Proto-state formation in Puntland

By Dave Anderson:

Piracy is a sympton of land-based disorder.  Pirates only can make money if they have the port-based infrastructure to repair their ships, re-provision for the next patrol, hold their captives and prizes and take delivery of ransom.  States that possess an effective monopoly on the use of force don't engage in piracy, for if they did, it would be an act of war. 

Tying up a significant portion of the global long range deployable naval capacity in patrols off the East African littoral will not solve the piracy problem.  It may amerioloriate it, it may force shifts in operating patterns, it may make it marginally more expensive, and it may accelerate the pirate OODA loop, but this singular policy will not stop piracy. It is a band-aid until an order that is amenable to allowing the free flow of international trade emerges on the ground. 

Ground-based order will not emerge from the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, as the TFG is a bad joke with an expired punchline.  It will emerge from the realities on the ground as I argued in April 2009:

These pockets of stability may or may not be in the form of traditional states of the Westphalian model, but they are valuable none the less. These pockets are often a recognition of reality on the ground; local elites, networks and tribal connections as well as sometimes being the strongest group of thugs around who have fairly limited objectives can be sources of needed stability from which proto-states can emerge to better reflect ongoing realities...

The same applies for Somalia and other failed or failing states --- working with the reality that there really is no such thing as a unified Somali state with an effective central government but there are regional pockets of stability that are effectively serving as limited proto-states will be far more successful in accomplishing the limited political/economic goals of the United States (smooth flow of global trade, sidelining of radical Islamists who have the capacity and intent for global strikes) then attempting to re-create a unified Somali state....

Galrahn argues that the Very Serious People are thinking about recognizing reality on the ground:

We are going to quit pretending the militia force being stood up in Puntland is an anti-piracy force.... Puntland is not building an anti-piracy militia of security contractors, they are building a private Army with a little nod and wink from well financed investors, and they are going after Mohamed Said Atom. Weapons runner for al Shabab? Yep. Political opposition of Mr. Abdurrahman Mohamud Faroole? Yep...

We are going to quit pretending Mr. Abdurrahman Mohamud Faroole isn't in deep with pirates - he is. Puntland is a pirate state, and Mr. Abdurrahman Mohamud Faroole is getting kickbacks for ransoms, because he could never hold power otherwise. Faroole isn't a good guy, and just like the vast majority of people in power in Africa - he can be bought, and almost certainly is being bought off by folks with financial interests in the resources in Puntland....

There is significant money going into Puntland's military.  And yes, Faroole is a bastard and a warlord, however as Galrahn notes, he is a profit seeking bastard, and piracy is very bad for business if the business requires significant sea-borne imports and exports.  This is proto-state formation at a raw, but real level --- what set of thugs backing which set of interests can impose a monopoly on violence that is then called legitimate. 

And given that the primary American interest in Somalia is keeping the sea lanes open, backing or at the very least, not opposing, a bastard who is willing to keep the sea lanes open is in American interests.