Spanish tuna-fishing ship taken on October 2, is the biggest foreign story in the Spanish media this week. Rampant piracy is threatening the viability of the vital Suez Canal route for Asia-Europe trade.
The Americans have a history of dealing with pirates, and the US Navy campaigns of 1801-1805 against the Mediterranean pirates of the Barbary coast and the Bey of Tripoli counted as the nation’s first foreign war.
An effective Somali campaign, however, is going to need time, money, military cunning and the kind of political support back home in the US that will only be forthcoming when American lives are being saved rather than put at risk.
The underlying realities of the situation, furthermore, are ominously familiar to those versed in military history: overpopulation in an economy short of resources (and that includes in this case the fish plundered by foreign factory ships); a failed state; desperate hired guns skilled in asymmetric warfare; and a willingness in rich nations to pay ransom money to secure the freedom of relatives and fellow-citizens.
The pirate wars of the 21st century have only just begun.
Related reading:
Somali pirates seize Chinese carrier Financial Times
Anti-piracy forces boosted to forestall surge Financial Times
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