The Threat of Modern Piracy

[Humphrey Bogart]

A more entrepreneurial military force commander would negotiate 'contracts', and other mutually beneficial agreements, with the locals to ensure the safe passage of their vessels and the merchantmen under their care, of course.

See: 'Gurkhas' for more information on how make this work in a land based context

This is the way!

 

[Remius]

Land based operations. These guys must have a base the leave from. Find them, take them out. Combined with a nimble coordinated naval operation. Maybe they are doing this but doesn’t seem to be working. Cooperation seems to be the issue.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Land based operations. These guys must have a base the leave from. Find them, take them out. Combined with a nimble coordinated naval operation. Maybe they are doing this but doesn’t seem to be working. Cooperation seems to be the issue.

Hence the reason many nations have Marines or Naval Infantry

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Land based operations. These guys must have a base the leave from. Find them, take them out. Combined with a nimble coordinated naval operation. Maybe they are doing this but doesn’t seem to be working. Cooperation seems to be the issue.

The issue is that the West "partners" with the local authorities and organizations like the UN and AU but then leaves them to do the dirty work unsupervised.

You want these things sorted properly, you need to also get your hands dirty. That means small teams embedded with the locals and active participation in their combat operations and not just training and money.

 

[Blackadder1916]

As this thread seems to be generating discussion, just a reminder about the great big piracy thread (54 pages) that kept our attention over the span of several years. Though it's focus was mainly on the threat from Somalia pirates, it occasionally turned to the other locales (including West Africa) of piracy activity.

EDIT: Merged, thank you. Bruce

 

[PuckChaser]

The issue is that the West "partners" with the local authorities and organizations like the UN and AU but then leaves them to do the dirty work unsupervised.

You want these things sorted properly, you need to also get your hands dirty. That means small teams embedded with the locals and active participation in their combat operations and not just training and money.

The problem is in Africa a lot of places are very weary of European/Westerners coming in armed and trying to "help" them. The exploitation of colonialism still is fresh in their minds. Unfortunately a lot of those countries have traded European abuse for China's abuse.

The US knows this and has SOCAFRICA under USAFRICOM conducting operations by, with and through partner forces in a traditional Green Beret role of building trust and sharing hardships. They could probably put ODAs in every country there and still not make a big dent in the extremism though...

 

[Colin Parkinson]

These US patrol boats seem to pack a lot of punch, although you need a mothership to support them

 

[OldSolduer]

This is the way!

A Mandalorian!!! This is the way!!!