An anonymous response to Best Defense's piracy columnist here calls out the U.S. Navy for its sluggish response to the growing piracy problem in the Indian Ocean. It's not every day that you see someone challenge the manhood of the whole 5th Fleet.

Frankly, I think Mr. Anon is a little rough on Cdr. Herb Carmen, a fine officer who is our regular piracy columnist. (So Carmen applauded the French, is that a crime?) But this blog believes in letting different voices be heard, so here is the opposing viewpoint. Btw, for those of you following the action at home, a MEU is a Marine Expeditionary Unit. The last time I looked, which was a long time ago, that was a jarhead infantry battalion backed by an aviation element (a few weak-ass Cobra attack helicopters, some aging transport helicopters, and a couple of Harriers, if you were lucky), plus a logistics battalion.

Herb Carmen's posts talk about international will, highlight EU NAVFOR and NATO -- and say almost next to nothing about the U.S. Navy. 

The fact is that the U.S. isn't showing the will to do what needs to be done. No one, including policymakers, wants to deal with it. I really believe that 5th Fleet made a conscious decision to let piracy escalate to get the Europeans to drag their butts through the Suez and no one has told me I'm wrong.  

The U.S. Navy wants nothing to with fighting thugs in the littorals for the same reasons the Air Force traditionally resists the close air support mission -- it's not the blue water fleet battle they've built the force around. We ought to be take down motherships and ‘steal back' a merchant ship or two offshore. We should attack the financial networks and go after the agents and negotiators in other nearby countries. No one is  willing to call out shippers and insurers for their complicit behavior. The real reason no one is really taking any of this seriously, I suspect, is that the hostages are largely low-paid Filipino, Indian and Pakistani merchant seamen. If we had 200 westerners held captive -- let alone Americans -- we'd already have a MEU on the beach.

I'd like to hear from someone other than poor old Herb on this. Any response, 5th Fleeters?

Multi-mission naval aviator Herb Carmen returns safely to base with yet another interesting report. Here ‘tis.

By Cdr. Herb Carmen
Best Defense piracy columnist

History shows that stopping piracy almost always requires actions ashore. In the case of piracy near Somalia, very little has yet been done to put pressure on the shore establishment that supports the booming business and burgeoning industry of piracy in the region. By steering clear of the Somali coast and focusing on sea lane protection and escort, navies may make hijacking merchant vessels more difficult for pirates but can only address the symptoms of piracy without confronting the source and the motivations behind it. 

With some 2 million square miles of ocean to patrol, it requires considerable effort to do counter-piracy well. While escort operations have been largely successful in recent months, the annual number of pirate attacks has increased. The rate of pirate hijackings actually decreased by 28% in 2009, but the number of hijackings remains almost steady between 2008 and 2009. What the steady number of hijackings might suggest is that pirates have a finite capacity ashore to berth and retain seized vessels; and, within that finite capacity, pirates have been able to sustain a certain level of success in the region despite the success in the sea lanes. 

Even as navies make it more difficult for pirates at sea, the problem isn't going away without addressing piracy closer to shore and denying pirates the use of port facilities. Recent hijackings have been largely against merchant vessels that have strayed from transit corridors and ignored best practices. The most recent example of such a hijacking is the capture of the Saudi tanker Al Nisr Al Saudi which was hijacked Monday and had not registered its voyage with MSCHOA. The vessel was taken to Garacad, a well-known pirate stronghold. Garacad isn't new to the Navy, as seen in this video.

Last week brought promising news of a first step in denying pirates the use of ports such as Garacad, along the middle of the Somali coastline. The ministers of the defense of the European Union announced an expansion of the mission of EU's Operation Atalanta to "include control of the Somali ports where pirates are based as well as ‘neutralizing' mother ships that allow the pirates to operate over 1,000 kilometers from the coast." Until now, EU NAVFOR has focused its maritime assets on protection of vessels of the World Food Program (WFP) delivering food aid to displaced persons in Somalia and the protection of vulnerable vessels sailing in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast. While they've been largely successful in protecting WFP aid, it appears that EU NAVFOR is expressing a willingness and commitment to confront piracy more directly. If the EU takes this mission on wisely and with drive and energy, it could reduce Somali piracy significantly.

Beyond the issue of piracy, what happens to WFP aid once it is delivered to Somalia has become the challenge ashore. The WFP partially suspended operations in Somalia in January in the face of threats and attacks from armed groups. In a statement Sunday, Al Shabaab "banned" WFP operations in Somalia. Just this week, there are reports that WFP trucks and truck drivers have been hijacked ashore. WFP has hopes to restart work in the area in March or April and aims to provide food assistance to 3.5 million people.

By Cmdr. Herb Carmen
Best Defense piracy czar

Are some ship masters rolling the dice as they pass through pirate infested waters to save operating costs? Are ship masters intentionally taking the path of least resistance and ignoring Best Management Practices to Deter Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the Coast of Somalia? It's something we've been looking at when combing through data of successful pirate attacks. So, too, have the folks at Strategy Page.

In a recent post, Strategy Page points out that about a quarter of the ships passing through these waters are gambling with the safety and well-being of their ships and crews to save time and what can amount to tens of thousands of dollars in operating costs. In doing so, they increase the pirates' chances of successfully hijacking their ship from 1 in 500 to 1 in 200. At a press conference on February 2nd, Rear Admiral Peter Hudson, Commander of EU NAVFOR Somalia, highlighted the fact that many of the ships hijacked were not registered with the Maritime Security Centre (Horn of Africa), were not reporting to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) office in Dubai, and were not following best management practices. 

Read on

By Cdr. Herb Carmen

Best Defense Pirates Columnist

With all that's been happening in Haiti over the last week, I'd like to start by sending a shout out to my first Fleet squadron, the VRC-40 Rawhides. The Rawhides have several C-2A Greyhound aircraft participating in Operation Unified Response, shuttling food and water to from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Haiti throughout the night. In fact, I heard from one of the Rawhides at 4:30am Tuesday morning before he and his crew made a final run to Haiti with six pallets of MREs before getting some rest. Because the airfield at Port-au-Prince can only handle 1 wide-body jet at a time, medium lift aircraft like the C-2A can help keep supplies moving by landing, unloading quickly on a small taxiway, and departing. Obviously, the C-2A carries a lot less than a C-17, but the C-2A's ability to get in and out of an airport expeditiously with a light footprint gives it a niche for the movement of high priority cargo into Haiti which can then be distributed by other means. Bravo Zulu to VRC-40 and Bravo Zulu to everyone lending a hand in Haiti.

Read on

Ahoy, mateys. Herewith my CNAS colleague, Navy Cdr. Herb Carmen, comes aboard with an overview of recent pirate news. Herb, formerly ringleader of the Sun Kings, the notorious music-loving aviation squadron, is a veteran naval aviator with 444 controlled crash landings on carriers to his name.

We here at Best Defense hope that in the coming months, until Herb catapults back into the fleet, that "Pirate Watch" will be a continuing feature of this blog:

In recent weeks, we've been showered with stories and posts in recent about piracy near the Gulf of Aden and Somali Coast.  On December 27th, a helicopter delivered a $4M ransom payment to secure the safe return of the Chinese dry bulk carrier Den Xin Hai owned by Qingdao Ocean Shipping, her 25-member crew and 76,000 tons of coal.  Just after I had read a blog post about the sale of Blackwater's 183-ft anti-piracy ship, I read another post describing A.P. Moller Maersk Line's hiring of contracted security forces, including a warship from Tanzania, to protect the Brigit Maersk tanker from pirates of the coast of Africa.  In just the first two days of 2010, a chemical tanker, a British vehicle carrier, and 49 seamen were taken captive by pirates. Just when it appeared the salvo of news on piracy was over, apparently a contractor and forces from the Yemen Navy have teamed up for some time to provide security for ships transiting the Gulf of Aden.

Read on