I had to bite my tongue as I read about “a stunning rise in pirate assaults” in a new AP article about a New US-led naval force to battle Somali pirates. The rise in piracy was not only tracked and I would argue predictable (as I argued back in January of 2006!), but it also followed the intentional disintegration of the situation in Somalia by US and Ethiopian intervention. Correlation? I think there is ample reason to see causation. Notice how the AP article concludes:

The flagship, the USS San Antonio, is an amphibious ship capable of bringing hundreds of Marines ashore.

This is the type of action needed to truly rattle the pirates, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center.

“Right now there is no major deterrent,” he said. “The military maybe chases away the pirates, but they regroup and come back for another attack on another ship. Piracy will continue until their networks and bases are hit.”

In other words, they found a convenient place to build networks and bases — a set of vulnerabilities they could exploit. It is hard not to get into hindsight mode, but the suggestion that stability and security in Somalia will cut down the piracy is surely a way of questioning the tactics that undermined the formation of a popular government. I guess the question is whether the cost of piracy and related activity, such as the Mumbai attacks, is higher or lower than if the US had allowed a hostile but potentially stable Islamic state to form?