Splashing, and clashing, in murky waters

Private security firms are increasingly involved in the fight against pirates. The allocation of tasks between them and navies needs some thought of the dozens of ships recently captured by pirates off east Africa, few stirred so much interest in their home country as a German freighter, the Hansa Stavanger, seized by Somalis in April. As its captivity wore on, the crew of 24 was reported in Germany’s media to be ailing and in need of medicine and water.

At one point, German police commandos were training on board an American navy ship, hoping to storm the vessel, until America’s national security adviser, James Jones, said it was too dangerous. At last, on August 3rd, the saga ended after negotiations between the ship’s Hamburg-based owners and the pirates, who boasted that they had netted $2.75m in ransom.

Parleying with pirates, and then paying the ransom (often by airdrops), are jobs that shipowners regularly contract out to private firms or “risk consultancies�. Other maritime security services are less controversial: fitting ships with kit, such as barbed or electric wires, to make it hard for pirates to clamber aboard. Increasingly, security firms also put armed guards on ships, or offer their own craft as escorts.

Business protecting ships off east Africa has tripled in the past year, says Eos Risk Management, a London firm that says it has fended off at least 15 attacks from Somali pirates since January. Eos usually uses non-lethal defences, but David Johnson, its boss, says new players are rushing into maritime security, taking advantage of the ample supply of weapons in Africa.

Armed escort ships, offering protection for a price, are becoming a lot more common off east Africa. Local coastguards, where they exist, have got used to private-security vessels plying their waters, says Stan Ayscue of Securewest International, a firm based in Singapore and Virginia.

But for strategists grappling with the diminished safety of the world’s seas—off east Africa and in other perilous spots such as South-East Asia and the waters of Nigeria—figuring out a sensible and workable division of labour between navies and private firms is not easy.

In at least one way, the activities of private firms clash with the concerns of navies and their masters. The payment of ransoms is a menace for law and order. As Robert Gates, America’s defence secretary, lamented in April, the fight against piracy would be going better if shipowners stopped paying to regain their vessels.

But of course, when private security companies, often employing veterans of national armed forces, work well to prevent piracy, they and the world’s navies are broadly on the same side. America in particular says countering piracy requires a joint effort by states, shipowners and other private interests, including security firms. “In appropriate circumstances, onboard armed security, private or military, can provide an effective deterrent to pirates in the Horn of Africa region for certain vessels deemed to be at high risk,� the State Department has said.

It is clearly true that no single agency in the war against piracy is likely to succeed. About 15 countries conduct anti-piracy naval patrols in the Indian Ocean under various hats. That might sound a lot; but 30 warships are operating in an area almost as big as the United States. Achim Winkler, a spokesman for the European Union naval force, says hundreds of ships would be needed to secure the area.

And for navies, almost as much as for private security providers, the surge in piracy has affected their institutional interests in confusing ways. As cynics note, the fight against piracy has certainly given navies a noble new mission, a claim on budgets and an area for cross-border work to which nobody objects.

NATO’s new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, recently agreed with Russia’s envoy to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, that piracy was a field where they could work together. However, Russia, which has sent a series of naval ships to the Horn of Africa, says it will not serve under NATO or EU command.

Meanwhile, the Russian navy has in recent days been engaged in what it has presented as a dramatic anti-piracy mission: apprehending, off the Cape Verde islands, eight people on board a Russian-owned cargo ship called the Arctic Sea, whose crew claimed to have been hijacked, at least briefly, in the Baltic in late July. Other countries were sceptical of that story.

Apart from biggish powers like Russia, the war on piracy is attracting small countries. For example, Croatia recently said it was joining an EU-led force, after vowing to respect the “human rights� of pirates.

John Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, an American consultancy, offers a hard-boiled view of all this. “A lot of navies are looking for something to do—and there are many ships in the world prepared for big naval war, which isn’t going to happen.�

But some naval types say tackling barefoot Somalis with bazookas is not the best use of large warships. “They feel that tackling a skiff is an odd thing to do with a ship costing hundreds of millions,� says Jason Alderwick, an analyst with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Nor are warships always ideal for the job. A naval craft may take 20 minutes to send a helicopter to a nearby merchant vessel in danger. That is easily enough time for pirates to seize a ship; once that happens, there is no easy way to regain control.

Deterrence, or at least stopping attacks at the earliest stage, is always best. These are areas in which the private sector (both shipowners and their security advisers) must play a role. America has also encouraged small countries with large shipping registries such as Liberia, Panama, the Marshall Islands and the Bahamas to mandate prudent self-protection by vessels.

Already, the line between peaceful merchant ships and naval ones is blurring a little. These days, maritime-security providers operating off east Africa almost always make some use of weapons, says Didier Berra, a French army veteran who has worked for Secopex, a naval-security firm based in Carcassonne in France.

Draconian force is seldom necessary, adds Mr Berra. Attackers often give up when 12.7mm machineguns are fired into the water, creating a big splash. The head of another European security firm says many outfits sidestep bans on weapons in port by tossing them overboard. Yet a show of firepower is increasingly necessary because pirates are getting blasé about “non-lethal� defences like water hoses and sonic blasts, says David Schewitz, whose California-based company, RSB International, helps protect ships.

Navies are also starting to deploy seamen on merchant ships, something hitherto rare unless the cargo was military. The French navy, for example, has been sending sailors to protect the country’s tuna-fishing ships in waters around the Seychelles. Such assertiveness at least marginally reduces the opportunities for private firms; a few games really are zero sum.

In any case, private security firms can’t do more than tackle the symptoms of piracy. More needs to be done onshore. Tracking where the ransoms are stashed, reportedly in banks in the Gulf, would be one way to start. Another idea would be to find new ways for young Somali boat-owners to survive. Somalis who once fished say they were pushed out by foreign trawlers.

Ultimately piracy in Somalia is unlikely to stop until chronic instability, caused by rival warlords and Islamist fighters, is tackled. Yet no outsider has a convincing panacea. American forces have bombed Islamist fighters in southern Somalia, and Russia favours knocking out pirate coastal bases; neither action promises stability.

The absence of an effective state in Somalia means there is no local ability to police national waters. Last year the “transitional federal government� signed a deal with Secopex under which the firm would have set up a small national navy. Secopex estimated it would need two dozen fast gunships. But the deal failed. The government was too broke and disorganised.

Across Africa, in Nigeria, lies another danger zone for ships. According to GEOS, a French firm, the insurgents who make pirate-like attacks on shipping in Nigeria’s Delta region are very well armed and informed about targets, through contacts in the oil and shipping worlds. Yet Nigeria’s semi-functioning state helps keep piracy within bounds. GEOS typically protects its clients’ ships with help from a Nigerian police boat or small navy gunship.

The UN Security Council has authorised naval ships to enter Somali waters in pursuit of pirates. But the high seas are simply getting more perilous than they were, and neither governments nor private interests seem to have the capacity to make them safe.

Somalia | Politics | | economist.com