The international community has responded to the growing piracy problem off Somalia through maritime means. Peter Chalk and Laurence Smallman argue that piracy will never be eradicated unless measures are taken on land as well.
The surge of pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa has focused greater international attention on the perennial problem of maritime piracy. According to International Maritime Bureau (IMB) figures, 293 incidents were recorded around the world in 2008, roughly 38 per cent of which were attributed to Somali gangs operating in the wider vicinity of the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean. Perpetrating groups have exhibited the ability to both hijack extremely large ocean-going vessels (the Sirius Star, which was seized in November 2008, was three times the size of an aircraft carrier), as well as mount assaults far from shore.
The scale of the problem has prompted unprecedented action on the part of the international community, the vast bulk of which has been explicitly militaristic in nature. While the ensuing responses have provided a certain deterrent effect, they will never be able to comprehensively confront the problem, given the expanse of the area to be covered (over 2 million square miles) and because they only address piracy at its end point (on the sea), rather than at its root (on land).
As such, this military approach ignores the complex interplay between governance, society and economics, and their impact on maritime disorder (including drug smuggling, terrorism, illegal fishing and arms trafficking, as well as piracy). Although piracy should certainly not be viewed as commensurate with Somalia (or vice versa), what is currently occurring in the waters off this east African state provides an excellent, if unfortunate, example of these dynamics at work.
International response
Since 2008, the international community has put in place a range of anti-piracy measures to address the situation off the Horn of Africa. In January 2009, the United States announced the creation of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 to monitor a set of self-defined maritime corridors in the Gulf of Aden. The aim is for this to form the basis of a multi-national coalition anti-piracy force. CTF 151 currently consists of only four vessels: USS San Antonio, USS Eisenhower and USS Mahan from the US and HMS Portland from the UK. However, Australia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey have all expressed strong interest in joining. According to Vice-Admiral William Gortney, the Commander of US Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM), as many as 14 countries have expressed an interest in being part of the joint task force. Assuming each government contributes at least one ship, CTF 151 could number around 18 vessels by the end of 2009.
The US-led CTF 151 will complement an EU combined Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) operation, Atalanta, which was deployed in December 2008. The flotilla has a year's mandate and currently co-ordinates six vessels from the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Greece for dedicated anti-piracy missions. Specific tasks slated for Atalanta include protecting vessels from the World Food Programme (WFP) delivering food aid to displaced people in Somalia; protecting vulnerable vessels cruising off the Somali coast; and the deterrence, prevention and repression of acts of piracy and armed robbery off the Somali coast. NATO has also deployed frigates to the Horn of Africa for specific anti-piracy duties. Several other states, acting outside of coalition forces, have sent frigates to protect and/or escort their shipping interests in the region, including India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Malaysia. South Korea, Japan and the UAE are expected to add to this complement by the end of the year. Overall, there are currently around 14 national navies operating in the Gulf of Aden with a collective deployment of approximately 20 ships.
On the judicial front, the US, UK and EU have all entered into agreements with the Kenyan government; Kenya will act as a third party state to try Somalis suspected of engaging in armed maritime crime. The value of these accords is that they provide the US, the UK and the EU with the option of putting pirates on shore where legal consequences can be delivered - something that has not always been possible due to the complexities of national and international law. By July, 110 detained pirates had been sent to Kenya for prosecution. Nairobi has also hinted at its willingness to serve as the seat of a fully-fledged international piracy tribunal if sufficient foreign aid and assistance were forthcoming to help set-up and run a court of this nature. Finally, the UN Security Council passed several resolutions in 2008 to deal with armed maritime violence emanating from Somalia's maritime and territorial space. These include resolutions 1816, 1846 and 1851, which collectively sanction co-operating states to take all necessary measures deemed appropriate to suppress Somali-sourced piracy and armed robbery at sea. The first two relate to the country's coastal waters, the third one to clan bases on land.
Limited success
These measures have had some success. Escort ships have ensured the safe delivery of WFP relief supplies and humanitarian aid to Somalia, while coalition forces have been instrumental in thwarting several attempted hijackings. According to US officials, naval convoys off the Horn of Africa are currently preventing between 12 and 14 attacks per month. However, this also appears to be encouraging a geographic shift in the locus of attacks further south, with a number of incidents now taking place closer to the Seychelles than the Horn of Africa.
That said, the overall utility of the international response is questionable in a number of respects. One obvious practical problem concerns the size of the area to be monitored (over two million square miles) and the number of vessels that transit the region (over 24,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden in any given year). To comprehensively cover this expansive and heavily trafficked maritime space would require a massive naval deployment. This is unrealistic in terms of cost and is at odds with the extent of the threat that needs to be contained: the statistical probability of a ship being hijacked in these waters is less than half of one per cent, based on the number of attacks that have so far occurred and the annual volume of shipping that transits the region. In addition, since the potential profits from piracy are so great and the prospects of being caught are so small, it is questionable whether lethal force can act as a deterrent to this particular manifestation of maritime crime. There has been no diminution in attack tempos, despite the sinking of a pirate vessel by British Royal Marines in 2008 and at least three hostage rescue operations by French commandos since 2008.
The UN security resolutions are equally questionable in terms of their utility and relevance, particularly if they are used to sanction military raids and air strikes against pirate bases in Somalia itself (which advocates argue have been effectively authorised through Resolution 1851, in the sense that the co-operating states are sanctioned to take whatever measures necessary to counter piracy emanating from Somalia's territorial and maritime space). Any move to initiate action of this sort is fraught with risk and would almost certainly serve to dangerously politicise what is currently a largely economic problem. At the very least armed raids would be liable to generate anti-Western sentiment and a backlash against 'foreign occupiers', especially if they resulted in widespread civilian collateral damage (which is conceivable given that pirate groups are co-located in close proximity to coastal communities). Such reactions would be certain to strengthen the position of radical Islamist insurgents and could potentially undermine efforts towards the long-term emergence of responsible and moderate governance within the country.
Perhaps the most fundamental problem with the current international response is that naval frigates and deployments will only ever be able to address piracy at its end point on the seas, rather than on land. This response has little, if any, relevance to the territorially based 'push factors' that give rise to sea-based crime and violence, such as corruption, unemployment, lack of economic development, and in Somalia's case, a complete absence of sovereign governance. Perceptions of piracy
The current response to Somali piracy supports the notion that the international community tends to view the problem in relatively simplistic terms and as something that can be dealt with at sea. In this interpretation, because piracy occurs in the maritime domain, solutions necessarily need to be focused on the sea. It is in this context that arguments are made for merchant ships to do more to protect themselves (for example, by using armed guards or altering their routes) or for the deployment of naval forces to deter pirates, and/or assist a vessel in the event of an attack.
While such solutions may help to ameliorate certain aspects of piracy, they will not comprehensively address what is a highly complex and multi-faceted problem. Indeed, there are three main influences that affect events in the maritime domain.
In terms of social influence, a society may view the ocean as a resource for food, energy and minerals, while some coastal communities may also accept a degree of responsibility for protecting the sea and nurturing the maritime environment. Governance is also important, and stems from the policies and practices of littoral states, as well as the norms, rules and procedures of international regimes. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which is built on common law and centuries-old mariner precedents, serves as the main instrument for defining and regulating how state and non-state actors alike currently use the sea. Moreover, much of what occurs at sea is driven by economics. This is especially true of trade and commerce, which to keep costs low and turnover high, aim to maximise operational efficiency whenever possible.
The maritime domain is not passive in these various relationships. Most coastal societies are heavily influenced by the presence of the sea. For example, they may need to protect the shoreline with sea defences, while local industries will probably be based around exploitation of fish or offshore energy. In the case of governance, the very nature of the sea has determined the way in which it is regulated. Borders and concomitant control do not apply at sea in the same way that they do on land. In many ways, maritime governance reflects the fluid nature of the sea itself, with much of the marine environment described as the common heritage of humankind. Finally, economics is influenced by the sea, which places practical limits on how fast vessels can traverse from point to point and the specific routes they might take.
The factors of society, governance and economics do not operate in isolation and there are often strong inter-relationships between them. For example, socio-political structures can affect the ability to implement laws and maintain a sense of safety and order. An inefficient or corrupt police or court system, for instance, might allow or encourage corruption in the wider society, or fail to prevent the illegal dumping of hazardous waste in territorial waters. Equally, fishermen landing their catches might be swindled out of reasonable prices or be forced to pay bribes in order to operate. A perturbed society becomes more susceptible to the effects of such external factors and often requires more laws and greater effort to maintain any level of reasonable behaviour.
Unemployment or underemployment and poverty can degrade a society, particularly one that is weak from poor governance, and lead to increased crime and violence. In a coastal community, such negative effects are likely to extend to the sea, initially having an impact on poorly protected ports and anchorages, before moving on to foreign fishing trawlers and more attractive commercial vessels and energy platforms. At the same time, a weak society will be less able to withstand the effects of crime, whether it is low-level theft or large-scale ransacking and hijacking.
At the simplest level, crime will incur increased governance costs through the payment of police forces, coastguard units and associated bureaucratic structures. At the same time, poor governance can lead to indirect costs in the form of economic inefficiency and curtailed opportunity costs stemming from a lack of business confidence. From the perspective of the maritime industry, greater governance merely amounts to more regulation and red tape, neither of which enhance market efficiency.
Key trends
The inter-relation of factors helps to assess the causes behind incidences of piracy and a potential means of identifying areas where piracy might develop in future. For example, the trigger for the acts of Somali piracy currently being witnessed off the Horn of Africa may have initially stemmed from the dumping of hazardous waste and illegal fishing by foreign trawlers, reducing the potential for legal income through fishing.
This assessment also illustrates how the character of the specific crime being perpetrated is determined by the intent of those committing it. This is important when considering the presumed nexus between piracy and maritime terrorism. Either crime can flourish in an area of maritime disorder; it is merely the nature of the perturbed coastal society and the motivation of those within it that determines which will be attempted.
Accepting this view allows a more in-depth consideration of the potential unintended second and third order consequences that could occur as a result of enforcement action against a particular crime. It is possible to see, for instance, how militaristic efforts to combat piracy could politicise a perturbed coastal society and provide the necessary motivation for its inhabitants to support more explicitly extremist designs, perhaps moving towards acts of terrorism.
The Somali case
Three observations emerge from the analysis so far. First, action at sea is not directly targeting or affecting any of the factors that combined to give rise to Somali piracy in the first place. Second, the international naval flotilla that has been deployed off the Horn of Africa is not having an impact on the other crimes that are exploiting the persistent maritime disorder in this part of the world (such as illegal fishing and weapons trafficking). Third and given the above, once these maritime forces leave (and in the absence of any other activity), the causes of persistent maritime disorder will remain and piracy will return.
The Somalia example demonstrates the limited role of naval forces in returning a perturbed society and its concurrent maritime domain to some degree of normality. However, Somalia does not define piracy and while the country is an acute case, there are other parts of the world that share similar traits and which could also therefore give rise to similar manifestations of maritime disorder (for example, the Gulf of Guinea, and the waters off Tanzania, India, Pakistan and Indonesia).
The Somali case has illustrated the limited effect achieved by a purely military approach, when not addressing the underlying drivers of crime. Attempts to address problems on land are likely to prove more arduous and long-term than a finite military deployment, given the expense of initiating sustained projects on land and the difficulty of gaining sovereign approval for such actions. Such projects would be almost impossible in Somalia's chaotic political environment, where a permanent reduction in piracy will be contingent on the distant prospect of improved governance on land.
However, assessing the role played by socio-economic factors may help shape international or national responses to prevent a vulnerable society developing into a site for maritime disorder. While still subject to the same cost and sovereign issues, the cost would be lower if implemented before maritime disorder escalated to a significant extent. Moreover, the cost of prevention programmes would be offset against the potential future cost to international and private organisations of rising maritime disorder and related military deployments.
Such considerations indicate that efforts to counter piracy, and other forms of maritime disorder, will begin to move away from purely military operations. While military initiatives will remain a core component, given that they are relatively easier to mandate and organise, counter-piracy efforts will slowly begin to move away from maritime-based responses and towards longer-term but potentially more effective approaches.
PRIVATE SECTOR INVOLVEMENT
As well as triggering government action, the exponential increase in piracy off the Horn of Africa has prompted initiatives on the part of the private sector. UK-based firms that offer commercial protection services such as Eos, Hollowpoint, Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) and Secopex have said they would be willing to provide military-trained personnel (both armed and unarmed) to help safeguard vessels transiting the Gulf of Aden. US security contractor Blackwater has made similar overtures and has offered at least one vessel, the MacArthur, to undertake dedicated escort duties for tankers and freighters passing through the region (such services started at the end of March). So far, no shipping company had actually taken up these offers, largely because the asking price is beyond what most owner-operators are willing to pay (especially when weighed against the relatively low probability of actually being attacked). The cost of a three-man security detail, for instance, runs to around USD21,000 a day.
However, even if charges were lowered, employing maritime security contractors poses problems on several fronts. The use of armed guards would have immediate ramifications for the right of innocent passage, as most coastal states do not allow vessels to enter their territorial waters if they have weapons on board. Equally, because most traditional flag states do not allow armed personnel on vessels they register, they could increase the incentive for vessel owners to sail under flags of convenience. Such a trend could merely compound what is an already amorphous and poorly regulated industry.
Death or injury to an innocent party as a result of an exchange involving security contractors could expose vessel-owners to exorbitant compensation claims (which would not be covered by insurance) and could well result in criminal charges being laid against them. It is not apparent what authority (if any) an escort vessel has to board a pirate vessel that is threatening a vessel owned by their client. Under UNCLOS, only warships that are clearly identified as being in the service of a sovereign government retain this right. Underscoring all of these considerations is the real possibility of pirates, faced with prospect of having to engage armed guards, elevating their own threshold of violence, storming vessels with an active intent to use lethal force against anyone they confront (including crew, who until now have been relatively well treated).
PIRACY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
Piracy is defined in international law as an illicit endeavour that takes place on the high seas and which must involve at least two vessels. It is generally understood as a crime of universal jurisdiction, meaning all states have the right to detain and/or arrest any person who is caught in the act.
While this legal framework would seem to provide an adequate basis for prosecuting pirates, its practical application depends on whether national governments have sufficient domestic legislation and political will to actually bring these individuals to justice - and many do not. Indicative of the problem is the situation off the Horn of Africa. Here, a number of navies (notably the British and Dutch) have been highly reluctant to detain pirates because it was not apparent that they could be brought to trial in the respective apprehending flag state. Returning them to Somalia - the main country of origin for most of these individuals - is not an option given the lack of any viable domestic criminal justice system.
The judicial agreements reached with Kenya also have significant limitations. The accords only extend to the US, UK and EU - meaning that they have no relevance to the other international navies operating in the region. In addition, Kenya has a capacity problem, namely where to jail detainees, and is beset with a judicial system that is highly inefficient. As of June 2009, of the 111 pirates sent to the country, only 10 had been convicted and sent to jail. Compounding the situation is the requirement under Kenyan law that all criminals must be presented before a judge within 24 hours. This stipulation could conceivably pose enormous logistical difficulties, not least because pirates may be seized far from the country's territorial space. For example, the hijacking of the Sirius Star in November 2008 took place 500 nautical miles out to sea in an area that was closer to the Seychelles than East Africa.
Peter Chalk and Laurence Smallman are security analysts at RAND.
Copyright © IHS (Global) Limited 2009, Jane's Intelligence Review. Reproduced with permission. The original version can be found at www.janes.com.
Top
RAND Home | About RAND | Research Areas | Reports & Bookstore | RAND Divisions | News & Events | Employment | Site Index | PRIVACY POLICY
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2009 RAND Corporation. Last Modified: July 10, 2009 Site Feedback »
Read Full Article »