Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 22:00:29 +0200
Maritime Piracy: A Chronic but Manageable Threat
Piracy Map, courtesy of Dan /flickr
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Are fragile states and bad governance responsible for
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piracy? On the contrary, argues Bridget Coggins. Pirates also benefit from
stable governments that provide easy access to corrupt officials and a
steady stream of high value targets.
By Bridget Coggins for ISN
15 April 2014
Recent years have seen a dramatic reduction in
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piracy. According to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting
Center, Somali pirates attacked 236 ships in 2011. By the end of 2013, that
number had dropped to 15. Earlier in the 2000s, international cooperation
produced similarly impressive results in the Straits of Malacca and
Singapore. Is it possible that these trends anticipate a future where the
threat of piracy could be eliminated? For a number of reasons, piracy is
unlikely to disappear. Still, the threat is manageable and, given the right
mix of political will and effective counter-piracy strategies, most ships
can be safe an overwhelming majority of the time.
Why can't piracy be eliminated?
The nature of the phenomenon that we currently consider '
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piracy' makes it unlikely that the practice can be stopped entirely. For
most, the term 'piracy' conjures images of kidnapping and hijacking on the
high seas, but this type of piracy is only one of a number of incident types
catalogued as "maritime piracy and armed robbery against ships" by the
International Maritime Organization. The definition now in common use is
much broader and includes attacks within a country's territorial waters and
those that occur while a ship is in port. The traditional, narrow definition
of maritime piracy includes only those attacks against vessels outside of
the territorial waters of any country.
If the broader definition of piracy is employed, there is little chance that
piracy can be eliminated - and doing so would probably not be worth the time
or effort that it would require. Many of these piracy incidents are petty
thefts of the crew's personal items or the ship's cargo. This "piracy"
problem is not so much an international scourge as it is domestic crime.
Armed robbery, whether at sea or on land, is unlikely to be eradicated.
If we only consider attacks fitting the narrower definition, there are fewer
attacks to deter and defend against but the task of doing so is more
complicated because the attacks are more sophisticated and resemble
organized crime. Additionally, conflicts over sovereignty and responsibility
often arise between states attempting to counter threats that cross
international boundaries. So called non-traditional threats like piracy
cannot be resolved without the cooperation of many countries - including the
home governments of the perpetrators and of the victims. The free passage of
people and goods at sea is essential to the routine functioning of the
global economy and international affairs. Yet the basic will, resources, and
cooperation between countries required to thwart these attacks are often
lacking.
One of the most significant obstacles to countering piracy is the short
attention span of the international community and its tendency to quickly
divert funds to new, "more pressing" problems. In the Somali case, large
sums of money and resources have been dedicated to countering piracy. For
example, the new Puntland
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Police Force (PMPF), established in 2010, receives much of its funding from
the United Arab Emirates and its new prison was built by the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). If those resources were withdrawn, the
Puntland regional government would have trouble maintaining the force.
Nevertheless, some of the international community's attention has already
shifted away from the Gulf of Aden toward the new hot spot in West Africa
and the Gulf of Guinea.
It can also be difficult to convince governments to take serious measures to
counter piracy on land. Occasionally, this is because the government or
security apparatus has been corrupted or co-opted by a pirate or organized
crime network, but it is also because piracy's victims are typically
outsiders who lack local advocates. As piracy mostly originates in weak
states, it is typically only one of a number of competing security
priorities and combating it has few palpable positive effects for local
authorities. The interaction of victim countries' desires to effectively
counter piracy and perpetrator countries' perceived indifference often
undermines international cooperation as victim governments' policies become
more assertive and perpetrator governments become increasingly wary of
meddling in their internal affairs.
When and why does piracy decline?
Although the precise reasons for piracy's recent decline off of the coast of
Somalia are difficult to identify because so many counter-piracy tactics
were adopted at once, there is little doubt that increased naval patrols
have had a deterrent effect. Far fewer attacks are even attempted in the
Gulf of Aden today than before. Increased awareness and training have also
helped to thwart attacks and increase crew safety. Changing practices within
the shipping industry, including simple and relatively low-cost changes like
the use of secure routes, training for emergencies and instruction in
evasive maneuvers have worked. As have the provision of a safe room onboard
and the addition of lookouts on deck. Some of the more controversial
measures, like the use of armed private security contractors, have received
a great deal of publicity and attention, but there is only anecdotal
evidence that they more effectively or efficiently protect ships.
In regions where pirate activity exists, there is reason to believe that
uneven surveillance or gaps in counter-piracy operations shift the
geographic locations of pirate bases and attacks. Some have likened
counter-piracy's effects in the Gulf of Aden to an inflating balloon that
forces Somali pirates to attempt attacks farther and farther out into the
Indian Ocean in order to evade capture. Others argue that the pattern of
decline resembles "whack-a-mole," implying that new attacks will occur
wherever surveillance is lax and that uninterrupted vigilance is required.
Where we have seen
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piracy decline most precipitously, it has been the result of the concerted
multilateral efforts of local governments, victim governments, and the
international shipping community.
Why don't fewer attacks portend piracy's end?
Even if counter-piracy strategies continue to prove effective, there are
always areas where piracy might emerge (or reemerge). Research has improved
our understanding of the states with important risk factors for the
development of particular types of piracy, but we cannot yet pinpoint where
it will begin because its proximate causes are so distinct.
Scholarship on piracy is generating increasingly accurate estimates of the
conditions conducive to
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piracy. For example, early suspicions that piracy was related to failed
states have been replaced by more nuanced studies like those by myself,
Justin Hastings, Olaf de Groot, Anja Shortland, and Sarah Percy which
outline the conditions under which piracy, in its various forms, is likely
to emerge. Professor Hastings' work suggests that Somali piracy is unlikely
to transform into the more sophisticated form of piracy found in Southeast
Asia. Others of us maintain that piracy in general - and Somali piracy in
particular - is enabled by a certain degree of functional governance on
land. The weakest states are typically unable to support a thriving pirate
industry, and pirates in the Puntland region benefitted from a relatively
stable government, corruptible officials and steady stream of high value
targets through the Gulf of Aden that could not easily be rerouted
elsewhere. Despite these important findings, we are not sure why piracy
flourished in Somalia, but not across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen, where most
of the same risk factors are present. Nor can we explain why most
insurgencies have not adopted maritime piracy like the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has in Nigeria.
In sum, although recent counter-piracy strategies have been effective, if
difficult to implement and sustain, piracy is likely to continue as a
persistent, low-level threat in years to come.
_____
Bridget Coggins is an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, sponsored by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul,
South Korea. Her work concentrates on the intersection of domestic
instability and international security. In Fall 2014, Professor Coggins will
join the Department of Political Science at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
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