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huskerguy7,

The problem is that the pirates currently hold over 500 hundred prisoners from a variety of nations. Any action against the pirates will put those people at risk and I think any...

JMM,

The US Coast Guard keeps track of all US-flagges ships above 5 tons. You can order a complete list here.

You can do some very limited queries of the database here.

You can track...

My comment wasn't just about the US. Again, there are any number of countries that could do most of the things on Fuch's list, yet they aren't except when their own ships or people are involved. ...

You may be right - then again you may not.

Any country with a half-decent Navy could have done (and still could do) most of the things of Fuch's list yet so far haven't. Why do you think that...

Fuchs,

That's a good list of things we could have done (and could still do) but didn't. Such actions have consequences however, not all of them favorable.

Additionally, nations have certain...

Well played sir.

Actually, ransoms are increasing. Average ransoms have increased from $500k in 2005 to $5.4 million last year.





That's already happening too - they are targeting ships they think will pay...

Well great, more work for PMC's operating with no oversight in a country with weak governance! What could go wrong?

Doesn't sound much like a "non-violent legal strategy against piracy" to me.

The pirates will still be around, so the Navy will still be around, so there will still be costs that are socialized. BTW, I added to my post above after seeing the second part of your earlier post.

Well, ok, but that seems about as likely as Somalia transforming to a Jeffersonian democracy. Besides, as I also noted, the costs will be socialized regardless - in the form of higher shipping costs...

Except your proposal would have the opposite effect. If shipowners were guaranteed to lose the ship should it ever be captured, then the pressure will only increase on governments to "do something"...

Carl,

I'm not claiming piracy is having no effect. Obviously, it is. I'm simply stating that the effect is relatively small which makes it much more difficult to justify dangerous and expensive...

Sanctuary:

1. A Place of safety or refuge.
2. Immunity from arrest.

Yes, it's a sanctuary. Yes we, or even South Africa, could decided to end the sanctuary. That we choose not to doesn't...

It's not an assumption, it's the current reality.




Well, there are a lot of reasons, but the main one is that No one wants to intervene in Somali because of a little bit of piracy. Stopping...

Carl,

Piracy is a problem the Navy can only mitigate, not solve. The ocean is a big place, there are lots of targets for the pirates, naval vessels are few and expensive, and the pirate ports are...

As a Navy guy who went over to the dark side, I just can't get too excited about these pirates. The Somalia pirates are certainly dramatic and make a great story, but they are really minor in the...

I agree with Bob's World and Ken. Not much more I can add.

That is true - there was a a recent series of NPR about a pirate negotiator. See this and this. It's worth it to listen to the stories, especially the first one.

New Proceedings articles on piracy.

They're all pretty good:

Great history of piracy and how modern pirates fit into it.



This article debunks the piracy-is-terrorsm meme and argues the...

The pirates were dumb to threaten the ship - such a threat legitimizes a deadly response. That is all assuming the Indians didn't just blow them out of the water and then later claim they were...

Cavguy,



There are a couple of factors at play, IMO:

1. Competing priorities. Anti-piracy is only one of CTF-150's missions. Now that these pirates are more on the headlines and now that...

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but here you can get some pretty cool maps showing Somalia piracy.