Tom on Modern Piracy

 

Elements of the Us Navy successfully repulsed an attempted boarding by Houthi terrorists yesterday.  The terrorists' target was the Maersk Hongzhou, which is Danish owned and registered vin Singapore..  The Navy, including a team from the USS Gravely, and attack helicopters from the Carrier Dwight D Eisenhower, engaged the Houthi Naval force, and when the Houthis fired on them, sank the 3 attack vessels, and killed all 10 of the Houthis terrorists involved in the attack.  The Iranians have dispatched a warship into the Red Sea, and nobody knows where things go from here.

The right of free passage is central to the health of the global economy, and that has been honored in the breach by a number of  non-compliant naval forces, including Iran, China, and to a lesser extent, Russia.  Non-state actors often take advantage of various choke points. such as  the Straits of Malacca and the Straits of Hormuz, to name just a couple of examples. Since the seizure of power in the wake of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Mullahs have attempted to control the Red Sea and all adjacent waters, through which much of the world's oil flows.  The Iranians regularly interfered with seaborne commerce on an intermittent basis since the establishment of the Islamic Republic.  What Iran's long-term intentions are is anybody's guess, but my feeling is that they would like to make the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf part of Iran's 'Sphere of Influence'.   The Chinese have a similar vision of turning the South China Sea into a Chinese lake.  And don't forget that piracy has often been a favorite source of income for pirates and brigands.  Piracy is a significant problem in the aforementioned Straits of Malacca and the nearby Sunda Strait, as well as the Houthi war on western shipping.  Earlier, the Somali coast was a hotbed of piracy.  

Piracy is a problem as old as mankind, itself.  The notorious Barbary Pirates' were a scourge upon Western Europe and the Mediterranean basin from medieval times until the middle of the 19th century.  They preyed upon the maritime trade, but also conducted raids on coastal towns in order to loot these towns and capture locals, who they would sell into slavery. The Caribbean Sea was infested with piratical enterprises from the 16th to the early 19th centuries.  Pirates saw the Spanish Treasure ships as tempting targets.  The Vikings who conducted raids in northern Europe, as well as Britain and Ireland were essentially pirates.  So what the Houthis are doing in their bailiwick is nothing new.  

The question before us is:  whatever are we to do about this worrisome problem?  The first impulse would seem to be to smite the Houthis with the mythical million pound shithammer. We have a carrier task force in the eastern mediterranean, and application of such force would seem to be something of a no-brainer.  I'm of the opinion that piracy should not be tolerated under any conditions.  But the fact that the Iranian Navy has sent a destroyer into the area complicates things significantly.  Still, a robust response to this sort of foolishness is the only way to respond.  I think that the Iranian presence is a bluff', but even if I'm wrong, we have little to fear from Iran.  It just takes will.  And if we choose not to be willing to stand up to those who would oppose us in this matter, we may as well dismantle our military and pay obeisance to our Chinese and Russian masters.