Aargghh --- Piracy and Cooperation

By Fester:

Piracy functions best when there is a minimal state and little international coercive and order maitenance capacity to function as a quasi-state in the place of a failed state.  Noah at the Danger Room notes that piracy is on the upswing due to a variety of reasons including weaker littoral states and more targets of opportunity:

Somewhere on the world's waterways, a pirate will try to strike today. Another will tomorrow. And another the day after that. Piracy is on the rise, across the globe -- up nearly 75%, from last decade to this one, according to a new report from the RAND Corporation. There's now at least an attempt at a pirate attack nearly every day.... between 2000 and the end of 2006. This represents an annual average incident rate of 352, a substantial increase over the mean of 209 recorded for the period of 1994�1999,"

The straits of Indonesia (Malacca & Sunda most noticably) and the Horn of Africa are the most dangerous regions for shipping as there has not been effective presence patrols and security that can both deter/defeat the actual attacks from occurring and more importantly break down the supporting network of recruitment, resupply, intelligence and fencing/financing that makes piracy an economically viable proposition.  At the same time, piracy is suppressible and it can be done by cooperation of first, second and third rate powers.  This has been true since a third rate power (the United States) suppressed the Barbary Pirates in the Barbary War and it is true today.

Information Dissemination is the place to go to see international efforts to suppress piracy in the Horn of Africa region.  For instance, Sweden is sending two light warships and a tender to the effort, and the Canadians look to take command of the international flotilla that will implement the UN Security Council resolution. 

This is a traditional mission for most navies -- keeping the sea lanes open from bandits and brigandes.  It also has a humanitarian aspect to it as the localized improvement in security has the notable side benefit of providing rescue services; for instance, a US destroyer rescued 70 refugees yesterday when their boat lost power.  The ship was not assigned to refugee duty, but it can sub-task to that role when needed.

Now this brings up a larger question for the US Navy.  What proportion of its efforts should be dedicated to maritime security/constable duties and what should be devoted to large scale, conventional fleet on fleet or fleet versus defended land targets duty?  The Navy is in a bit of a quandry because its current fleet is optimized for large scale engagements and while a 2 billion dollar destroyer can perform constable duties; it is not the highest and best use of resources.  The Navy's current solution to this problem is a program called the LCS but it is overdue and massively over budget.  Does optimizing the Navy for the highest end missions provide significant value instead of adding ships that are optimized for what is traditionally considered the Coast Guard mission of presence, patrol and priority services make sense?  Suppressing piracy and enforcing sanctions don't require the naval equivilant of a SWAT team.  Instead they require a beat cop who knows a SWAT team is on call if needed.