I completely agree that it is surprising that the world has only just discovered the Somali piracy problem. It's been very serious for years - the US-led Combined Task Force 150 was set up as long ago as 2002, though it has got worse in recent months.

One of the ironies in the situation is that the most stable part of the disintegrated Somalia state, the former British colony of Somaliland, actually has a pretty good record of preventing piracy off its part of the coast - the official UN maps show only two incidents there of the dozens of the last few years (and I'm told that even those two have been mislabelled). Somaliland's coastguard, of course, cannot be sold arms legally due to the international arms embargo applying to the whole of the former country; yet at the same time, of course, the internationals will demand that Somaliland do its bit to prevent piracy!

http://www.dorktower.com/2008/09/19/dork-tower-682-yarrrrrr/

The story is now behind a paywall, and some have regarded it with varying degrees of scepticism. However, there is some coverage in The Register, by their naval staff.

addresses that question, sceptically. The important point here is that claiming - and even being granted - political asylum is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. The likely course of events would be

1. Pirate gets captured off the Horn of Africa
2. Pirate brought back to UK for trial
3. Pirate claims asylum
4. Pirate granted asylum; UK agrees not to return pirate to Somalia
5. Pirate sent to a UK prison for life for piracy.

In fact, a pirate would be unlikely to gain asylum without a well-founded fear of persecution. You can't get asylum on the grounds that you come from a country where life is just generally crap. The pirate would have to have a second job as a political dissident or something.

(They are not members of the common throng;
They are all noblemen who have gone wrong!
-No Englishman unmoved that statement hears,
Because, with all their faults, we love our House of Peers.)

Exciting, but rather overloaded with racist junk. The idea of the passengers being isolated from the bridge by locked doors, etc., still manages to sound familiar.

Though I suspect that the only real meaning of a brow like a Shakespeare is male pattern baldness.

The situation in the waters off and in the vicinity of Somali has been nasty for years.... there was a case where an American MD on extended leave from Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston cruising in a yacht or two with husband and others, was involved in fighting off a pirate attack, in that part of the world. The pirates lost that particular battle, decisively and lethally. It got reported, and I called Phil Nathanson--it turned out that he knew the MD.

Or, given that we are talking about the South China Sea: racist, with overloaded junks?

It's not just that I might still use the idea of Childe Ballads as jodies, but it will likely involve Chinese pirates.

(If the mil-SF writers can keep quoting March of Cambreadth, I don't see why my furry anarcho-syndicalists can't invent a few military traditions of their own. Including "Landing Force Detachment Valhalla".)

Aren't our military leaders interested in exercising their might? Is our political leader afraid of seeming hawkish?

I really don't understand how every pirate story doesn't read:

Suspected pirates approached and fired on the USS Filthy Rich, a training yacht of the U.S. Navy involved in peaceful exercises off the Somali Coast today. Navy sailors briefly defended themselves, after which no trace could be found of the pirates, their ship, or a portion of the shoreline that they had occluded prior to the attack.

(My current project doesn't have anything quite that cool, but it does have hulder-maidens and Art Nouveau mechas.)

I'm not one for projecting power across the globe, but seeing as it's happening anyway, killing off some pirates and making piracy less attractive would seem like a pretty good silver lining to me. I guess we won't even have that.

It seems to me that many of the problems facing the US military in particular these days are issues of mission creep - expecting the military to do police work. Sometimes, as in the streets of Baghdad, it's because they should be replaced with actual police. In this instance I begin to think it's because people are expecting the Navy to act like the Coast Guard instead of taking the gloves off and being the gorram Navy.

Yes, I do think pirates should be sunk on sight with no apologies or excuses, especially when they're financing a civil war.

Barbara Nathanson and her twin sister were among my babysitters, when I was a very small child. I can't remember her sister's name, because I called them Barbara and Barbara.

(Hmm. You mean I can't sell cruise missiles to just anyone with a business license? Drat.)

Traditionally one should get a letter of marque from the government (and say sorry and pay damages when you're caught attacking the wrong ships). So enterprising 21st century pirates should get themselves appointed the navy of opposition/secessionist governments; apologise and run away, claim asylum and/or demand POW status - take your pick.

You've put your finger on the crux of the issue. The current US regime APPROVES of piracy, as they have demonstrated time and again.

...but how is Blackwater not seen a piratical name?
Try it out: "Blackwater Buccaneers" or "the Pirates of Blackwater"

On a lighter note, according to that pirate attacks map, Saskatchewan seems to have shaken off the scourge of Captain Tractor.

And it's a ho! (Ho!) Hi! (Hi!)
Farmers lock your doors
When you see the Jolly Roger
Off Regina's mighty shores!

Good times, good times....

If you want an anarchist response, you'll have to ask someone else.

My father was a Navy man; he begged me to compete
For a fighter ship, a frigate in the U.S. Navy Fleet.
But I left home at seventeen, a privateer to be;
Now I can outfight any four Fleet men and outdrink any three.
And it's cheer up, me lads, let your hearts never fear
When you ship out on the sealanes with Blackwater's Privateers!

(With apologies to Michael Longcor -- damn, that didn't take much tweaking!)

"F. The provisions of this Convention shall not apply to any person with respect to whom there are serious reasons for considering that.

a) He has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, as defined in the international instruments drawn up to make provision in respect of such crimes;

b) He has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee;

c) He has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

It seems to me that at least b), maybe even c) (don't know if piracy could be said to be againt the purposes of the UN) and a) in some cases, should be applicable.

You cannot hope to bribe or twist
- Thank God! - the British Journalist;
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to.

Wasp class Amphibious Assault Ships

Two thousand marines is more than enough to engage any pirate target - up to and including 21st century Tortuga wannabees. Hell, you could probably offload a chunk of them, and rig up quarters for rescued passengers and crew, and some secure cells for prisoners awaiting trial.

Harriers provide rapid response and stand-off attack capacity, while the helos provide long-range eyes and troop movement/deployment (make sure each deployment has teams trained in air-assault style deployment). Keep a couple of the LCACs in the boat bay, maybe with a pair of the new Mark V SOC boats (closest thing I can find to an old PT Boat - I'd take those if I could get them.) - the LCACs for moving heavy gear ashore if you need to hit a land position, and the SOC boats for high-speed patrol and response. Between those, and the LHD's normal escort group, you can cover a hell of a lot of ocean.

The key is speedy response - if pirates know they can't make an attack without having an SOC boat, helo full of angry marines, or an AV8b with wing hardpoints full of rockets and guns getting up in their grill, it will tend to put a cramp in their style.

And when they try to switch to stealthy missions (like the pirates in the Straits of Mallacca sometimes do, climbing up anchor chains and the like) - you've got enough marines you can put an entire damn company of them on anything big enough to warrant it, and a squad or more on pretty much everything transiting through the Strait, if you deploy a pair of Wasps and their associated vessels.

What we need is an admiral gutsy enough to suggest something like this, and a captain with the skills and ambition to become the next Commodore Decatur...

According to Wikipedia, the U.S. Congress has issued such a letter only once since the War of 1812 . . . and not to the type of vessel that one might have expected.

Seriously, sounds like a plan. Add some SEALs so they can go ashore and root out the pirates at the source, and you're golden.

That sounds like it would make a great sequel to "Custer's Last Jump".

Ginger, all indeed is well, do not your giant oak trees still migrate south every winter?

Truly, we are living on an alternate timeline.

It's clearly the only way to keep the sealanes safe from the threat of ptero-pirates.

The airships better be filled with something inert, lest the phosphorus guns set off a disaster, though.

As for LOLdogs, I also recall pictures of foxes in traditional fox-hunting garb.

In the last two books in Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time, an airship plays a moderately important role, including taking part in several battles.