There are some comments on my blog which insist that all the incompetence about getting rid of this piracy problem is really about using the piracy problem as an excuse for European navies to establish themselves in the Indian Ocean while the USN moves into the Pacific Ocean.

I am willing to consider this interpretation, but it smells very much like great power gaming of a long-term variety, and I don't think our few-years-term governments are really enough into the long term to do this kind of gaming.