21st Century Pirates

Imagine these guys with tanks.

In the past two months, Somalia’s pirates have made the news with a spectacular hijacking of a cargo of Russian tanks on its way to Sudan. Another ship was boarded carrying “minerals,” which later made the hijackers and their families sick. The Gulf of Aden creates a perfect geographical funnel to a choke point called the Bab el Mandeb that links it to the Red Sea. So, opportunities abound from unprotected traffic. BBC reported today that some of the pirates use a sophisticated intelligence network to determine the most valuable (and presumably most vulnerable) ships from the millions of tons that pass through that area per year. Piracy does not get this sophisticated overnight so some enterprising person or group planned on making lots of money.

Major powers have navies for just this sort of security. The 18th and 19th centuries naval powers justified their massive expenditures in response to growing international commerce. Merchants needed safe passage, especially at these choke points. What does it mean that piracy groups can operate this freely in a passage that connects Western economies with Asia? Are they that good or this just too small an issue for navies of the world to take note?