Nine Things We Hope You Knew About Pirates

David Axe, a military correspondent currently located in Mombasa, Kenya presents a list of "10 Things You Didn't Know About Somali Pirates." We hope that, as a reader of our blog, you did in fact know the first nine (all well-taken); it's the last one "It May be Time for Desperate Measures" which caught our attention. Axe is not too specific on this point, but appears to advocate Karim Kudrati's proposal for a multinational invasion of Somalia. Writing for Foreign Policy's The Call, Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer outlines why targeting pirates on-shore would be ineffective and why the Obama administration is unlikely to opt for this course:

First, a direct, onshore U.S. strike on pirates would have only a limited impact on the broader piracy problem. Second, it could undermine efforts to contain Islamist militants by inviting them to tap into wounded Somali national pride, one of a very few forces that can unite divided clans. (Somali nationalism provided the Islamist movement with early legitimacy in the struggle to expel U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops from the country.) Third, it would weaken transitional President (and moderate Islamist) Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a potential force for stability in a country that badly needs it.

African and Gulf governments and U.S. counter-terrorism officials are well aware that strikes could drive extremism in the region and help militants recruit local youth. But there's another risk: Pirates in Puntland, a region in Somalia's northeast where most of the pirates are based, have already threatened to kill some of the 270 hostages they now hold-hostages from countries all over the world, some of them key U.S. allies.

As part of the ongoing debate over the appropriateness and efficacy of military responses to piracy, Wayne Long, a former Army colonel and the UN chief security officer in Somalia from 1993 to 2003, suggests a soft power approach to one of the problems of piracy. Drawing upon his personal experience with Somali pirate hostage situations, Long proposes withholding humanitarian aid from clans and regions where hostages are being held. Rather than futilely targeting what Long calls a "stateless state," this approach relies upon the state-like functions clans have assumed in Somalia and drives a wedge between the pirates and the clans (and their families) back on shore. Long admits that this his approach will do little to suppress piracy, but presents it as a third option to the traditional blood vs. treasure dilemma (that is, whether to stage a potentially deadly rescue as in the case of Captain Phillips last week or to pay a large ransom as was done with the Sirius Star).

The other problem with Long's proposal -- as illustrated by Axe's fourth point ("The Law Can't Touch Them") -- is that it contains no provision for detaining or punishing pirates. This issue has been in the news lately, with the US decision to prosecute Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, one of the pirates who attacked the Maersk Alabama, in a federal court in New York and with Dutch NATO forces' inability to detain pirates:

Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced the Yemenis to join them in attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said.

The Dutch forces, operating under a NATO antipiracy mission, then released the pirates, a NATO commander said, because NATO has no “detainment policy.” [...]

Commander Fernandes said the hostages had been for more than a week. The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he said, but had no legal power to arrest them.

“NATO does not have a detainment policy,” he said. “The warship must follow its national law. They can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands, the victims are from the Netherlands, or if they are in Netherlands waters.”

Charli Carpenter outlines some of these legal questions, drawing upon a recent seminar by Harvard University's Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum devoted to the legal challenges of off-shore piracy (which you can listen to here).

The Invisible Hook

Peter T. Leeson recently discussed his new book, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. (We're having some problems putting the video on our blog, but it is available here.)

The title's witty, and pirates may have acted in accordance with economic intentions that resulted in self governance, but this self governance simply enabled more efficient violent economic predation. It's also interesting to note how pirates spent their profits. In Empire of Blue Water, Stephen Talty describes how pirates spent liberal sums on alcohol and whores: "L'Ollonais' men were reported to have blown through 260,000 pieces of eight or $13.5 million in three short weeks after one of their expeditions 'having spent it all in things of little value, or at play either cards or dice" (138). Pirates may have had their social contracts on the ship, but Talty goes on to describe how, when they got back to shore, they lived in a virtual state of anarchy, blowing all of their hard earned profit on alcohol and women of questionable repute, until they were too broke to survive and needed to go back out to sea to earn more money: "He dealt only in immediate gratifications. It was almost as if the pirate code had short-circuited his ability to think of a regular life outside it" (139).

None of this is intended to directly refute Leeson's work (which we find very interesting); we merely question the implication that pirates are deserving of praise for their self-regulated maritime crimes.

The Buccaneer Stops Here

Lest this blog get too serious for its own good, we'd like to add a little humor:



And in the interest of maintaining our academic legitimacy, please note the use of the American power as the basis of Jon Stewart's jokes, as opposed to the romanticized pirate image from back in November 2008:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Buccaneer Stops Here
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Pirates were funnier back then, but these videos illustrate the shift in the pirate discourse noted earlier.

Talking Pirates

Robert Farley at the University of Kentucky and Daniel Drezner at Tufts discuss piracy:


The part most relevant to our project is at around 23:00 when they confront whether the "giggle factor" of piracy undermines our response to it. Farley posits that recent events may strip away the romanticization of pirates, and Drezner considers whether "one Hollywood trope might be replaced with another." Given the upcoming Spike TV show, this seems likely, and Farley and Drezner are not the first to make the Hollywood connection.

"Because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber ...

... whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."

Johann Hari, writing for The Independent, is referring to this passage from Augustine's City of God:

Justice taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed upon. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."

Augustine provides what must be one of the earliest constructivist accounts of piracy, and, as Hari points out, context -- governmental collapse, nuclear and heavy metal waste disposal in the Gulf, and overfishing -- still matters in contemporary piracy. He is careful to state these factors do not excuse hostage-taking, but notes:

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem –but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

Hari also alludes pirates' egalitarian political organization (discussed in some depth here), suggesting that this and their rebellion against authoritarianism contributed to their romanticization:

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century". They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.

Hari's op-ed is juxtaposed with Daniel Henninger's in today's Wall Street Journal, which manages, in one fell swoop, to compare pirates to North Korea, Iran, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hugo Chavez. Henninger concludes:

We need to understand that these are not just security threats but a systemic threat. Each weakly answered pirate affront erodes the public's confidence in the West's promise of an ordered world. The erosion is persistent and cumulative. A crack sometimes falls apart. The world's foreign ministries and foreign policy intellectuals, secure in the calm sun that rises each morning where they live, try to make all this seem complex and very difficult. What we saw in the floodtide of jubilation over the rescue of Capt. Phillips is that eventually it's not complicated.

Desipte Hari and Henninger's wildly divergent perspectives, both of them, like Augustine, have identified the threat piracy poses to extant international orders (for good or ill). The negotiation of this shifting border between state and non-state, legitimate and illegitimate that, has shaped both the identity of pirate, and as Janice E. Thomson argues in Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns, the identity of the modern state. We happen to find this idea very, very cool.

The Roguish Commonwealth thanks Fletcher for sending the Independent op-ed our way; I'd been waiting for a good opening to work City of God into the pirate blog!

Anti-piracy dolphins

According to Xinhua and China Radio International, thousands of dolphins intercepted Somali pirates as they tried to attack Chinese merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden on Monday.

The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China's fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China's. The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while.

The Lede's Robert Mackey points out that none of the photos actually show the dolphins intercepting pirate ships, but reminds us that several armed, US military-trained dolphins are unaccounted for ...

Vesseljackers?

The author of Yourself in Five Years identifies some of the pop culture baggage that the term "pirate" carries aboard with it and suggests (tongue a bit in cheek) using "vesseljacker" instead. Language is flexible, though, and we're intent on taking apart the idea of an empirical pirate identity, so why not call them something else and avoid the troubling romanticizations and misleading historical parallels entirely? Well for one thing, it would rather moot our research project. And for another, the term "pirate" carries significant weight in domestic and international law. What the vesseljackers are doing is piracy, as it's legally defined, and calling it such both shapes and enables our legal and military response.

(Thanks to Anna Chapin, classy and loyal partisan of the Roguish Commonwealth, for sending this link our way.)

Pirates undeterred

Update 4/15/09: Pirates fired rocket propelled grenades at the Liberty Sun, a US cargo ship, off the coast of Somalia, but were not able to board the ship.

Somali pirates have hijacked four more ships and taken 60 more hostages since yesterday, according to the Washington Post, answering one of Elizabeth Dickinson's "now what?" questions on Foreign Policy's Passport blog. The Wall Street Journal echoes popular calls for a heightened military response and a harsh penalty for the captured pirate, including this troubling recommendation:

Better still if he's transferred to Guantanamo and held as an "enemy combatant," or whatever the Obama Administration prefers to call terrorists.

Not only would this further blur the distinction between pirates and terrorists, but it is completely unnecessary. The US already has jurisdiction over crimes committed against US citizens and US ships; both piracy and hostage-taking carry a life sentence; and, as the Washington Post says,

The U.S. is treating the matter as a criminal case because officials have found no direct ties between East African pirates and terror groups. Because the U.S. is not at war with Somalia, piracy cases are governed by U.S. and international law.

Writing for Foreign Policy, J. Peter Pham analyzes the organizational network of the Somali pirates, calling it a "highly structured enterprise built around a number of syndicates," and details why the US Navy's use of force is insufficient to stop piracy. Although supportive of a heightened military response as a means of "[driving] up, rapidly and decisively, the cost of engaging in piracy," Tom Mahnken also recognizes its limitations. These would appear to be considerable given the current profitability of piracy.

A Hijacker's Home Video

Wired Magazine recently posted a rather intriguing video on their Danger Room blog. The video is a clip of a home movie made by a Somali pirate aboard the Yasa Neslihan, vessel manned by a crew of 20 Turks captured by Somali pirates on October 29, 2008 and released unharmed on Jan. 6, 2009, after a ransom was paid. According to the blog post, the Somali pirates typically make videos like this one when they capture a ship to prove to the owners that the ship is still intact before they pay the ransom.

This video is a slightly surreal trip around a hijacked ship with shots of the pirates, their guns, and some Turkish crew members, all set to a soundtrack of a surprisingly catchy tune playing over the ship's loudspeaker.

I won't say enjoy, because that seems a little inappropriate, but this video, and the Danger Room blog are well worth a look!



The full 10 minute 42 second video can be found here.

"Pirate Hunters: USN"

Spike TV has announced the forthcoming pilot of a new series called "Pirate Hunters: USN," calling the timing "serendipitous," while others wonder when this week's drama will hit the silver screen. According to E! Online:

Pirate Hunters promises an "up-close and behind-the-scenes" look at the buccaneer-combating Navy operations on two warships, the USS San Antonio and USS Boxer-the same assault ship Phillips was taken to immediately after his rescue. The show will be set in the Gulf of Aden in the open waters off the coast of Djibouti, bordering Somalia and Ethiopia.

Apparently the public can't get enough of pirates, even in their scary modern guise.

Now what? The struggle to re-define "pirate" through policy responses

President Obama has vowed to "halt the rise of piracy" a day after he authorized the use of deadly force by Navy SEALS against the pirates who were holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage. Obama's rhetoric focused on the attacks themselves and bringing pirates to justice:

"And to achieve that goal, we’re going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks. We have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise. And we have to ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes.”

Congressman Donald Payne, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa (and whose plane was shot at as he left Mogadishu earlier today), and Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, emphasized development-oriented solutions:

“For years, Somalia’s growing instability was neglected by the Bush administration and the international community,” Mr. Feingold said in a statement. “The new administration must not make the same mistake.”

This past week's pirate attack has renewed the debate about whether to arm crews of commercial vessels (the New York Times has a good balanced summary of that debate) and has inspired some, like Fred Ikle of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to call for much harsher responses to piracy. This sense of outrage and desire for a more forceful and violent response is echoed in New York Times readers' proposed anti-piracy solutions, the tone of which can be sensed in post titles such as the following:

Attack Pirate Coves
Send In the Subs
Hang the Ones You Capture
Detonate a Dolphin, and Save Somalia
How About Ray Guns?
Please, No Jimmy Carter Solutions

[A notable exception to this theme is the following proposal which suggests that cultural representations of piracy are never that far away:

Keira, We Need You
Who isn’t enjoying this spectacle of the world’s mightiest military (you know, the one purchased with trillions of borrowed non-existent bankrupt U.S. dollars) having to call up and ask, “Uh, hello? I was sort of hoping that you might consider maybe letting our boy from Vermont swim ashore, and we’ll throw in Keira Knightley and a yo ho ho bottle or rum.”]

Numerous other commentators, including Greg Scoblete, Alexander Benard, and (questionably) Jennifer Rubin have spoken up in favor of a stronger military response. Elizabeth Dickinson at Foreign Policy outlines why military escalation would be an ill-informed, ineffective, and dangerous response to piracy. John Boostra at the UN Dispatch agrees and says that:

treating pirates as "criminals" -- and in fact taking seriously the grievances of at least the original fishermen-cum-vigilante-pirates (namely, the illegal fishing and toxic dumping that engendered the whole viable life-as-pirate thing) -- is in fact the appropriate thing to do.

Boostra also calls for a multilateral response, noting that:

This is something that affects every country that sends a ship through or around the Gulf of Aden. It only makes sense to pool these countries' collective resources and wisdom and address the problem together. Going solo on this one will just endanger the lives of real and potential hostages, undermine the efficacy of the whole project, and unduly antagonize the strange bedfellows of allies (read: NATO, EU, Russia, China, etc.) that piracy has brought together.

Also in the vein of (a completely different branch of) IR liberalism, Peter Leeson's solution is to privatize the Gulf of Aden by selling its waters to private companies, though it's unclear how these corporations would be any better equipped to counter piracy than governments, even if they did have a greater incentive to do so. Certainly this solution, like most of those put forth, would do nothing to address the root causes of piracy, to the extent that the companies who would have the resources to buy these waters are the ones the pirates claim are exploiting the waters.

There has also been a noticeable upswing in the number of headlines and op-eds linking pirates and Islamic terrorists. Al Shabab, a Somali militant group with alleged ties to al Qaeda, praised the pirates for "protecting the Somali coast" and this had led to much speculation about more substantive ties. This can be seen in articles such as "Will pirates join forces with Islamist militias in Somalia?" in the Christian Science Monitor; "Somali pirates are natural allies of radical Islam" by Claude Salhani, editor of the Middle East Times; and in Fred Ikle's assertion in the Washington Post that "Terrorists are far more brutal than pirates and can easily force pirates -- petty thieves in comparison -- to share their ransom money. " This rhetorical tendency is significant, as piracy (as a form of organized crime) and terrorism trigger very different policy responses concerning the use of force.

More News on the Captain's Rescue

Update (4/13/09): The Washington Post describes how, after one pirate gave himself up, the USS Bainbridge had begun towing the lifeboat further out to sea, and the remaining three threatened to kill Capt. Phillips, Navy SEAL snipers shot the pirates on the lifeboat, clearing the way for a rescue.

The New York Times just released the following story with a more detailed account of Captain Richard Phillips's rescue:

Richard Phillips, the captain of an American cargo ship held hostage by four armed Somali pirates, was freed on Sunday after more than 100 hours held at sea, according to a statement released by his shipping company.

Andrea Phillips holds a photo of her husband, Richard Phillips, captain of the U.S.-flagged cargo ship Maersk Alabama.

“Maersk Line, Limited was informed by the U.S. government at 1330 EDT today that Captain Richard Phillips has been rescued,” the statement read. “John Reinhart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Maersk Line, Limited, called Captain Phillips’ wife, Andrea, to tell her the good news. The crew of the Maersk Alabama was jubilant when they received word.”

Mr. Phillips was rescued and placed aboard the U.S.S. Bainbridge, CNN reported. He was then flown by helicopter to the U.S.S. Boxer. He has contacted his family and has received a routine medical examination.

“We are all absolutely thrilled to learn that Richard is safe and will be re-united with his family,” Mr. Reinhart added in the statement. “Maersk Line, Limited is deeply grateful to the Navy, the F.B.I. and so many others for their tireless efforts to secure Richard’s freedom..”

Only three pirates were in the boat because one had surrendered early this morning, according to a maritime official who had been monitoring the situation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The United States fired warning shots Saturday night, followed by a brief exchange of fire. One pirate was either injured or scared, jumped off the boat and surrendered to the United States to the Bainbridge. The justice department will be reviewing evidence to decide whether the surviving pirate, a Justice Department official told CNN.

Just after dark in Somalia, three pirates shot and killed, according to the maritime official. More than 250 hostages being held by various Somalian pirate groups.

Initial reports from CNN said that Mr. Phillips jumped overboard just before the shootout between his captors and Navy Seals ensued near northeastern Somalia. Three of the pirates were killed, according to reports, and one is currently being held in custody. CNN reported that the surviving pirate had been negotiating with American officials.

Citing an anonymous source, the Associated Press said that Mr. Phillips was not injured in the gun battle and that he has been moved to a nearby Navy vessel.

According to CNN, Mr. Phillips’s family said that he had been free for several hours, long before the media learned of his release early Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Reinhart will hold a media briefing in Norfolk, Va., later on Sunday.

The pirates — demanding $2 million in ransom — seized Mr. Phillips on Wednesday and escaped the cargo ship in a motorized lifeboat.

A standoff between the pirates and the United States Navy then ensued until Saturday when negotiations between American officials and the pirates broke down, according to Somali officials, after the Americans insisted that the pirates be arrested and a group of elders representing the pirates refused.

The negotiations broke down hours after the pirates fired on a small United States Navy vessel that had tried to approach the lifeboat not long after sunrise Saturday in the Indian Ocean.

The cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, a 17,000-ton cargo vessel, pulled into port at 8:30 Saturday evening in Mombasa, Kenya, with its 19 remaining American crew members.

When the crew members heard that their captain had been freed, they placed an American flag over the rail of the top of the ship. They whistled and pumped their fists in the air, The Associated Press reported.

On Saturday, a group of Somali elders from Gara’ad, mediating on behalf of the pirates, spoke by satellite phone to American officials, according to Abdul Aziz Aw Mahamoud, a district commissioner in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. The elders proposed a deal in which the pirates would release Captain Phillips, with no ransom paid, and that the pirates would then be allowed to escape.But Mr. Abdul Aziz said that the Americans insisted that the pirates be handed over to Puntland authorities, and the elders refused. By noon local time, the Americans cut off communications with the elders, he said.

Puntland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Faroole, said that he was working closely with American officials to free the captain and “we’re really concerned about the recent attacks.”

“We’re committed to reorganizing our security forces,” he said. "We want to do more to crack down on piracy.”

The interesting debate will now be where and how the captured pirate will be tried. This type of decision has been an ongoing issue for countries who do manage to capture Somali pirates, as can be evidenced by Germany's decision to hand over the seven pirates they captured to Kenya for trial. Stay tuned for more news on the situation!

Blood wins out over Treasure in pirate stand-off

After talks with Somali leaders in Puntland broke down earlier today over the issue of arresting the pirates, the AP is reporting that:

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, the ship's owner said. A senior U.S. intelligence official said a pirate who had been involved in negotiations to free Capt. Richard Phillips but who was not on the lifeboat was in custody.

A good explanation of why pirates are not terrorists

Commander John Patch, US Navy (ret.), clearly articulates why pirates are not terrorists in a recent article for Proceedings. He points out that:

The distinction between piracy and terrorism is neither semantic nor academic. If piracy, the responsibility lies with local law enforcement officials, not the military. But maritime terrorism means scrambling the Navy.

And concludes that:

In this context, more U.S. anti-piracy options emerge—including no military response at all. America has long championed freedom of the seas, but it is perchance time that the many flag states and private companies enjoying the benefits of the global maritime commons contribute to the costs of keeping it secure. Because the U.S. Navy lacks the resources to effectively accomplish even a fraction of its assigned missions, treating piracy for what it is—criminal activity—should lessen the demands on an already overtaxed American Fleet.

Refuting Peter Leeson's Apology, or, Why it's not ok to praise pirates

In a recent NPR segment, Peter Leeson, author of "An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization," states that "we shouldn't let our condemnation of modern pirates spill over, unchecked, onto their more colorful, and socially contributory, early 18th-century forefathers." He goes on to detail how Caribbean pirates had written constitutions that "established democratic governance for their roguish commonwealths," provided a rudimentary social welfare system, and "embraced racial tolerance." Leeson concludes with a defense of contemporary pirate fetishization:

Modern pirates can't lay claim to helping pioneer liberty, democracy and equality. But early 18th-century pirates can. In this way, historical sea scoundrels contributed something to the world worth as much as, and possibly even more than, what they took out. So go ahead, say "arrgh!," "avast!" and "shiver me timbers" without guilt. It's OK to impersonate, and even praise, pirates.

Leeson's pirate apology is factually inaccurate, absurd, and troubling. Here's my rebuttal:

1. The evidence for Leeson's claims about piratical constitutional democracy is Daniel Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates. While it is true that Defoe describes a written constitution with many of the principles Leeson says, this was a constitution for one group of pirates (those under Captain Roberts), and most significantly, Defoe himself follows up his ennumeration of the articles with this statement that scarcely suggests liberal democratic governance:

These, we are assured, were some of Roberts's Articles, but as they had taken Care to throw over-board the Original they had sign'd and sworn to, there is a great deal of Room to suspect, the remainder contained something too horrid to be disclosed to any, except such as were willing to be Sharers in the Iniquity of them ... (233)

2. Leeson's hand-picking of evidence to suit his case continues unabated with his claim about racial equality. There are numerous accounts of pirates being involved with the slave trade which suggest that pirates pursued the policies they did solely out of economic motivations -- not out of an overriding concern for equality. In The African slave trade and its remedy (1840), Thomas Fowell Buxton describes the Fama de Cadiz, a pirate ship whose plunder consisted of "about 980 slaves" (pg. 130-131). Defoe himself writes that while Robert's pirates did not engage in the slave trade, this was only because they were not brave enough, not out of concerns for equality and justice:

From these casual Observations on the Country, the Towns, Coast, and Seas of Brasil, it would be an Omission to leave the Subject, without some Essay on an inter loping Slave Trade here, which none of our Countrymen are adventrous enough to pursue, though it very probably, under a prudent Manager, would be attended with Safety and very great Profit (218)

3. Leeson's narrative completely ignores the externalities of piratical democracy. Even if we grant that some pirates may have had limited forms of democratic governance, this did not make them the peaceful, freedom-loving bands of hooligans Leeson suggests. In Empire of the Blue Water, Stephen Talty desribes how Captain Henry Morgan had to emulate the savage cruelty of Francis L'Ollonais in order to command respect. The French pirates deserted Morgan for L'Ollonais after Morgan failed to torture four captives from Puerto del Principe (which would have allowed more time to raise their ransom). Talty writes:

Morgan's reputation, his future as the admiral of the Brethern, was at stake ... Morgan would say that the Gallic pirates 'wholly refused to join in an action so full of danger,' but danger was never the point; it was leadership. L'Ollonais represented the pirate code at its most extreme, but Morgan could not afford to ignore his methods. The privateers would sail with whoever found them the most gold, and L'Ollonais was a rising star who was making his boys rich. Morgan would have to meld his ideas with those of a ruthless killer if he were to avoid another embarrassment. (90-91)

Talty goes on to cite Alexander Exquemelin's description of L'Ollonais' cruelty (cutting out tongues, using torture racks) and concludes that "The picture that emerges from many accounts is of new recruits lured by tales of riches and freedom, slowly being molded by peer pressure and constant alcohol intake until they succumbed to what might be called the culture of piracy and grew as savage as their mentors" (95). The point here is even if pirate leaders were utterly enlightened and benovolent towards their own men,* that fact becomes stunningly irrelevant when we consider how they behaved towards non-pirates.

*And in "An-arrgh-chy," Leeson himself concedes that this was not the case: In this sense, pirates exercised greater cruelty in maintaining discipline among themselves than in their treatment of prisoners" (1075).

4. Leeson presents absolutely no evidence for a causal link between pirates' constitutional democracies and American constitutional democracy. In "An-arrgh-chy," Leeson takes great pains to prove that checks and balances on pirate ships predated "legitimate" forms of balanced government (1066-1067), but nothing in the article says that states consciously or unconsciously drew upon this legacy in writing their own constitution. Indeed, to suggest this is true is a preposterous case for Leeson to make, given the hatred with which early modern states viewed piracy. In particular, as the media has been fond of reporting over this week, one of the first (and formative) military actions of the newly-created United States of America was to wage war on the Barbary pirates.

5. To suggest that 18th century pirates were "harbingers of some of contemporary civilization's most cherished values, such as liberty, democracy and social safety" is untrue and absurd. It ignores historical accounts, assumes causal links, and ultimately condones illegal non-state violence. When he says that "historical sea scoundrels contributed something to the world worth as much as, and possibly even more than, what they took out," Leeson is saying that rape, murder, and robbery (all documented piratical acts) are acceptable if done under the auspices of a quasi-democratic leadership. The implications of Leeson's apology are immensely troubling, particularly to a nation that prides itself on the promotion of democratic values. It is, quite simply, not ok to praise pirates.

A sea shift in the pirate discourse

The Washington Post has started a discussion board, moderated by Peter Feaver, on how to respond to piracy. The discussion itself is not all that interesting; most of the posts fall along the lines of the discussion summarized my post below (with a few ludicrous proposals that make me understand why Pericles was so worried that the Athenians would go to war with the Peloponnesians "under the influence of anger rather than reason"). What is most interesting is the serious tone of these posts. Whereas the popular discourse surrounding piracy in the fall of 2008 drew heavily upon pirates' iconic status, today's posts center on appropriate military, legal, and diplomatic responses. The historical allusions they make are to Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Wars; not Blackbeard and Captain Hook. Could just be a related to type of people who respond to a Washington Post policy discussion (or Feaver's moderating), but the complete lack of pirate humor suggests that our perceptions of piracy change when there are US lives on the line.

Update: In an interview with VOA, John Patch, associate professor for strategic intelligence at the US Army War College and a retired Navy surface warfare officer and career intelligence officer, agrees with Pericles and me:

"Even with the incident of a US-flagged vessel taken, there's quite a lot of hype involved. World opinion and sometimes US opinion as well is often driven by passion, incidents of the moment and US pride. And we've got to be careful about formulating policy on those kinds of things."

Treasure vs. Blood

A spokesman for the pirates has announced that they want $2 million for the release of the Maersk Alabama's captain. Ken Menkhaus, author of Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism, suggests to the Washington Post that the ransom is likely to be paid:

Menkhaus said the owners of the Maersk Alabama -- Norfolk, Va.-based Maersk Line Ltd. -- were probably negotiating a ransom with the pirates, as most companies do ...

There was no confirmation from Maersk Line that any such negotiations were underway. In its latest statement, the company said, "The Department of Defense and the Navy are handling any contact with the pirates."

Private shipping companies have generally preferred to pay ransom rather than arm their ships and shoot it out with pirates on the high seas. Doing so would invite pirates to use force and could escalate the problem over time. The companies are also motivated to keep ships unarmed by a concern the pirates seem to understand: money.

Putting armed guards on ships could trigger an array of legal and financial trouble for shipping companies. They might not be granted access to certain ports, for instance, plus the presence of arms on a ship sharply escalates the cost of insurance. Paying ransom -- around $150 million in total for shipping companies last year -- is still cheaper than insuring a heavily armed ship, or taking longer, alternative trade routes.

The death of a hostage in a French naval commando operation against another pirate ship seems to support Menkhaus' point that the use of force risks escalating the violence, although in that case the pirates had been threatening to execute the captives.

Other political and security analysts have said that the US navy is unlikely to back down:

"I think they're not recognizing the stakes that are involved in terms of credibility for the United States," said Daniel L. Byman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on Middle Eastern security and terrorism. "To back down in the face of what is, in some ways, a gang of thugs would look quite bad for the Navy and for the administration."

In an interview with VOA News, Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University, draws upon historical understandings of piracy to argue for a stronger military response today:

In a sense, there's a historical link between the USS Bainbridge and the Maersk Alabama incident. "There's a great irony in the fact that the vessel, the USS Bainbridge, the destroyer on site, is the one it is. Commodore William Bainbridge was actually the hero of the two Barbary wars, along with Stephen Decatur. And something tells me that he's probably rolling in his grave at the thought that a US destroyer has four pirates on a dingy without fuel and we're going into the second day of this without any resolute action," he says.

He says history shows that a military response can be successful, such as actions taken by the United States and other nations against pirates along the northern African coast in the two Barbary wars.

"That, for 200 years, has been a deterrent factor. No US merchant ship has been successfully hijacked by pirates," he says. He adds, however, "This time around, if the pirates get away with having hijacked, even unsuccessfully, a US flag cargo ship, it sends a very strong signal of perhaps a lack of will, especially in the case of Somalia where we know where the pirates are. We even know where the leaders literally live because they've built huge mansions that were put up in the last 18 months because of the piracy ransoms and revenues they gained," he says.

He says four UN Security Council resolutions and agreements with the interim Somali government allow the use of force. "If we don't root out these nests of piracy or at least send a very strong signal, we will end up telegraphing is a very strong signal of weakness," he says.

Pham says that any military strikes against Somali pirates can be very selective, such as destroying the pirate mother ships that launch speedboats or destroying the mansions built by the pirate leaders. He says before the mansions are destroyed, a warning should be issued telling occupants to leave, as Israel does in the Gaza Strip.

Although Obama has kept quiet about the high seas drama, this week's events have captured US attention at the highest levels:

Vice President Joe Biden said the administration was working "around the clock" on the matter. Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States will "do what we have to do" to protect U.S. shipping interests against pirates. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: "We are bringing to bear a number of our assets ... to resolve the hostage situation and bring the pirates to justice." In West Palm Beach, Fla., Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, said the American military will increase its presence near the Horn of Africa "to ensure that we have all the capability that might be needed over the course of the coming days."

Interestinger and interestinger

We're sending in reinforcements.
So are the pirates.

Update 4/10/09: asymmetrical escalation confirmed by the New York Times.

A Different Perspective on the Pirate Sex Appeal

From CNN American Morning: amFIX blog

Pirates are holding a U.S. captain hostage at sea. The Navy is watching everything that happens. So what is supposed to happen next? And what is driving this problem? We talked to someone who knows a thing or two about the pirates and has experience covering them in Somalia. Kaj Larsen, former U.S. Navy SEAL, spoke to T.J. Holmes on CNN’s American Morning Thursday.

Larsen says the root conditions of poverty, lawlessness and civil war on the ground in Somalia are to blame. The large sums of ransom money being paid out to pirates, he says, is even leading some Somali women to venture to the port town of Bosaso in hopes of marrying these newly-rich men.

T.J. Holmes: We know that piracy pays. What is it that’s going to break this cycle if every time they take a ship, they get paid. Why stop it?

Kaj Larsen: That’s the 50 or $100 million question, which is about the money that the pirates took in last year in ransom. The solution unfortunately is not going to be a military-centric one. Ultimately, you to have to find some way to govern this ungoverned space, this lawless sanctuary that the pirates have in Somalia. That’s really the only long-term solution you’re going to see to this problem.

Holmes: Let’s start with the military solution. Why not send a message?

Larsen: Certainly there would be some deterrent effect. I think in this case, the incentives are so large. The money that they’re making is so extraordinary, especially by Somalia standards, that it would be difficult. However, in this particular situation, the goal is to solve it as quickly and as safely as possible without putting the hostage in jeopardy.

Holmes: There are hopeless, deplorable conditions in Somalia. A life of piracy looks pretty good for some of these young men compared to the conditions in Somalia.

Larsen: You couldn’t have said it better, T.J. I’ve been on the ground in Somalia. One of the interesting demographic things that’s happening right now is that single Somali women are flocking to the port town Bosaso where these pirates come out of in the hopes of marrying a pirate. So you can see that it really is — the root conditions of poverty, lawlessness and civil war on the ground in Somalia are really what are breeding this problem.

Holmes: Is it worth the risk for these companies to continue to go through the Gulf of Aden? Does it cost much to take another route? Is it worth it to take the chance, pay the ransom, and keep moving?

Larsen: So far, that’s been the model. As these attacks increase, we’ve seen six in the last week alone, the cost of doing business in that area is just going to be too high. The insurance companies are going to jack up the rates of insurance. And at some point, they’re not going to be able to continue without taking much more serious security measures or without finding an alternative route.

Holmes: Do you think this situation will begin to draw more attention to what’s happening there off the Horn of Africa and maybe more action will begin to be taken by countries all over the world?

Larsen: I think this is a clarion call to the international community that Somalia is and continues to be a failed state. And that if we don’t continue to pay attention to it, if we don’t start changing the conditions on the ground there, if we don’t start governing that ungoverned space that it’s going to be a breeding ground for piracy and possibly international terrorism. So yes, I would hope that this situation, that the silver lining in the cloud is that people would start paying attention to this horrific situation in the country there.

The Baaaa-rbary Coast

There are undoubtedly some very scholarly parallels that could be drawn between informal networks of non-state actors and the organizational principles of sheep herding, but we mostly just think this video is really cool!

A 19th century plan to combat piracy?

Paul Reynolds of the BBC worries that international law (such as Articles 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) is hindering anti-piracy efforts.

1. Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity in accordance with articles 95 and 96, is not justified in boarding it unless there is reasonable ground for suspecting that:
(a) the ship is engaged in piracy;
(b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade;
(c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article 109;
(d) the ship is without nationality; or
(e) though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.
2. In the cases provided for in paragraph 1, the warship may proceed to verify the ship's right to fly its flag. To this end, it may send a boat under the command of an officer to the suspected ship. If suspicion remains after the documents have been checked, it may proceed to a further examination on board the ship, which must be carried out with all possible consideration.

Although UN Security Council resolutions 1838 and 1846 have authorized "necessary means" to stop piracy on the high seas, all action must be in compliance with international law. Reynolds argues that under such legal norms, Captain Joseph Denman's heroic anti-slavery efforts and Commodore Stephen Decatur's 1815 decisive attack on the Barbary pirates would have been impossible.

Maybe, but international law is hardly the biggest obstacle the world is facing when dealing with piracy. The US Navy says it would take 61 ships to patrol the shipping route in the Gulf of Aden alone. Even if a deployment of this size were reasonable, the pirates are currently operating in an area many times larger than the shipping route, and moving farther afield. Tony Mason, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Shipping is quoted in a TIME article as saying, "the pirates have decided it's easier to go after targets in the Indian Ocean because the navies are not there and it's a much, much more difficult area to patrol because there's an awful lot more sea." The article goes on to explain the strong economic case for piracy and points out the shortcomings of deterrence as an anti-piracy strategy:

Pirates, ex-pirates and pirate recruiters tell TIME that even with all the international attention, the tough talk from leaders around the world and the presence of warships from 20 or so of the most powerful navies, the lure of the piracy trade remains as strong as ever. It only takes a few pirates to hijack a massive vessel, and shipping companies continue to pay out ransoms — in some cases more than $3 million — to secure the release of those precious cargo carriers. Given Somalia's miserable state, the temptation is irresistible ...The international community was hopeful in March when Kenya agreed to try suspected pirates in its courts. That, experts said, would provide a deterrent and at least impose some sense of rule of law off Somalia's coasts. Yet the threat of arrest has done nothing to dissuade the pirates. "Not even 0.2% of the total pirates are arrested, so anybody who is at all intelligent can understand that arrest does not bring fear," says Maryam Jama, a pirate recruiter in Bossaso. "If you get arrested, in prison the others will say, 'Do not worry, you will be out and then hijack another ship with good luck.'"

Nor does international law appear to be the primary challenge to retrieving kidnapped Captain Richard Phillips from the life boat (which, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has run out of gas) where he is being held by pirates. The USS Bainbridge is on the scene and a team of FBI hostage negotiators are assisting, but as John Wick, director of International Security Solutions told the New York Times, "There’s a lot involved, and it can get very expensive. There can be language problems, all kinds of security problems, and you have to make sure you’re talking to the right person, the ultimate warlord. Just running a dropoff of ransom money can cost $1 million."

And it comes full circle ....

The Christian Science Monitor calls the crew's attempt to take back their ship from the pirates "Hollywood-worthy." Also of note are these statements from Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for Terrorism Research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:

"The bottom line is you have to stop them from being able to use their booty."

(Note the serious linkage of the allusion-rich "pirate word" booty with contemporary maritime piracy.)
And:

Among other things, he says, maritime powers should go after the pirates' bases of operation. In the case of the Somali pirates, he adds, that means taking seriously the symbiotic relationship that has developed between the pirates and the Shebab Islamist organization that controls Somalia.

The two groups do not seem to have an ideological link, says Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, but evidence suggests each benefits from the other: The pirates pay "taxes" for their haven and to avoid being shut down. The two groups have trained each other in martial and maritime skills, he adds.

More worrisome still, says Gartenstein-Ross, is the link Shebab has developed with Al Qaeda.

"If you take the communications we know exist between the two, add Al Qaeda's stated hope of bankrupting the global economy, and mix in the devastating impact of a skyrocketing price of oil because of some dramatic act of piracy against oil tankers, you see why we could wake up some day wishing we'd done a lot more to stop the Somali pirates."

(Note the powerful rhetorical linking of piracy and terrorism.)

We call them pirates out here, Ned.

At risk of trivializing today's events, The Life Aquatic does present one of the more realistic representation of pirates in film:


(This link courtesy of Connor Southard.)

And the Plot Thickens...Crew Retakes the Ship?

From the New York Times

Pirates commandeered a United States-flagged container ship with 20 American crew members off the coast of Somalia on Wednesday, in what appeared to be the first time an American-crewed ship was seized by pirates in the area.

The Pentagon said the crew of the ship was believed to have retaken the vessel, The Associated Press reported, though the owner of the ship said it could not confirm that the crew was back in control.

The container ship, the Maersk Alabama, was carrying thousands of tons of relief aid to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, the company that owns the ship said.

The ship was taken by pirates at about 7:30 a.m. local time, 280 miles southeast of the Somali city of Eyl, a known haven for pirates, a spokesman for the United States Navy said. The ship is owned and operated by Maersk Line Limited, a United States subsidiary of A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, the Danish shipping giant.

The Maersk Alabama was at least the sixth commercial ship commandeered by pirates in the last week off the Horn of Africa, one of the most notoriously lawless zones on the high seas, where pirates have been operating with near impunity despite efforts by many nations, including the United States, to intimidate them with naval warship patrols.

There was no additional information immediately available about the crew, the company said in a statement.

“Our initial concern is to ensure proper support of the crew and assistance to their families,” the Maersk statement said.

The Cape Cod Times reported on its Web site Wednesday that the chief officer and captain of the vessel are both graduates of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Capt. Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vermont, is a 1979 graduate of the maritime academy, and Capt. Shane Murphy, 34, the chief officer graduated in 2001, according to Mr. Murphy’s father, a professor at the academy.

While Maersk Line Limited, based in Norfolk, Virginia, is one of the Department of Defense’s primary shipping contractors, it was not under contract with the Defense Department at the time of its hijacking, said Lt. Stephanie Murdock, a spokeswoman with the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain.

The 508-foot long ship was carrying food and other agricultural materials for the World Food Program, a United Nations agency, among other clients, but the company did not specify who the other clients were. It was on a regular rotation through the Indian Ocean from Salalah, a city in southwestern Oman, to Djibouti, and then on to Mombasa, according to the company’s headquarters in Denmark. The final destination of the ship’s cargo was unclear.

The ship, built in Taiwan in 1998, was less than half full, carrying some 400 20-foot containers of cargo such as vegetable oil and bulgur wheat. It can carry over 1,000 such containers, and was deployed in Maersk Line’s East Africa service network, the company said.

There have been more than 50 pirate attacks this year off of the Somali coast, with the bulk of the attacks occurring in the Gulf of Aden, which separates the Arabian peninsula from the Horn of Africa. Sixteen ships with more than 200 crew remain in pirate custody, most of them docked a few miles off the Somali coast while ransom negotiations with the ship owners take place, said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman with the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

About 15 international naval vessels, including three American Navy ships, now patrol the pirate-infested waters, many under an American-led task force created to combat piracy.

At the time of the attack on the Maersk Alabama, the closest patrol vessel was some 300 nautical miles away, the Navy said. Most of the patrol vessels are concentrated in the Gulf of Aden, and as a result, the pirates have expanded their reach into the open seas. The Navy would not comment on whether its patrol boats were now following the hijacked vessel.

“It’s that old saying: Where the cops aren’t, the criminals are going to go,” Lieutenant Christensen said. “We patrol an area of more than one million square miles. The simple fact of the matter is that we can’t be everywhere at one time.”

Piracy has become a multi-million dollar business in Somalia, a nation that has limped along since 1991 without a functioning central government. A captured Ukrainian arms freighter hijacked off Somalia’s coast in 2008, for example, was released in February when its owners paid $3.2 million in cash, dropped by parachute.

Armed with automatic weapons, the pirates often attack the large merchant ships from small speed boats, then scale the towering ship hulls with hooks and ropes and overtake the merchant crews, which are generally unarmed.

To extend their reach from shore, the pirates have begun operating from floating outposts known as “mother ships” — often captured fishing trawlers that can serve as bases for the smaller speedboats as they lie in wait. The crews are generally not harmed by the pirates.

Lieutenant Christensen said he “could not recall” another episode involving the capture of an American ship by Somali pirates. Noel Choong, head of the Piracy Reporting Center at the International Maritime Bureau, in Kuala Lumpur, said that no such occurrences had been reported “for the past three or four years — at least.”

“There are no reports that any of the crew is injured,” Mr. Choong said. “Normally, the pirates would treat the crew well.”

“The Somali pirates are now actually venturing very far out from the coast,” Mr. Choong said, “up to 500 nautical miles.”

The ship has carried a United States flag — meaning it is registered in the United States — since 2004, when it came under contract with the United States Maritime Security Program, which is run by the Maritime Administration, an agency within the United States Department of Transportation, according to a press release issued by Maersk Line Limited. The designation allows the ship to contract with American government agencies and carry sensitive American cargo.

The 17,000-ton ship has sailed out of Dubai since November 2004, the press release said.

Also be sure to check out the article from the BBC, Hijacked US crew 'retake vessel'.

Oh Snap!

From the New York Times

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, hundreds of miles from the nearest U.S. military vessel in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk.

It was the sixth ship seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.

In a statement, the company confirmed that the U.S.-flagged vessel has 20 U.S. nationals onboard.

Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack ''involving U.S. nationals and a U.S.-flagged vessel in recent memory.'' She did not give an exact time frame.

It is not clear whether the pirates knew they were hijacking a ship with American crew members.

''It's a very significant foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration,'' said Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of the British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd. ''Their citizens are in the hands of criminals and people are waiting to see what happens.''

Brooks and other analysts interviewed by The Associated Press declined to speculate on whether American military forces might attempt a rescue operation.

When asked how the U.S. Navy plans to deal with the hijacking, Campbell said: ''It's fair to say we are closely monitoring the situation, but we will not discuss nor speculate on current and future military operations.''

Somalia's notorious pirates faded from the headlines for the first three months of 2009 as a massive international naval force moved in. But the pirates have begun operating further away from warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden. And they no longer have to contend with the choppy waters that always plague the seas off Somalia in the early part of the year.

The U.S. Navy confirmed that the ship was hijacked early Wednesday about 280 miles (450 kilometers) southeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia.

U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said the closest U.S. ship at the time of the hijacking was 345 miles (555 kilometers) away.

''The area, the ship was taken in, is not where the focus of our ships has been,'' Christensen told the AP on the phone from the 5th Fleet's Mideast headquarters in Bahrain.

''The area we're patrolling is more than a million miles in size. Our ships cannot be everywhere at every time,'' Christensen said.

Somali pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships.

Most hijackings end with million-dollar payouts. Piracy is considered the biggest moneymaker in Somalia, a country that has had no stable government for decades. Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, said pirates took up to $80 million in ransoms last year.

This is the second time that Somali pirates have seized a ship belonging to the privately held shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. In February 2008, the towing vessel Svitzer Korsakov from the A.P. Moller-Maersk company Svitzer was briefly seized by pirates.

Before this latest hijacking, Somali pirates were holding 14 vessels and about 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

In the words of our great faculty adviser, Dr. Peter Howard, "Now things might start to get interesting."

Wolves of the Sea - Pirates in Pop Music

We are intrigued to report that romanticization of pirates has even reached the Baltics, as can be seen from the catchy Broadway-esque Latvian entry in the 2008 Eurovision competition:



(This work was originally performed by the "True Scottish Pirate Metal" group, Alestorm.)

Pirate Surge

Just in case anyone was concerned about the continued relevance of our project, the New York Times is reporting a pirate surge. Although pirate attacks declined in early 2009 (for which the Royal Navy claims credit, though it may just have been the weather), five ships were hijacked over the weekend and Somali pirates are now holding 17 ships and more than 250 people hostage:

The pirates somehow eluded the armada of warships from more than a dozen nations, including the United States, patrolling Somalia’s seas. Kenyan seafarers are now talking about a “pirate surge.”

“This hasn’t happened before,” said Andrew Mwangura, head of East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program in Mombasa. “The pirates are taking the opportunity to be more aggressive. They are pushing more southeast. They are moving down. They are using this opportunity to do whatever they can.”

And while most of last year's instances of piracy occurred in the Gulf of Aden, the pirates have begun to expand their operations southeast towards the Seychelles and the Mozambique Channel.

What's a "roguish commonwealth," you ask?

Daniel Defoe, author of A General History of the Pyrates (1724) knows!

Since we are now speaking of the Laws of this Company, I shall go on, and, in as brief a Manner as I can, relate the principal Customs, and Government, of this roguish Common-Wealth; which are pretty near the same with all Pyrates. (233)

Defoe does go on to relate said Customs and Governments which include a rather Hobbesian sovereign:

The Captain's Power is uncontroulable in Chace, or in Battle, drubbing, cutting, or even shooting any one who dares deny his Command. The same Privilege he takes over Prisoners, who receive good or ill Usage, mostly as he approves of their Behaviour, for tho’ the meanest would take upon them to misuse a Master of a Ship, yet he would controul herein, when he see it, and merrily over a Bottle, give his Prisoners this double Reason for it. First, That it preserved his Precedence; and secondly, That it took the Punishment out of the Hands of a much more rash and mad Sett of Fellows than himself. (231)

And a written social contract:

a Set of Articles, to be signed and sworn to, for the better Conservation of their Society, and doing Justice to one another (229-230).

Which includes a right to universal suffrage:

Every Man has a Vote in Affairs of Moment

A prohibition on gambling:

No Person to Game at Cards or Dice for Money.

And a formalized system of dispute resolution:

No striking one another on Board, but every Man's Quarrels to be ended on Shore, at Sword and Pistol, Thus; The Quarter-Master of the Ship, when the Parties will not come to any Reconciliation, accompanies them on Shore with what Assistance he thinks proper, and turns the Disputants Back to Back, at so many Paces Distance: At the Word of Command, they turn and fire immediately, (or else the Piece is knocked out of their Hands:) If both miss, they come to their Cutlashes, and then he is declared Victor who draws the first Blood.

The youtube video that started it all...

Just in case any of you are wondering how we came up with the idea for this fabulously exciting project, the short answer is a research methods class with Professor Howard, an interest in discourse analysis, procrastination, and this slightly disturbing youtube video...



Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4vgzZf8rbM

Pirates and IR Theory

Bjoern H. Seibert's recent post "When great powers compete, the pirates win" on Foreign Policy's The Argument raises some interesting questions regarding the realist and liberal theories of international relations I've been studying in class the past few weeks. The recent hijacking of two European tankers in the Gulf of Aden leaves Seibert skeptical that international institutions are effectively at combating piracy (though others, including Vice Adm. William Gortney, commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command and head of the 5th Fleet Command in Bahrain, disagree). More than that, however, Seibert sees NATO and the EU as competing powers in the Gulf of Aden, writing that "[e]ach institution hopes to prove its superiority, and fighting piracy is a perfect stage." Seibert sees this rivalry as being inefficient and even counterproductive, to the extent that "contradictions are unavoidable."

What I found interesting was the way in which even effective cooperation within international institutions is subumed under an apparently realist rubric pitting international institutions -- rather that states -- against each other in a competition for relative power. The problem boils down to which of two apparently realist goals is more important: ending piracy or "win[ning] top honors for military strength" -- a goal that looks a lot like Jeffrey Taliaferro's concept of prestige.

Although Seibert prioritizes realist goals in this piece, he affords a place for liberal methods, making a brief appeal for a joint EU-NATO anti-piracy operation. Going a step farther, Robert Kaplan (in addition to recognizing the influence of popular romanticizations of piracy), writes that:

"The one upside of piracy is that it creates incentives for cooperation among navies of countries who often have tense relations with each other. The U.S. and the Russians cooperate off the Gulf of Aden, and we might begin to work with the Chinese and other navies off the coast of Indonesia, too. As a transnational threat tied to anarchy, piracy brings nations together, helping to form the new coalitions of the 21st century."

To bring in the constructivist perspective, it is also interesting to note that both organizations have deliberately chosen fighting piracy as a means to incease their prestige. This is by no means an arbitrary choice. As Seibert writes, "Each institution hopes to prove its superiority, and fighting piracy is a perfect stage. Who doesn't agree that the buccaneers should go?" John Boonstra of the UN Dispatch says that "fighting piracy is a crowd-pleaser for both alliances." (He also argues that the military focus on piracy undermines more liberal approaches: peace-making, capacity-building, and law-and-order-upholding).

Just why fighting piracy should prove so popular and legitimating is part of what we will be researching this summer.