Piracy is NOT a sideshow

The headline in the Financial Times is clear: "Piracy is a Sideshow for Our Navies."

The article, by Brooke Smith-Windsor, argues a) incidents of piracy are actually rare and b) using navy warships to combat piracy is fairly ineffective.

Mr Smith-Windsor goes on to attribute the uproar to profiteering: insurers and shippers promote the pirate scare because it helps them raise prices.

Let's grant the second argument, about the cost-effectiveness of warships against pirates. Even in a constrained theater like the Gulf of Aden, there's a lot of water to cover; in the Indian Ocean it's way worse.

Like having a couple of squad cars patrolling Manhattan: they'll miss a lot.

But for now, we don't have many alternatives - assuming we intend to fight piracy.

And combat technology is improving. The anti-piracy fleet deploys helicopters to increase the patrol radius; and satellites help track the larger pirate vessels as they get farther out to sea. After all, an ocean-going freighter converted to piracy isn't exactly a speed boat, so tracking these "mother ships" makes it possible to close in on them.

The first argument - the rarity of pirate attacks - is less compelling. It's like saying, "99 percent of airplanes land without fatalities, so quit nattering about airline safety."

Is piracy the biggest threat in the world? Nope. But is it worth engagement?

INTERPOL thinks so, today convening a two-day, closed-door conference in Lyon FR on the subject of piracy financing. The concern: the potential for financial links between terrorist organizations and pirates.

And when nuclear parts are shipped through the Indian Ocean, there's the potential for terrorists - working thru pirates - to get access.

Set aside the loss of life and economic impacts. The terror link alone is enough to keep piracy out of the sideshow and in a ring of its own.

You can read the FT article at this link:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/907f19cc-038a-11df-a601-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

The Washington Post on INTERPOL's conference at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/19/AR2010011901535.html