Marque and Reprisal
Tim Fernholtz observes that the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which I’m mostly familiar with from its work in the booming field of climate change denialism, has put out an innovative approach to the pirate situation—more pirates:
Washington, D.C., April 9, 2009— News that Somali pirates had seized an American ship and, after being repelled, held her captain hostage drew a response from analysts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: the United States should consider authorizing private parties to attack pirate ships under little used instruments called “letters of marque and reprisal.” [...]
“The world has changed a lot since nations last made significant use of letters of marquee and reprisal. If Congress were to decide to issue them, it would certainly have to revisit the concept,” said CEI Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer. “It’s the type of free-market solution to a real problem that Congress should consider but hasn’t in any serious way.” Lehrer added.
This seems to me to be a complete misunderstanding of how such letters work. You could imagine a situation in which, say, Venezuela decided it was pissed off at Saudi Arabia. Venezuela might start issuing “letters of marque and reprisal”—basically licenses to pirate—to private citizens interests in seizing Saudi oil tankers. If people took Venezuela up on the offer, this would probably reduce the volume of Saudi oil exports, thus simultaneously hurting Saudi Arabia and helping Venezuela by boosting the price of their own exports. Of course the Venezuelans would be opening themselves up to a global military response—war for oil and so forth. The point here, though, is that Saudi ships are full of valuable stuff, namely oil. Nobody in their right mind would want authorization to try to seize control of Somali pirate boats. They’re tiny and worthless. All of Somalia is desperately poor. Nobody wants to rob them.
88 Responses to “Marque and Reprisal”
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April 9th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Wouldn’t the shipping companies whose boats are being hijacked want to seize (or more likely, sink) some Somali pirate boats? I’m not saying it’s a great idea, but I’m pretty sure that’s what CEI is getting at.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Or, we could just issue a letter of Chuck Norris.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Alternatively, we could cancel a few overpriced weapons systems that were designed to fight the Soviet Navy, and instead build a lot of small, fast, heavily-armed boats designed to blow freakin’ pirate ships out of the water.
Oh wait, sorry, that would be a major cut to defense spending that would harm our nation’s security. My bad.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
El Cid wins.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I’ve been joking about this for _years_. I hope the CEI isn’t taking me seriously. About the only way to make money off the idea would be to sell the movie rights to Jerry Bruckheimer…
April 9th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Do they really need a Letter of Marque to do this? I’m pretty sure defense against pirates is legal by international law. Failing that, it’s not like Somalia has a coast guard.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
All of Somalia is desperately poor. Nobody wants to rob them.
I think you’re missing the point, Yglesias. What would you pay to hunt the most dangerous animal of all: man. And, as you say, the Somalis are poor, so who’s going to have the resources to object. I smell a revenue opportunity.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Do they really need a Letter of Marque to do this? I’m pretty sure defense against pirates is legal by international law.
Commercial ships are not authorised to be armed; witness the recent fight between the Chinese ship and the pirates, with Molotov cocktails. The U.S. does not necessarily have to issue letters of marque specifically; it really only needs to issue authorisations for ships transiting the Somali area to be armed and dangerous against the pirates, and accordingly allow them to purchase weapons on the international market.
It’s, currently, an unequal. The Somalis are illegally armed, while the ships cannot be and are thus helpless. Think about how quickly those Somalis would scurry back to their country if the ships they are up against are armed with superior weaponry like mounted heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, RPG’s, guided rockets, and torpedoes, that would blow the crappy pirate ships right out of the water.
I would pay to see the video of it.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Actually, that is my proposal for this crisis:
Arm the ships. With heavy machine guns, RPG’s, and torpedoes. See how the Somalis pirates want to play ball then.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
My guess is that if the pirates start to become a real problem for certain countries or companies that companies WILL start hiring mercs to take them out, paying the mercs a percentage of what the loss of their shipments would have been. Mercs would salivate for that kind of money.
It’s an obvious solution. Right now, if you’re a big credit card thief, the credit card companies have contracted personnel to hunt your ass down forever. The cell phone companies have private eyes paid to track down cell phone fraudsters. These guys are motivated – by money – to do the job, too, unlike government workers – read, cops – who couldn’t care less.
The pirates will be taken down when it’s economical to do so.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
You don’t have any idea what the fuck you are talking about Myles. By definition no one is authorizing anyone to do anything in international waters. What you can’t do is pull up on a dock with a bunch of weapons onboard.
On a whole different note, are you like fourteen?
April 9th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Pretty sure that if each ship transiting the area had a locker with a single M-16 in it with a couple hundred rounds they could fend off just about any lone wolf pirate attack. All at the cost of what, a couple thousand per shit tops?
Isn’t that a better solution than having an international task force of dozens of naval ships sucking up oil, money, and other resources in the ass end of nowhere?
April 9th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
This suggestion keeps coming up. I can never remember where this was discussed, but the conclusion has always been that it’s more profitable for shipping line owners to lose a few ships occasionally (which are insured) than to deal with the expense and bother of arming their ships.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Ports get a little twitchy about admitting heavily armed foreign ships.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
but the conclusion has always been that it’s more profitable for shipping line owners to lose a few ships occasionally (which are insured) than to deal with the expense and bother of arming their ships.
Have you read the news? The insurance premiums for ships transiting those waters are going up. Way up.
How much can a RPG cost? $1500? Probably less. You stack 10 or 20 of those on the ship, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to losing a ship and having your insurance premiums going up. You stack a bunch of M-16s, and that too only goes for $1000 a pop. Way better than losing your ship to nasty Somali pirates and paying something like $30-million in ransom.
What you can’t do is pull up on a dock with a bunch of weapons onboard.
I am proposing precisely to allow ships transiting those waters to dock with weapons aboard, with strict limits and strictly and securely stored in a locked area.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
My guess is that if the pirates start to become a real problem for certain countries or companies that companies WILL start hiring mercs to take them out
I like.
Ports get a little twitchy about admitting heavily armed foreign ships.
They should get, if they have any moral scruples, twitchier about ships getting lost to Somali piracy.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
On a whole different note, are you like fourteen?
No. I just enjoy, as all men would and ought to, shooting down pirates.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Master Miley Foppington appears to have a Jack Sparrow fantasy going on here.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Actually, this proposal would incentivize the mercenary profit seekers to make it easier for Somali pirates to capture and steal stuff so it would be worth it for the mercenaries to capture them.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I have nothing substantive to add to this debate. I just wanted to thank MY for reminding me of my favorite video game of all time, “Pirates”, on Commodore 64 (and later on Sega Genesis). In Pirates, you would be granted a letter of marque by a European Power (Eng, Fr, Sp, Neth) to attack another country’s ships and towns throughout “the Spanish Main”. Effing great game. I wish they’d update it to a modern system.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Couldn’t we have the cargo ships turn into giant space robots? That would surprise the pirates.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
People on this thread appear to have a lot of childhood computer game fantasies about casually picking up machine guns, rocket launchers etc to blast bad guys. There is a reason militaries ‘train’ soldiers you know. Is military level weapons proficiency going to be a new requirement for cargo ship crews? If hiring mercenaries is the way then how do you ensure quality control? Given the profit margins of ‘flag-of-convenience’ ships there will always be temptations to cut corners and hire people who can pretend to shoot straight. Remember even professional armies have huge casualties from accidents and friendly fire, not just from the enemy.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
@laborlibert
IIRC, wasn’t there a PC update of that game just a couple years ago?
http://www.2kgames.com/pirates/pirates/home.php
April 9th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
People on this thread appear to have a lot of childhood computer game fantasies about casually picking up machine guns, rocket launchers etc to blast bad guys. There is a reason militaries ‘train’ soldiers you know. Is military level weapons proficiency going to be a new requirement for cargo ship crews? If hiring mercenaries is the way then how do you ensure quality control? Given the profit margins of ‘flag-of-convenience’ ships there will always be the temptation to cut corners and hire people who can pretend to shoot straight. Remember even professional armies have huge casualties from accidents and friendly fire, not just from the enemy.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I found this video today that provides short video segments that show how different media outlets around the world are covering the story about pirates taking a U.S. ship captain hostage. Definitely worth a look:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/pirates_big_money_on_the_high_seas/
April 9th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
America has a proud tradition of supporting pirates. In the Caribbean to be exact. Other proud traditions upon which America grew. Slavery, tobacco, whiskey and rum. isn’t it about time for America to recapture some of its traditions?
April 9th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I like Myles. Myles, you know about Taki? You’d like him.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Re Myles’s comment “Commercial ships are not authorised to be armed; witness the recent fight between the Chinese ship and the pirates, with Molotov cocktails. …
It’s, currently, an unequal. The Somalis are illegally armed, while the ships cannot be and are thus helpless.”
—————
Sounds kinda like tourists in Washington DC.
Myles and I don’t agree on some things but we see eye to eye on dealing with pirates. Sept 11 occurred because a bunch of chickenshit bureaucrats didn’t think that the Captain and First Officer of an airliner should be armed — an extremely stupid shit altitude.
Any ship going on the high seas should have the right to arm herself.
My understanding, which may be out of date, is that some yachts have carried high powered rifles, at least in the past, although reportedly some countries are getting more and more hostile toward private firearms. When you arrive in a foreign port, you anchor in the designated area, hoist the yellow Quarantine flag and wait for the Customs official to come and clear you.
I haven’t cleared weapons through a foreign port but my understanding is that If you are armed, you lock the weapons up while in port and the Captain keeps the key. Some officials will take possession of the firearms while you are in port. Some countries don’t like easily concealed pistols or assault rifles.
If private yachts can do this, I certainly think commercial ships should be able to do likewise. Again, the weapons can be locked up while in port and the Captain keeps the key or Customs can take possession of the weapons until the ship departs, if the country is run by nancies.
There is something deeply pathological about governments which will not protect their citizens but will also not allow the citizens to take reasonable measures to protect themselves. Great Britain is a contemptible example.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Arming the ships gets a little problematic when the ship is an oil tanker. Firing weapons near those things is pretty risky. The combination of muzzle flash and flammable vapors can be, umm, explosive.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Paying private parties to go after “bad guys” and taking their word for it when they proclaim that the “guys” they nailed are actually “bad guys” worked so well in Afghanistan that expanding the program to the high seas can’t possibly go wrong.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Add my voice to those pointing out the adolescent fantasy quality of some of these posts. You can hardly expect a regular ships crew to engage in a fire fight to save the ship. You would have to hire and train a military outfit to serve on your ships and that would be very expensive. Simply having an RPG on the ship would do little good, unless you had folks who could, and would, fire it when needed. Arming merchant ships has never been a way to avoid piracy, it is not likely to work now.
The Letter of Marque plan has all the drawbacks that Matt mentions, and then a few more. The way a Letter of Marque works is that it gives permission by a national government to engage in piracy against ships flying the flag of some particular nation. So in 1812-1814 ships in Baltimore could get Letters of Marque from Washington allowing them to engage in piracy against ships flying the Union Jack of Great Britain. Such ships, carrying a Letter of Marque or no, that engaged in piracy against ships of France, or Spain or the Netherlands or anywhere else would be subject to criminal prosecution by the US. Given that, who would the carriers of Letters of Marque be allowed attack. Anyone the carrier wanted to? Ships flying the flag of some nation. Those would be legitimate and not pirates. The pirates would be flying the flag of some other nation that we didn’t allow piracy against. The exercise would be pointless.
One possible option that has not been considered anywhere though would be to try and develop a convoy system. One or two ships which were armed, perhaps provided by the military of some nation could serve as escorts to the merchant ships when traveling through the risky waters. This system too, however, is very expensive for the shippers and the fact that it has yet to be tried suggests that it is, as one of the posts above suggests, still cheaper for the shipping companies to pay the insurance than to take on these other expenses.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Guys. This is a problem that can be solved with a liberal dose of adventure – not even adventure but damn near canonical Adventure! – and you’re proposing to insure up and cower, or corral the entirety of international trade into a goddamn convoy system, anything, just so long as you don’t have to commit Adventure! Pathetic.
Yes, if sailors were to fight off pirates, they should probably be trained. They can do most of it at sea – alone in the middle of the ocean, you have plenty of time for drills. Seriously, merchant sailors were training to fight off pirates since before your language was born, it’s not remotely an exotic idea.
Really, unless you’re a milquetoast coward, this isn’t remotely a close call.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
(tho if we’re being all grizzled sea-dog here, I should point out that if you’re cost-benefitting out weapons lockers, you need to also factor in the increased risk of mutiny / piracy-by-crew)
April 9th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
here’s an idea: how about involving the Russian Navy? I bet they could handle a bunch of two-bit pirates. Unlike other countries, when the going gets tough, the Russians bring out the big guns. Just look at the defence of Stalingrad.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
The history is somewhat complicated, but privateering was essentially abolished by international treaties the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Didn’t Ron Paul’s campaign propose using letters of marque and reprisal as a preferable means of fighting terrorism? It does perfectly fit his basic shtick of proposing 18th century solutions to 21 century problems.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Hector,
Don’t forget the merciless obliteration of Grozny. What a tumescent endeavor!
April 9th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Всегда можно найти компромиссы и прийти к общему решению. Если вам что-нибудь не нравится попробуйте что-нибудь другое.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Besides the false flag problem MSR points out, the one Matt suspects was also common to the privateers of the 17th and 18th century, namely, chasing other pirates isn’t very profitable compared to the temptation of big, fat merchant ships floating about.
This was the case of the historical Captain Kidd: he began with a letter of marque from King William himself to chase pirates, and later became a pirate himself by seizing ships from countries with whom England was not at war. Much cutlassing, hanging and hilarity abounded.
Once you have floating armed mercenaries on the sea, with the power to seize ships and incur casualties, things get more messy, not less.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Мне кажется это не совсем точно. На эту тему имеется несколько мнений. И у каждого человека со своим мировоззрением свое мнение.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Really, unless you’re a milquetoast coward, this isn’t remotely a close call.
The thing is that in this day and age, pirates know better than to actually kill anyone, and the crew has no personal interest in or attachment to the goods being carried, and they’re certainly not going to risk their life over it.
If anyone should be providing armed escorts and defense of the ships, it should be the insurance companies.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Matt writes:
You talk as if the two gambits are unrelated. As we move out of the current La Nina conditions later this year and emerge from the current solar minimum, CEI will be even harder pressed to deny the warming effects of greenhouse emissions.
They’re playing the only card they have left. Using pirates to wipe out pirates will continue the apparent correlation between declining pirate numbers and rising global average temps, allowing them to continue to refute the anthropogenic cause of the warming.
Hell, it made as much sense as claiming smoking doesn’t cause cancer.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:41 am
I note that Matt offers no actual solutions to this. Let me guess: Matt wants a UN meeting followed up with a strongly worded press release from the General Assembly….
April 10th, 2009 at 2:37 am
@ 3 LaFollette Progressive receives the Croix de guerre for the thread. You summed up it perfectly AND made me laugh.
The Navy should be a giant -but still lethal- world Coast Guard, and a protector and facilitator of sea going commerce.
Instead, we continue to prepare for a cataclysmic battle on the high seas with the rusting hulks of the former Soviet Navy.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:43 am
‘Seriously, merchant sailors were training to fight off pirates since before your language was born, it’s not remotely an exotic idea’
Before the english language was born would mean sailors fighting off pirates with swords, clubs and spears. In this thread we are talking about using machine guns and RPGs on oil tanker. Crewing a commercial vessel isn’t meant to be that sort of adventure – it’s a job. Why should the crew risk their lives for oil barrels. If people want to have a Bruckheimer style pirate adventure they should get their own weapons and boats and do it themselves.
April 10th, 2009 at 6:19 am
“Crewing a commercial vessel isn’t meant to be that sort of adventure – it’s a job.”
I think that’s what the crew usually says to the pirates when they come on board and take a bunch of them hostage. It’s a wonder it doesn’t do much good.
The free-market solution that MY ridicules is indeed sort of silly (the incentives aren’t there, and besides it’s hard to identify pirates until they’ve struck–they don’t exactly fly the jolly roger), but arming the ships or otherwise having protection privately financed seems like one of the main options that should be pursued. If a company were doing work in Iran or Afghanistan on land they’d have private security along for protection. When you have tens of millions of dollars in oil on a tanker you should be able to foot the bill for some protection for it.
April 10th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Kidd got a letter of marque because he was also authorized to attack French shipping. He didn’t need a letter of marque if all he had been doing was hunting pirates.
The modern solution to piracy wasn’t letters of marque… letters of marque were the way a country bought off pirates, or potential pirates, by redirecting them at your enemies. The modern solution was national navies. (Arming merchantmen having proved as unsuccessful a solution back then as it would be today.)
The only way the piece linked would make a lick of sense would be if we were offering the Somalis letters of marque to prey on somebody else equally lucrative, so they left “our” ships alone (whatever that means in a day and age when more than half of all registered merchant ships fly flags of convenience).
April 10th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Escalation is also a problem. If ships start carrying rocket launchers, what’s to prevent Somali pirates from buying better weapons?
April 10th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Also, Myles is a poser.
April 10th, 2009 at 7:33 am
It’s not about being a milqutoast, it is a matter of choosing strategies and tactics that might actually work. (Although it seems that from a conservative point of view these things might be the same)
Reality Man:
Re: escalation. Also, if some of the crews don’t fight, as has been suggested is a real problem. The merchant ships will be supplying the heavy weapons to the pirates.
Colatina:
Having an armed force on board the ship that is willing to fight and die to protect the ship is far more expensive, I believe, that you are counting on. Also, there are a lot of ports in the region that would be of limits to such a ship, as there a few governments that would not be too happy with ships arriving that carried a well armed military force on board.
All:
If you are going to send a force off to fight pirates, send a professional force, properly equipped, well-trained and loyal to some national government. Sending off a poorly trained group of amateurs with unknown loyalties is not a recipe for success.
April 10th, 2009 at 8:10 am
“You could imagine a situation in which, say, Venezuela decided it was pissed off at Saudi Arabia. Venezuela might start issuing “letters of marque and reprisal”—basically licenses to pirate—to private citizens interests in seizing Saudi oil tankers.”
You could _imagine_ it? That’s what Letters of Marque are _for._ The only case in which privateers would be particularly interested in taking on pirates would be if the pirates had just captured a big, juicy cargo ship and–if I recall correctly–24 hours had passed, so that the privateers could then claim the prize as their own.
Letters of Marque were essentially an attempt by the European powers to redirect the piratical impulse in ways they found useful. They had nothing to do with making the seas safer in general–quite the contrary. And privateers have no interest in being good Samaritans. I suppose if we paid a bounty on pirates…but then look how many fishing trawlers become “pirate ships.” It’d be Camp X-Ray all over again.
No–this is a job for the professionals. I like the Russian Navy idea a lot better (which is to say, not much–but still a lot better).
April 10th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Like I said, you don’t train sailors to fight, you hire armed security guards like every other frickin’ industry does.
At least at sea with pirates, the guards don’t have to be told NOT to shoot like bank guards are.
There’s nothing “adventurous” about this, it’s private security. Compared to the cost of lost cargo, hiring a half dozen or a dozen mooks who can use an M-79 grenade launcher and an AK-47 shouldn’t be a big cost on the books. You only put them on the really dangerous runs, not on every freighter you own.
There’s probably a hundred ex-Navy SEALS who’d sign on for that job in a heartbeat. Somali pirates would be nuts to take those guys on.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:46 am
1) You scurvy boot-licking landlubbers might look at US Customs Form 1303 –Ship’s Stores — submitted by the Captains of inbound ships. That’s where you list firearms. If they are not being imported into the USA per ATF regulations, the Customs officer places them under seal –along with other stores not in use in port.
2) Even the Gun-phobic Brits and effeminate Aussies allow guns on incoming ships — again, they are placed under seal while in port.
See http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageImport_ShowContent&propertyType=document&id=HMCE_PROD_009740#P129_13438 and
http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/form5-4.pdf
April 10th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Re Richard at 52: “Like I said, you don’t train sailors to fight, you hire armed security guards like every other frickin’ industry does.”
————–
The sea is different. You’re on your own. And many merchant ships are pretty marginal operations, using crew from low-income countries. They can’t afford to pay for non-productive ballast to lie around polishing their firearms.
For 3000 years, captains and crews have had the right of self defense –because the high seas are still beyond the protection of any country.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:40 am
> My guess is that if the pirates start to become a real
> problem for certain countries or companies that companies
> WILL start hiring mercs to take them out, paying the mercs a
> percentage of what the loss of their shipments would have
> been. Mercs would salivate for that kind of money.
Until the pirates offer the mercenaries a percentage of 50%…
Cranky
Seriously, merchant sailors haven’t been expected to man the cannons since about 1820. They haven’t signed up to be part of a paramilitary force and risk their lives fighting **on behalf of their employer’s profit margin**.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I have a really simple solution:
Blow the bastards right out of the water! Shoot the bastards up.
SHOOT THEM UP!
April 10th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Q-ships would be a better solution than any I’ve seen mentioned here. They are cargo vessels with hidden weaponry manned by active duty military personel. They are much smaller and cheaper to operate than destroyers. They don’t actually carry cargo, so they don’t need to dock. Hopefully, a few encounters would deter piracy. They were not very useful against submarines, but I think they could be useful against pirates.
Another possibility is some sort of financial aid to the people from that part of Somalia, to create opportunities other than piracy. They’re the ones we actually want to “win” the civil war there, though it’s debatable that anything could be called winning at this point.
As it is, piracy is a wise career move for a healthy young Somali with a fishing boat and a machine gun. It shouldn’t be.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Wouldn’t the US-authorized ships be privateers not pirates?
April 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Re Njorl’s comment “Q-ships would be a better solution than any I’ve seen mentioned here.”
———–
The area’s too big — the pirates have expanded outward by using motherships to support the attack craft.
I think two or three Harrier Jets on a support platform of some kind would be best. When a merchant ship comes under attack, it gives a radio call and within a few minutes the Harrier arrives and makes the attack craft into fish chum. If a few cases of that don’t get the point across, then let the attack craft flee to the mother ship and then turn the mother ship into fish chum.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Weather on the high seas can be a real bitch, however.
But I don’t think 20 foot open cockpit speedboats are going to be out in a storm.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
They haven’t signed up to be part of a paramilitary force and risk their lives fighting **on behalf of their employer’s profit margin**.
It’s not even their employer’s profit margin they’d be defending. It would be their employer’s insurance company’s profit margin.
In the hands of civilians, weapons exist for a single purpose– to defend one’s own life or the lives of others. Replaceable, fungible, mass-produced property carries insurance.
Drivers of armored cars transporting money carry guns, too… but they’re not going to get into a shootout to defend the bags of money in the back. They carry guns to protect themselves. They depend on the public security forces to prevent and respond to crime.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
The crew fight off pirates in self defense — because there’s no assurance that the crew won’t have their asses dumped overboard if the pirates succeed in boarding.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
The crew fight off pirates in self defense — because there’s no assurance that the crew won’t have their asses dumped overboard if the pirates succeed in boarding.
Except that . . . the Somali pirates haven’t been doing that. Routine armed resistance by crews makes routine violecne agaisnt the crews more likely, though.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Letters of Marque? Like the Francis Drake, Henry Morgan kind?
April 10th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Satellite surveillance on the relevant parts of the coast of Somalia. Use aircraft to destroy anything from there that gets out into the shipping lanes. Crude and unfair to the innocent, sure, but hey, business is business.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Да надо бы над этим задуматься, я этому не уделяю особого внимания, нужно будет пересмотреть действия и предпринять там что бы мой блог ожил, а то только тоны гавнокоментов (спама) действительно хороший пост, респект автору.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Privateers versus Ninjas versus Pirates – a triple threat match.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I like how Myles has evidently gotten bored with discussing the technical details of arming ships to fight piracy, so he’s decided to just repeat his original point and put it IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE IT EXTRA TRUE.
April 10th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Re SqueakyRat at 65: “Satellite surveillance on the relevant parts of the coast of Somalia. ”
——–
Good idea. Except the one thing less functional than the US NAvy is US satellite surveillance.
The US Government gave Boeing $10 BILLION to develop the FIA constellation of recon satellites. Supposed to have been launched in 2005. Instead the government got bupkus.
Sigh.
See http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002142.html
April 10th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
PS Oh — and Director of the NRO (builds/operates spy sats) just resigned yesterday.
Or as they say in the biz, “fell on his sword”. (Old Roman joke.)
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/04/08/spy-satellite-agency-head-resigns/
April 10th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Don, the captains of the ships aren’t paying for the guards, it’s the cargo owners and the insurance companies.
Hiring paladins to guard shipments is an old Chinese policy – ever see “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”? What was Michelle Yeoh’s job?
And Somali pirates aren’t going to be hiring mercs to fight back for the simple reason that such mercs would just be more pirates, and they’d have to pay them with a share of the haul. Plus they’d be hiring spies and infiltrators.
One question that arises is: who’s paying the pirates for the captured stuff? Are they susceptible to being taken out? Send the mercs after them, not the pirates. When the pirates can’t find anybody to sell to because buyers get killed, they’ll stop.
You can’t compare armored guard drivers to real security. Those guys get paid little, are guarding something that’s mostly insured anyway, and aren’t comparable to serious security.
Harrier jets need support, fuel, pilots. That would cost an arm and a leg more than some mercs riding shotgun on a ship.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Да надо бы над этим задуматься, я этому не уделяю особого внимания, нужно будет пересмотреть действия и предпринять там что бы мой блог ожил, а то только тоны гавнокоментов (спама) действительно хороший пост, респект автору.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
The real news here is that some conservatives are acknowledging the existence of Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” I guess one out of three ain’t bad.
April 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Re: Blow the bastards right out of the water! Shoot the bastards up.
Well, yes, Myles. The only question we’re debating is whether it would be more effective, and safer, for the bastards to be ‘blown out of the water’ by professional navies, or by adevnture-seeking college boys. Not that I have anything against adventure seeking college boys, indeed I quite admire them. This is strictly a question of effectiveness.
April 10th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
This is why I don’t take anything you say seriously. You just amuse me. I’m guessing you are sexually inadequate.
April 11th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Ok, IANAL, as they say on Slashdot, but I am a former naval officer and at least somewhat acquainted with some relevant laws here. First: US law applies (1) within US territorial waters (2) to some extent, in the US EEZ, and (3) on US-flagged ships. (1) and (2) are obviously not in play off Somalia, and barely any shipping falls under (3). So Congress has literally nothing to say about “authorizing” the relevant shipping to be armed. And I sincerely doubt the governments of Panama or Liberia (under whose flags most merchant shipping operates) care one way or the other.
Also: “letters of marque and reprisal”, are, so to speak, deprecated by customary international law. It’s exactly the same as being a pirate yourself, legally speaking. If the CEI staff, for example, went out and chartered a ship under some kind of letter of marque, and they happened to annoy the Russians, the Russians would be completely within their rights to pick up the CEI crew and prosecute them as pirates.
Further – the idea that a bunch of Pakistani, Malaysian, Panamanian and Greek crewmembers working for sub-minimum wage are going to be sufficiently motivated and capable of fighting off pirates is absurd. And, yes, hiring US Navy SEALs (or indeed anyone capable of doing the job) is going to be expensive. It’s not like you’re going to get people to go out to sea fighting pirates on a merchant ship for months on end for minimum wage. Using small arms effectively is hard and requires a lot of training. The skill set is in high demand relative to the supply.
Finally – I don’t entirely agree that the only solution to the pirate problem is land-based. I think that establishing law & order ashore is one effective way to tackle the problem. But I also feel that with sufficient presence at sea, you could also effectively keep matters under control. It’s not necessary to control the entire ocean, just the Somali littoral and adjacent regions. Trouble is, our Navy is not well structured to do this – we still have a force that’s heavily slanted toward a relatively few high-end combatants, when what’s wanted in this circumstance is a large number of lower-tech platforms. The LCS, while imperfect, is a step in the right direction here.
April 11th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Думаю, что один из главных способов – провокация. Сказал что-то чуть категоричнее чем нужно (и чуть неправильнее) – кто-то обязательно не выдержит, поправит. Кстати, люди начинают активно комментировать, когда авторитет у блога уже есть и посещаемость какая-то…
April 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Apparently the “pirates” don’t all see themselves as “pirates” and neither does the Somali population. Puts a slightly different slant on things.
Pirates’ Strike a U.S. Ship Owned by a Pentagon Contractor, But Is the Media Telling the Whole Story?
By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. Posted April 8, 2009.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/135716/%27pirates%27_strike_a_u.s._ship_owned_by_a_pentagon_contractor,_but_is_the_media_telling_the_whole_story/
April 12th, 2009 at 5:07 am
О, это что-то, недавно где-то уже о таком слышала. Ваше мнение имеет основание быть. Вы понимаете то, о чем пишите. Немного почитав, хотелось бы узнать больше.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Супер, независимое мнение, независимого человека. Классная тема, обязательно это запомню и другим расскажу. Миленькие мои, ну о чем вы говорите, об этом уже столько сказано пересказано.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Хм, как я вижу у Вас сбирается достаточно элитарное общество в плане специалистов своего дела. Странно, конечно, бывает видеть среди профи откровеных диллетантов, но я отношусь к ним с “надеждой” что-ли. В том плане, что они когда-то выучаться и смогут помогать людям. Сложно правда бывает иногда отделить комментарий и совет профи от дилетантского, в том плане, что и те, и те пишут так сказать на отмашь, т.е. пару слов. Еще зайду
April 14th, 2009 at 3:45 am
Электронные системы набирают обороты. Уже столько девайсов и новшеств развилось, что я иногда когда смотрю новости с трудом вербю в то, что происходит в современной жизни. Сегодня показывали реальнодействующего японского робота, который по может помогать старикам, выполняя все домашнюю работу. Он даже может отличить грязную рубашку от читстой.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Вы знаете, что всякое следствие имеет свои причины. Все бывает, все что происходит все к лучшему. Если бы не было этого не факт, что было бы лучше.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Доброе время суток! Сегодня, пользуясь дружественным дизайном этого блога, открыл для себя большое количество доселе неизвестных вещей. Можно сказать, что я существенно отстал в данной тематике в виду её постоянного развития, но всё же блог мне напомнил о многом и открыл новую, можно даже сказать, таинственную информацию. Раньше я часто пользовался информацией подобных блогов, но в последнее время настолько сильно зарапортовался, что нет времени даже зайти в аську… что говорить уже о блогах… Но всё равно спасибо создателям. Блог очень полезный и смышлёный.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Супер, независимое мнение, независимого человека. Классная тема, обязательно это запомню и другим расскажу. Миленькие мои, ну о чем вы говорите, об этом уже столько сказано пересказано.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Оно то все так, но как по мне если есть посетители на сайтов, то есть и комментарии, т.к. каждый хочет принят участие в обсуждении той или иной темы, тем самым засветиться в кругу блогеров, так что считаю количество комментариев прямопропорционально зависит от количества посетителей,.. ну не берем спам естественно
April 18th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Кошмар. Только что смотрел новости просто волоы поднимаются, как же жить будем если цена на нефть так упала. В бюджет заложили одни цифры и доходы, теперь видим другие. Интересно на сколько хватит нам нашего “стабилизационного фонда” с таким подходом. Сорри, что я так близенько к теме. Но это тоже важно, как мне кажется.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
О, это что-то, недавно где-то уже о таком слышала. Ваше мнение имеет основание быть. Вы понимаете то, о чем пишите. Немного почитав, хотелось бы узнать больше.