| ▲ | asdff 5 hours ago |
| Seems like piracy is more about the land than the sea. I can't think of any major american military action against piracy aside from actions against somali terrorists. Seems piracy as it was known historically died out as the old historic pirate havens of say Tortuga or Outer Banks went from places of anarchy to places that were controlled by some government in some capacity. And that is exactly where we see the somali piracy today: here is a state that is unable to govern its land mass and thus there is piracy, even with the american navy directly taking action against this piracy. Seemingly this has nothing to do with the american navy at all, even though that is supposedly one of its mandates and it takes actions in the spirit of advancing these anti piracy goals. The fundamentals of why piracy does and doesn't occur don't really change. It seems it comes down to government capacity on land, not from projecting naval power. |
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| ▲ | throwaway27448 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > somali terrorists Pirates are many things, maybe even criminals under international law, but terrorists they are certainly not. |
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| ▲ | gpm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > maybe even criminals under international law Piracy has to be the canonical example of criminals under international law... | |
| ▲ | asdff 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are they not commingled with Al Shabaab, Daesh, and the Houthis? | | |
| ▲ | selfhoster1312 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | By that standard, pretty much every nation state in the world would be considered terrorist. I'm not against that definition, but i'm rather sure you didn't mean it. | |
| ▲ | throwaway27448 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sir do you just think all muslims are the same people? What else ties these groups together? | | |
| ▲ | asdff 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | No? I'm talking about who is sponsoring the somali pirates. I'm not connecting them to these groups. They are already connected to these groups in particular. I didn't just name three random terrorist organizations. These groups are all operating in somalia right now. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway27448 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure the extent to which either Daesh or Andar Allah are formally operating in Somalia, but I apologize if I cast unfair aspersions. I don't believe there are any formal or uniform or centralized funding of the pirates at all, though—many were simply fisherman who could no longer make a living. This is just my understanding however. I'm also open to the idea that the pirates aren't just from Somalia. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support. RPG-7s do not grow on trees in Somalia. I hazard to guess an RPG on the black market is also a great expense to anyone who isn't being given one by one of these groups connected to the arms trade in effort to advance their goals or position in some way. | | |
| ▲ | self 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They cost under $500/launcher: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/one-for-history-books... $300/launcher here: https://www.un.org/depts/los/nippon/unnff_programme_home/fel... A decade ago it wasn't terrorist groups funding them. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Seems cheap to you and me but that is about the full annual income of someone from somalia. It isn't realistic for an individual to purchase one without external support. |
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| ▲ | BeetleB 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support. "I have no evidence, but I can't think of other scenarios so it must be true!" | | |
| ▲ | asdff 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well it isn't like you can do very much hunting with an RPG-7. Its purpose is to destroy material that you cannot with small arm fire and that sort of limits the intended purpose and customer. |
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| ▲ | throwaway27448 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well why do you think they want to raid these ships? To buy more RPG-7s, of course! But seriously, if they were being funded by other groups, why pirate in the first place? | | |
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| ▲ | _DeadFred_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I mean that is ignoring the American military experience with Islamic pirates and Islamic slavers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_corsairs |
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| ▲ | asdff 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That also supports the government capacity argument. The US was able to make peace with the barbary states and extract a right of safe passage assurance from them. Why? Because the leadership of these states had enough government capacity to compel their domestic pirates into agreeing to the terms their government dictated. Today, in Somalia, we see what the lack of government capacity manifests as. I'm sure the government of Somalia does in fact have laws against piracy. The fact they aren't being enforced, and the pirate industry there exists, shows what happens when law and agreements meet the hard realities that there needs to be government capacity to see them enforced and heeded. | | |
| ▲ | _DeadFred_ 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Islamic governments there always had the capacity though contrary to your central point. As evidenced by the many treaties there were entered into by those governments, not by the Islamic pirates/slavers. From the writings at the time 'Muslim sources, however, sometimes refer to the "Islamic naval jihad"—casting the conflicts as part of a sacred mission of war under Allah' These Islamic pirate/slavers are the SPECIFIC pirates that "The Barbary threat led directly to the United States founding the United States Navy in March 1794.". These are the specific type of pirates that the US Navy was founded to combat to protect ships being seized and their crews sold into slavery. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Of course it gets a little muddy when you consider the europeans also had state sponsored privateers. I would not consider state sponsored pirates like this to be the same as pirates who operated against the interests of basically all states and required a little corner of the earth free of anyone's control to operate. Kind of a different phenomenon with different incentives and funding structures and goals. |
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| ▲ | throwaway27448 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Let us not confuse north africa with the horn of africa. Two wholly different people with different cultures, motivations, and practices. |
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