Medesh Feb 5, 2009 Despite increased warships piracy in the Gulf of Aden expected to get worse
Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute: Despite the Increase in Canadian Warships Piracy in the Gulf of Aden Is Expected to Get Worse States the Findings of a New Report
MarketWire
CALGARY, ALBERTA - The Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute released a report today, Contemporary Piracy off the Horn of Africa by Patrick Lennox.
Patrick Lennox is the J.L. Granatstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.
Dr. Lennox spent two months embedded on Her Majesty's Canadian Ships Iroquois and Protecteur as they patrolled the Arabian Sea during Canada's most recent contribution to the maritime dimension of the American-led war on terror. This voyage demonstrated the current threat to economic security presented by the increase in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The paper goes on to stipulate that the problem will get worse before it gets better.
Lennox notes that instability in Somalia is an important reason for the increase in piracy in the area: "As Somalia fails more and more spectacularly as a state, the size, value and number of the ships Somali pirates seize can be expected to grow along with the complexity of the pirate network, the sophistication of their weapons, crafts, and techniques, and the number of functional pirates." Furthermore this problem will only get worse as pirates begin to adapt to international responses.
The paper continues on to outline why the international community has had such difficulty in curbing piracy in the area and says that the response from the international community is only growing in tandem with the threat. It will be necessary for Somali piracy to "metastasize to the point where it effectively inhibits the flow of commercial traffic through the GOA before it elicits the necessary naval response from the core state of the international political/economic system."
Lennox concludes that it will be necessary to stabilize Somalia in order to begin to contain the pirate threat; however, this will not be simple as the United States has been hesitant in the area since the Black Hawk Down incident of 1993. The current efforts of countries in the area are not adequate to bring stability, nor unsettle pirate sanctuaries and their infrastructures.
The complete report, Contemporary Piracy off the Horn of Africa, is available online at http://www.cdfai.org/.
MarketWire
CALGARY, ALBERTA - The Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute released a report today, Contemporary Piracy off the Horn of Africa by Patrick Lennox.
Patrick Lennox is the J.L. Granatstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.
Dr. Lennox spent two months embedded on Her Majesty's Canadian Ships Iroquois and Protecteur as they patrolled the Arabian Sea during Canada's most recent contribution to the maritime dimension of the American-led war on terror. This voyage demonstrated the current threat to economic security presented by the increase in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The paper goes on to stipulate that the problem will get worse before it gets better.
Lennox notes that instability in Somalia is an important reason for the increase in piracy in the area: "As Somalia fails more and more spectacularly as a state, the size, value and number of the ships Somali pirates seize can be expected to grow along with the complexity of the pirate network, the sophistication of their weapons, crafts, and techniques, and the number of functional pirates." Furthermore this problem will only get worse as pirates begin to adapt to international responses.
The paper continues on to outline why the international community has had such difficulty in curbing piracy in the area and says that the response from the international community is only growing in tandem with the threat. It will be necessary for Somali piracy to "metastasize to the point where it effectively inhibits the flow of commercial traffic through the GOA before it elicits the necessary naval response from the core state of the international political/economic system."
Lennox concludes that it will be necessary to stabilize Somalia in order to begin to contain the pirate threat; however, this will not be simple as the United States has been hesitant in the area since the Black Hawk Down incident of 1993. The current efforts of countries in the area are not adequate to bring stability, nor unsettle pirate sanctuaries and their infrastructures.
The complete report, Contemporary Piracy off the Horn of Africa, is available online at http://www.cdfai.org/.
Read paper in pdf : Complete paper
