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Somali pirates are not adverts for freedom Matt Welch of Reason debates Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell over issues including the recent bouts of piracy in the Indian Ocean. One issue that comes up is whether the Somalia is a “libertarian nirvana”. Duh. Lefties love to sneer that such lawless parts of the world are some sort of anarcho-capitalist paradise. Have they not figured out that free societies are saturated with notions of law and property boundaries, which need to be upheld and defended? Laws and liberty are intertwined – the problem is when laws violate the right of humans to live their lives unmolesed, rather than protect such rights. Since when did robbing merchant ships have anything to do with freedom, exactly?
Anyway, Mr Welch more than holds his own in this encounter. Worth a view.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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The pirates are no different to Goldman Sachs. Both use bullying and blackmail to steal from others.
The question, I’d have thought, is what the manner of upholding and defending ends up looking like. In particular whether it ends up consisting entirely of voluntary actions and associations. If not. Then any ‘anarcho’ flavour of libertarianism falls on it’s arse.
Excuse the full stop that ought to have been a comma. I’m a) Pissed.
b) At work.
As usual, we understand them and they do not understand us. But the fact that we understand them better than they understand themselves is…special.
Considering how small a thinker he is, it’s really sad that Henry wields legitimate authority in public discourse as a professor.
Mr. Welch gives him a proper whipping. Thank God for clear thinkers like him. I wouldn’t have the patience for such a unique combination of pomposity and ignorance.
People seem to forget that the Somalis are quite different from the Caribbean pirates of the 17th and 18th Centuries. The ‘western’ pirates were typically under contract from various governments to disrupt the shipping of a rival power, though some did go it alone, at their own risk.
Somali piracy, on the other hand, is pure opportunism. St Augustine commented in his City of God about a story involving Alexander the Great, which went:
A [Mediterranean] pirate was brought before the Emperor. The emperor angrily demanded, “How dare you molest the seas!?” to which the pirate immediately responded, “How dare you molest the whole world? I have but a single ship and am called a thief, but you command a navy and are called an emperor!
Thus it becomes obvious why governments hate pirates — they are competition. 😉
As for Somalia, they were getting along just fine without any government until the UN et al helicoptered in, and then we had ‘Black Hawk Down’ and a decade or so of pointless fighting because some chieftain wanted to satisfy the West’s particular fetish for top-heavy centralized government.
I say let Somalia do its own thing, whilst allowing privately contracted mercenaries to defend commercial shipping. Why should the taxpayer be bled any more white to send a navy to do what could be achieved with one to four men?
the problem is when laws violate the right of humans to live their lives unmolesed, rather than protect such rights
That’s “a” problem with it certainly, it’s not “the” problem. Part of “the” problem is having a collective agreement on what these “rights” are in the first place.
Freedom?
Lets see these merchant vessels free to arm themselves as they see fit and we’ll see what happens to piracy then.
Andrew: The ‘western’ pirates were typically under contract from various governments to disrupt the shipping of a rival power, though some did go it alone, at their own risk.
No. These people were privateers, not pirates. They had an entirely different status, legally.
Look, there are only 3 possibilities concerning the Somali pirate problem.
Firstly, engagement by official military forces. But whose, and who pays? It’s a bit like subsidies, the effect on the subsidised is huge, but to the tax-payer it’s tiny.
Secondly, the shipping companies should pay for private security companies. But if this increases their costs, they become less competitive. A given ship is actually statistically unlikely to be involved in a hijack.
Thirdly, convoys. In war situations a destroyer can protect a large amount of ships. The international interested parties should be able to come to an inexpensive agreement. Unfortunately convoys require a waiting period in order to accumulate, which will cause problems for individual companies regarding costs and delivery times.
Personally I think there is a possibility for private security companies to propose the services of armed guards to vessels in the area, or to their insurers; and be maintained on mother ships at each end of the pirate corridor. For example I know from family experience that there is a surplus of 40-something ex-forces South Africans looking to emigrate because they can’t earn a living in SA any more. A demand with an unfulfilled supply?
If some ships were protected the pirates would be deterred since they would not know in advance which ones were dangerous. You only need to up the ante slightly to stop people signing up to the enemy due to cost-benefit concerns.
I completely agree with your libertarian analysis. Anarcho-capitalism requires the pre-existence of social institutions or experience to enable civilisation to exist in the absence of the state. The Somalis can only look forward to regional oligarchic mob rule in the absence of the former. Sad, but inevitable.
This site had an interesting article on the pirates, but I’m not American, so can’t really comment.
“Freedom? Lets see these merchant vessels free to arm themselves as they see fit and we’ll see what happens to piracy then.”
I spoke to an merchant seaman – a former mechanic – and he expressed himself strongly to the effect that he was never a soldier and really wouldn’t want to go up against what he described as a “state backed” organised piracy.
This particular seaman is English and now works as a teacher. He also confirmed he was not given any training in weapons or combat at all.
Maybe the American seamen have a different take on the topic , but the point is that while it might be nice in theory, the sailors themselves may not be as keen on combat as you give them credit for.
Sure. I’m not much keen on combat either. But I arm myself because there are those that are. Or at least willing to utilize the threat of violence to get their way. When there’s a risk of returned violence, the whole equation changes.
But in any case, I am not suggesting that everyone be handed an AK-47 and told “save the last one for yourself”, merely that the requirement of merchant vessels to be disarmed (typically by the laws of the ports of call) be ended. Allow the decision to be made by those affected by the problem.
Most of these attacks are being made by relatively small vessels piloted by unskilled people (i.e. cheap to replace) that could easily be kept at bay by deck mounted rapid fire armament. If the pirates escalate with bigger ships and better trained people, then involve the military and they will soon find themselves unable to maintain the cost of their campaign
Then fire those sailors and hire ones who are willing to man a 50 cal HMG. Or simply hire people from Private Military Organisations to man the weapons. Two belt fed 50 cal machine guns per merchant ships should be quite sufficient. This is a trivial threat and dealing with it is a trivially easy matter that if left to the market would be solved in a matter of weeks.
If so, the anarcho-capitalist thesis falls apart, which I think it does anyway, and this kind of sums up the problem every time I read Rothbard going on about private law and police forces and so on; it’s never explicitly stated, but it is reliant on this (lack of a) system being applied by “people like us”. Anarchocapitalism always brings to mind nice people in suits and trilby hats living in the middle American stylee. It’s utterly parochial. Once you consider the actual diversity of people in society; profoundly different moral and ethical beliefs, religious groups, and so on, it just falls apart. The parallel courts proposed are always imagined to be basically applying the common law, with a few differences in pricing and minor details. But once you’ve abolished state preference over legal systems, anything can arise. If the mafia or a yardy gang decide they’re going to organise themselves into an army and conquer territory- any group who don’t want to play the game- you’re fucked.
You can tell them they’ve violated your property rights, and you’re going to take them to court, and they’re just going to kill you. You’ve got nobody to enforce the rules by which anarchocapitalists presume everyone will play because they’re “people like us”.
Other than the issue of turning merchant seamen into killers which you handwave away, you’re ignoring the question of escalation. Will the pirates organise themselves better and acquire heavier duty weaponry? It’s not as if weapons are hard to come by. The days when only the British Army had the gatling gun are some time in the past.
@Relugus: the only way the analogy holds is if a Somali pirate is also appointed captain of the ship.
:: Treasury Secretary a Goldman Sachs alumni
Proper security is protection from interference and liberty is the result. Libertarianism is the politics of pursuing protection from interference for everyone.
I could really go to town on the Somali pirate topic, but blog comments have to be short so I’ll confine myself to these. This comment is going to be of Marksian proportions as it is! I’ll be happy to elaborate on any of them if asked.
1. The pirates are not a ragtag bunch of opportunists. They were such, once upon a time, immediately after the fall of Siad Barre, but that was nearly 20 years ago. Now, they are pros, and very good at what they do.
2. The merchant marine companies have looked at the options, and in current circumstances, paying off the pirates is the most cost effective. The market at work.
3. There are all sorts of logistical and personnel issues about arming up merchant ships. Safe to say it’s a non-trivial issue.
4. There’s nothing new about what the Somali pirates are doing. They control a choke point for trade and they’re exacting a “toll” from those who would use it. That dates back at least as far as classical times.
5. I could also bang on about Caribbean pirates and what they were doing. Suffice to say, even though “Letters of Marque” are in the Constitution, precious few people even in the libertarian community know what a Letter of Marque was for.
Turning them into killers? Hehe. The issue is self defence, pure and simple. If they are not willing to defend themselves if they are allowed to, then I am not going to lose much sleep over what happens to them and I would rather not have over much of my tax money devoted towards protecting them either. If some seamen lack the fortitude to defend themselves, perhaps they should seek a different line of work or only sail on ships that venture into safer waters.
The reason piracy happens is one of availability of targets and cost. The targets are easy to find because the operating cost for small fast motorboats is low and many ships pass through the area. Also the cost both in terms of the organisation, capital and risk involved, is low. All it takes is small arms and rocket propelled grenade launchers (cheep) and a light fast motorboat (cheep) to board an unarmed merchant ship.
Add two 50 cal machineguns to a merchant ship (also cheep) and you dramatically change the cost equation by placing a relatively long range weapon on a relatively hard-to-sink target that is also a nice stable weapon platform (a merchant ship) that is capable of sinking the pirate craft or killing the pirates with ease (an easy to sink piece of fibreglass which is a not so stable weapons platform with a bunch of pirates all within the beaten zone of a nice sustained burst of machine gun fire).
To ‘escalate’, the pirates would have to start using significantly larger vessels that could not be so easy shredded by a 50 cal weapon (i.e. large boats or small ships rather than motor boats). That would at a stroke hugely reduce the number of pirates by greatly increasing the cost of entry, not to mention requiring them to use a vessel that was not trivially easy to hide when not in use. Also by greatly increasing the risk of death, many would no doubt seek another line of work rather than piracy against an armed target.
Not every ship plying the waters needs to be armed, just enough to change the risk/reward ratio enough to greatly discourage this line of work.
This *is* a trivial threat and the notion it requires modern navies with multi hundred million pound sophisticated warships to deal with it is daft.
Geesh. They could hire ME. I’m a 50 year old fat woman and I could handle shooting at pirates climbing on board a ship.
It is NOT that difficult. The initial training could be accomplished in a matter of hours, if the person didn’t have an irrational fear of a tool that goes BANG! Knot tying is more complicated.
It isn’t as if the high seas doesn’t present opportunities to practice. What’s the risk? Accidentally shooting a dolphin?
It has nothing to do with training. It has everything to do with someone unwilling to defend themselves, and wishing others to do their “dirty work” for them.
Now the sea-sickness issue… that might present a problem for me.
If someone violates the non aggression principle by violating the bodies or goods of others they should be resisted – if need be by killing them.
I am not an anarchist – but in the past American ships had no need of the government to sink pirate ships and drown their crews.
Indeed most of the ships that gave the Royal Navy such a bloody nose in the war of 1812 were armed merchant ships.
The Royal Navy having acted in a piratical fashion by abducting American sailors and forcing them into slavery (by the impressing system).
And, it should not be forgotten, that most of the ships that opposed the Spanish Armada in 1588 were armed merchant ships.
However, in this case, some of those ships had a piratical record themselves.
The same principle applies.
If a merchant ship uses weapons to destroy pirates – this is a good thing.
If a merchant ship uses weapons to plunder – this is a bad thing.
By the way the above is objective – it is nothing to do with “collective agreement” or other such.
As for Somali itself:
The situation is complicated.
For example “Somaliland” has (I believe) a government made up of traditional clan elders – which sounds like a rather good system of government (as systems of government go).
The area the pirates tend to come from is full of a armed groups – but none of them believe in anything like libertarianism (with the possible exception of the armed men who for the mobile telephone company).
All of the groups (with the above possible exception) want to be the government – and hold the principle of not violating the persons or possessions of other people in contempt.
What matters is the ideas in people’s heads – and the firepower they have.
For example, in Mexico there are many decent people – but “gun control” means that only criminal gangs have firearms.
The decent people are not allowed to defend themselves.
Comrade President Barack Obama has seen this situation and his reaction to it is to recommend an international treaty which would bring (by the back door) “gun control” to the United States – supposedly to stop the exporting of weapons to Mexico.
Of course Barack Obama also rejects the property rights based nonaggression principle.
He may have allowed the SEALs to kill the pirates – but his basic philosophy is the same as that of the pirates.
Well, the saloon bar bravado is certainly refreshing.
I take it nobody has thought about the problem that, if the seas really are ruled by who has the biggest gun, and there’s no risk of coming up against a proper navy, people who may be rather better organised and resourced than one or two Somalis in paddle boats are going to realise a well armed ship or two can prey on commercial shipping at will?
Mine host states:
Perry, you are a gentleman and a scholar, and this blog is a wonder for the ages. I’ll buy you, Adriana and Dale a drink in any establishment this side of Barnard’s Star; by God you’re earned it. But, as it pertains to the merchant marine and the Somali pirates: Sir, by your remarks in this thread, you have demonstrated that you do not know what the hell you are talking about.
Ian B is right, and you are wrong. As offered in my previous comment, I will elaborate if required.
if you are going to fisk my reply, quote it back where you think I am wrong with your refutation… otherwise kindly do not waste pixels by quoting something perfectly readable the first time.
The argument for arming people is the same for merchant ships as it is for householders or anyone else threatened by violent armed criminals.
Ian B’s reply however is so churlish I decline to grace it with a considered reply.
With all due respect Perry, I don’t think it’s my churlishness that’s the problem. It’s that you haven’t considered all consequences. Which is normally the problem we have explaining things to collectivists; you know, the that which is unseen thing.
It’s all very well to speculate on changing one variable, but then you have to speculate as to what will happen to all the other variables, because markets, whether social or economic, are complexly interdependent.
The right to self defence is a Good Thing, but it can’t be touted as a complete solution, as you are doing here. To use the householder analogy, having a gun against burglars is a good thing. When it’s you with your one gun against a well armed, well trained gang of 20 guys with guns, you are probably toast. In war, things are really simple. The side with the most men and weapons wins.
We already have historical data on what happens when it’s every man, or every ship, for themself. You get a lot of piracy, because the pirates tool up sufficiently to have a good chance against their prey. Small pirate groups will organise into larger ones. Armed merchant ships in a free-for-all simply start an arms race. Some pirates will drop out, but other better organised ones will pitch in, just as organised criminals displace casual criminals.
You’re only adjusting one variable- the armed might of the merchant shipping, while assuming the piracy variable won’t change. But each affects the other.
Perry, first off, I’m sorry if you took my comment as an insult. I wouldn’t fisk you, that implies disrespect for the original post. I will, if you will indulge me, try to explain what I mean. It will require some length.
Disclaimer: I have relatives who are merchant seamen.
To summarise; people who are armed are equipped to defend their own property, and others property should they wish. Merchant seamen who are armed are being required to defend someone else’s property, whether they like it or not. This isn’t what they signed on for, and if you want people to sign on for that you’ll have to pay for it.
Firstly, Ian B’s comment; I’m not him but I don’t believe he’s being churlish. What he’s trying to say, I think, is that merchant seamen have by and large, absolutely no interest in fighting to defend the ships they’re on. They’re not well paid, and it’s not as if its their property they’re protecting.
Secondly, the Somali pirates aren’t a bunch of rank amateurs tootling about in speedboats with AK47s and RPGs. They were that, when they first started out. But now, they have agents in every port which might sail ships past the horn of Africa, giving them the manifest and sailing schedule of every vessel that passes through. They can thus pick the most lucrative targets. When they took down the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, they did it by sending a coaster out into the shipping lanes, and launching speedboats from that. They are pirates and they are damn good at it.
Thirdly, even if you want to arm a merchantman against pirates, it’s a non-trivial exercise. The average coaster has a crew of 5, the largest container ships and supertankers have an average crew of 25. The M2s would also need to be sea-proofed if they are going to be perpetually deployed. Manning two .50-cal crew-fed machine guns, which requires trained operators, would need 12 additional crew. This is assuming the traditional maritime watch system, and that current crew aren’t being diverted away from their tasks to man the guns. And the pirates are easily rich enough to deploy weapons to suppress the .50-cals if necessary. And lastly, remember that the container ships and supertankers are twice the size of a Ford-class carrier. Can you really defend that with two M2s?
Fourthly, the merchant marine companies are run on a tight profit margin. They flag their ships based on cost; which is why the number of merchantmen flying Old Glory or the red duster is a fraction of the number flying the flag of the mighty nation of Liberia. Paying the ransom for the odd ship that gets taken by pirates (it’s still a one-in-several-thousand occurence) is far less expensive than turning every merchantman into a Q-ship or equivalent. The Somali pirates don’t kill matelots except in battle, if they can help it. Why would you fight, in defence of property not your own? Fighting might get you dead, surrendering will still get you paid.
I hope this explains my previous posting. If you need anything further, do please ask.
I have no problem with that.
Sea-proofing a 50 is also not that hard really. You mount 1 on each side on a simple armour shield mounting, ideally up high but where would depend on how ship was configured. A 50 cal has a very long range… it does not take an expert to be able to hit a boat with more than a few bursts from 1500 metres frankly so 1 one per side probably is indeed enough. It does not need to be manned around the clock, just when potential threats are seen. This is not World War II we are talking about 🙂
Well it is a problem for me when you write insulting shit like “Well, the saloon bar bravado is certainly refreshing”.
Oh really? How do you know that?
Indeed and that is what I am counting on. Instead of lots of low rent pirate, arming merchant ships would probably lead to less but better armed pirates. Which is great, because a lesser number of more expensively equipped pirates is actually an easier threat to drop a bomb on. However you cannot bomb a bunch of guys in fibreglass motorboats.
oh and to be honest I think Matt let him get away with murder on a few points in that debate 😀
Ian B, why do you think Perry is proposing to adjust “just one variable”? There’s room for adjusting several, which seems the proper response. First of all, there’s still a need for regular navies patrolling the general area, and no one has said otherwise. And if even some crews are armed it would provide a significant deterrent (as in many parts of the US where gun laws aren’t unduly restrictive: the fact that some homeowners have guns helps deter burglaries even for the unarmed ones.) I appreciate the fact that armed crews would be defending some else’s (the shipping company’s) property, but surely the prospect of being held hostage for months provides some incentive for self defense. Or how about simply hiring a few personnel from Blackwater (they seem pretty competent) or some other private military organization, instead of worrying about arming and training the crew? It wouldn’t have to be all ships, just enough to raise the stakes significantly.
Or here’s another idea: Why doesn’t the US Navy (maybe others, too) offer protection services for a fee? It takes a long time (days, sometimes) for a gunship to get to the site of a hijacking, but we have very nice unmanned Predator drones which are extremely fast. Station a few ships in strategic locations and set up an emergency radio frequency, and any ship which sees pirates coming can call in the Marines (literally!). A Predator is launched and on the scene within minutes. It wouldn’t even need a bomb; merely crashing it into the boat would be enough. The Navy would charge a fee (how about $100,000?) each time they’re called out. For the shipping companies that’s a lot cheaper than ransom, and after a few such Predator attacks the word will get around and any pirates which see one coming would likely break off the attack very quickly. This could actually be a profitable activity for the Navy.
This should be a trivial threat, if the problem were approached with intelligence and the will to solve it. Unfortunately, both are lacking at the moment.
Let’s not forget that the pirates are not just turning up, offloading the contents of the ships and saying “Be on your way then” but are actually kidnapping the crews. This is not a situation of defending the property of others but is truly a self defense situation.
But really, I still don’t get what the issue is. If, at the end of the day, the shipping companies don’t want to arm and are happy to employ crews that don’t want to defend themselves, sure they should be free to. What needs to be ended are the restrictions against those who want to tool up and throw a few mercenaries onboard. None want to? Fair enough. Freedom of choice is the key.
It seems to me also that there appears to be something of a pre-911-hijacking type mentality at work here. Go along with things, pay the ransom and things will be fine. A great philosophy until a plane is flown into a building. Or a cruise ship sunk. Or a crew massacred. Or the contents of an oil tanker released near a major port. Or major armaments stolen and sold to islamic radicals. There’s a complacency borne of familiarity at work here but the risks really are not being taken into account.
Much like the mentality that lead to the current economic situation come to think of it.
Wait a minute, I thought this was a trivial problem that can easily be solved by the market with a couple of machine guns on the boats? When did we start dropping bombs? Who is dropping these bombs? Do the merchant marine now have an airforce as well?
Root Causes of Somali Piracy: Nuclear Dumping and Seafood Looting
Ian B.
Your posts are historically wrong – in that it was normal for merchant ships to defend themselves against pirates up to the late 19th century.
Your posts are also logically contradictory – in that you oppose the seas “being ruled by the biggest gun”, but support a “proper navy”. Which is the seas being ruled by the biggest gun.
I fully support the action of the SEALs – but remember who the C. in C. is now.
What if Comrade Obama (or some future President) decides to use the navy to cut off a wicked “tax haven” or whatever.
“Impossible”.
That is what many people thought about a “Community Organizer” (with a life long Communist background) becoming President of the United States.
Even open statements – such as dedicating a book to the Liberation Theology Rev Wright (and taking the title “Audacity of Hope” straight from Rev, Wright) did not prevent this happening. In spite of Rev. Wright being refreshingly open about his fanatical hatred for Western Civiliation in general and the United States in particularly.
The “mainstream media” were not really interested so it was a non story (people who watched Fox News knew all about it – but they were not going to vote for Comrade Barack Obama anyway).
Even Madam Mao (sorry Madam Obama) with her open hatred of the United States is teated as a “role model”.
The “Economist” has a full page devoted to this wonderful lady only a few weeks ago.
With their iron grip on schools, universities and the mainstream media the sky is the limit for leftis action.
If they want to use the armed forces to crush “tax havens” (and so on) what is going to stop them?
Democracy depends on the opinion of the majority – and the polls show that about 60% of the American public think Comrade Obama is a wonderful man.
Tens of millions of people have proved resistant to the long term brain washing of the “education system” and the “mainstream media” that is one of the products of it.
But in a democracy it does not matter if even 49% of people prove resistant to conditioning – as long as it works for 51%.
Not at all contradictory. I was answering the assertion that mere self defence, and at a trivial level of a couple of machine guns, would make the problem go away. Firstly, the golden age of piracy demonstrates that that isn’t the case. Merchant ships had cannon precisely because their self defence didn’t make the problem go away.
It is equivalent to the case for private gun ownership. If you say that people have the right to defend themselves and own weapons, I will entirely agree with you. If you assert that those weapons will help individuals protect themselves, and will save some lives, I will agree with you. But if you say that gun ownership would entirely end crime and agression, then I must disagree.
If you take away the law, and the state then, sorry to say, you will simply appoint criminal corporations- the strongest armed gang- as your new government. This situation already effectively happens in areas beyond the reach or attention of the law and the state, as gangsterism demonstrates. If the Somalis (or any other pirates) are not at risk of assault by some overwhelming force, such as a real navy with no compunction about killing, then they will, over time, just become a government of that stretch of see, charging protection money- a tax- for safe passage, with the threat of a nasty accident to non payers. Criminal protection rackets work more by threat than actual violence, and a steady income stream of taxpayers is more managable than theft itself, not least because such a stable situation is mutually beneficial; the gang has a steady income, while the victims aren’t forced out of the marketplace by excessive violence and loss.
Store owners, whether they own guns or not, rarely attempt to shoot their way out of the situation because if they shoot the mafioso extorting them, the entire gang will descend upon them. This of course is also how governments extract taxes.
Maybe we should just let the Somali pirates rule the seas; as I said eventually it’ll stabilise as a protection racket. What shooting them isn’t going to do is end the problem; it’ll just push them on to the next better organised stage discussed above. The other alternative is to send in a navy employing overwhelming force and force them out of business. It’s the basic failing of anarcho-capitalism. There will always be a dominant force in a society, and that is your government. You can have one chosen by some democratic process, or a mafia. A libertarian argument, rather than anarcho-capitalist, would be to argue for that state to be so restrained as to be only just enough to impose some rule of law. You can’t choose “none of the above”, however much you may wish to. Whether the states we actually live in in reality are any better than being ruled by a mafia is a topic for another discussion.
“I’m a 50 year old fat woman and I could handle shooting at pirates climbing on board a ship.”
I’ve watched you shooting. I don’t bloody think so.
The ransom that some commenters seem to think is acceptable is in fact a substantial amount, from what we are told. Like all monies, it has to come from somewhere: the shipping lines don’t just magic it up.
It may be insurance payouts or it may increase the cost of transportation costs. In other words, people on the receiving end of the shipments (aka all of us) pay.
So the issue is do we accept that there is another “tax” to be paid (piracy), or do we think that the cost of maintaining a fleet of naval vessels is too costly (paid for by governments, who need to raise taxes) to defend the seas?
As a seafaring nation island the idea of piracy has to offend us more than a lot of other countries. It isn’t in our interests to cede large tracts of ocean to the bad guys.
And these people are also, for the most part, Islamists. if there is a benefit for their gung-ho gangs to do this to the west, the jihadists will revel in it and encourage it.
Maybe we can’t stop the pirates entirely, but we can make it less likely for the Somalis to succeed. Whether we insist on convoys or armed merchantmen or even choose to go the long way round Africa, we ought to decide. But it is clear that something we thought belonged in the history books was merely waiting to re-emerge once it could be shown to be profitable and easy. Take some of that away and the problem diminishes.
Yes, issues of so-called international law and some rather twisted up human rights ideas don’t help, but there is something fundamental about safe passage for all nations on the open seas.
Certainly the events off the Horn of Africa are telling us we can never assume peace in any place any more. We had a brief golden age where the sea lanes were open, but we may well be reverting to how it always was. We just have to agree on what we should be doing about facing up to a threat that will never go away in some form.
I have a soft spot for Crooker Timber, ever since those flabby Lefties gave me the coveted title of “Worst Blogger on the Internet” a few years back. Over some serious competition, I may add.
As for the pirates argument, there are a couple of solutions.
1.) Arm the merchant ships.
2.) Run the pirate gauntlet in convoys (protected by a few naval warships). Worked in WWII, would work now.
3.) Hire Blackwater (or similar) to run a few dozen small and well-equipped “privateer” vessels, to accompany those ships willing to pay the fee.
Any shipping company not willing to go with one of the above, leave them to their fate.