Slitherine

A wargame forum seems like a good place to discuss the recent merchant ship hijackings off the coast of Somalia.

I see three possible solutions to the problem:

(1) Escorted convoys - define a pair of "assembly areas", a safe distance beyond each side of the affected area. Have a single armed UN vessel maintain security at each of these end points. Recommend that all ships passing through the area meet at the assembly point. Once several ships have gathered, assign a third UN vessel as an armed escort for the convoy, and proceed through as a group. The escort vessel can then either pick up a convoy heading in the other direction, or rotate duties with one of the stationed vessles, which would then become the escort vessel. More escort vessels would increase the proportion of secure to unsecure traffic through the area.

(2) Q-ships - In WWII, a number of merchant vessels (not necessarily the most valuable) were leased or purchased, and lightly armed as anti-submarine vessels in disguise. If a convoy with one of these was attacked, these would engage the attacker with depth charges and other light weaponry, or help to direct aerial attacks aganst the sub. Against light speedboats and other small "pirate" craft, this shouldn't require a lot of refitting, if any. A few dozen Naval or Marine troops with portable weaponry should be quite capable of giving the pirates a nasty surprise, and even chasing the "mothership" or guiding possible air attack on the pirate's launch vessel.

(3) The Marines - In the 19th century, pirates along the African coast became a serious international problem, and the government of the hosting country was either unwilling or unable to address the problem. A US diplomat managed to hastily assemble a mixed force of Marines and mercenaries, and tackled the problem at its source. The US Marine Corps uses this event as a part of its theme song "....to the shores of Tripoli....". This would probably generate more ill will toward the US, especially with Somalia's Islamic factions, but would certainly end the immediate threat for the forseeable future.

How about having a decent, non-corrupt government in Somalia along with better distribution of wealth to the people? How about that, huh?

See option #3.

Note: My impassioned response to this thread was lost in the forum incident of January 4/5. But because I am a cautious, stubborn, oldschool son-of-perdition, I saved a copy locally. Did I mention persistent?

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This is as much a European problem as an African problem. It's European companies dumping toxic waste off the coast of Africa to avoid their nations' environmental laws. In all fairness, I'm not suggesting that US companies are any better; they just do their illegal dumping of toxic wastes closer to home.

The root problems of toxic dumping need to be addressed as part of any solution.

And the Somali problem is not confined to Somalia. Most of the big game in Kenya's NFD, or Northern Frontier District, has long since been wiped out by poachers, most of whom are Somalis. Again, in all fairness, some of the poachers are Ethiopian/Eritrean.

Which leads us to the hardest point for a westerner to grasp. In Africa, nations are an artificial distinction which exist only as relics of European colonialism. Tribes are the primary social unit, and any solution to Africa's problems must acknowledge the primary importance of tribal bonds, loyalties, and antipathies.

For example, in reporting on the current cholera epidemic in Rhodesia, err, Zimbabwe, western reporters have totally ignored the tribal aspect of the situation. The majority of the Zimbabwean people belong to the Shona tribe, who are Bantu. The Matabele, or Ndebele, form a roughly 25-30% minority. Now the Matabele are a Zulu tribe, the descendants of Lobengula (He Who Drives Like the Wind), who fled the Zulu homeland with his father "Old Mzilikaze" and their followers during the reign of the great Zulu king Shaka.

In the aftermath of the Bush War, when the Smith government fell, the Shona seized power by virtue of their superior numbers. Seeing this, the Matabele revolted, and the Shona turned the army loose on them in a slaughter of such epic proportions that the dead bodies were hauled away by the boxcar load.

Nor is Zimbabwe by any means unique. The Shangane of southern Mozambique are also a Zulu-descended people. And indeed most former European colonies in Africa have borders that divide tribes in two or even in three.

In short, African problems are always very tangled and confused. They never permit of neat, clean solutions. They cannot be explained in cute little 30-second sound bites. And whatever bullshit UNICEF may feed you, they sure cannot be solved by dropping a quarter in the poor box at the supermarket checkstand.

And the ugly truth is that many, if not most, of Africa's problems have their roots in the evils of European colonialism.

Now, those actions were undertaken by European powers in the 18th and 19th centuries, actually earlier if you want to go back to the founding of the Cape Colony. Nobody alive today is in any way responsible. Repeat, nobody alive today is in any way responsible for the evils of Colonialism. The sins of the fathers do not weigh upon the sons (or daughters) unto the seventh generation.

But in the 1950's Germany, which was the first of the colonial powers to exit Africa, took the trouble to go back and look up all the survivors of Lettow-Vorbeck's "Ghosts of Africa" army, which was disbanded, (still undefeated), in 1918 at the end of the First World War. Germany did this in order to pay them all a modest pension. And of course a modest pension by German standards was still a sizable sum by the standards of sub-Saharan Africa.

I'd politely suggest that in the small, small world of today, Europe should pay attention to Africa's problems, and try to help solve them. Not for any high-minded reasons, or because of some alleged moral debt, but because it is in the practical best interests of Europe and Europeans to do so.

And yes, of course, given its actions in Latin America, the USA has no right to throw stones at any other nation on such matters.

As a side note, the CIA World Factbook entry for Zimbabwe lists the African ethnic breakdown as 82% Shona, 14% Ndebele, and 2% other. The remaining 2% are White and Indian. If you're looking at that entry, note three more things, please. The infant mortality rate is high, the life expectancy is low, but look at that literacy rate. 94% of males and 87% of females 15 or older are not just literate, but literate in English. Those are respectable numbers for anywhere in the third world. For sub-Saharan Africa those are outstanding numbers. And yes, it's unfortunate that there exists any disparity at all between the genders, but again, for sub-Saharan Africa, that's a small disparity.

If you then look at corresponding entries for Somalia, the infant mortality is triple, the life expectancy is marginally higher, but the literacy rate is a disaster; only 49% male and 25% female. But if you look carefully, the definition line is different in the two entries. The Zimbabwe entry defines literacy as "age 15 and over can read and write English", and the entry for Somalia defines literacy as simply "age 15 and over can read and write". Why the disparity? Because English is the official language of Zimbabwe.

Good Staff!!!

honvedseg wrote:A wargame forum seems like a good place to discuss the recent merchant ship hijackings off the coast of Somalia.

I see three possible solutions to the problem:

(1) Escorted convoys - define a pair of "assembly areas", a safe distance beyond each side of the affected area. Have a single armed UN vessel maintain security at each of these end points. Recommend that all ships passing through the area meet at the assembly point. Once several ships have gathered, assign a third UN vessel as an armed escort for the convoy, and proceed through as a group. The escort vessel can then either pick up a convoy heading in the other direction, or rotate duties with one of the stationed vessles, which would then become the escort vessel. More escort vessels would increase the proportion of secure to unsecure traffic through the area.

(2) Q-ships - In WWII, a number of merchant vessels (not necessarily the most valuable) were leased or purchased, and lightly armed as anti-submarine vessels in disguise. If a convoy with one of these was attacked, these would engage the attacker with depth charges and other light weaponry, or help to direct aerial attacks aganst the sub. Against light speedboats and other small "pirate" craft, this shouldn't require a lot of refitting, if any. A few dozen Naval or Marine troops with portable weaponry should be quite capable of giving the pirates a nasty surprise, and even chasing the "mothership" or guiding possible air attack on the pirate's launch vessel.

(3) The Marines - In the 19th century, pirates along the African coast became a serious international problem, and the government of the hosting country was either unwilling or unable to address the problem. A US diplomat managed to hastily assemble a mixed force of Marines and mercenaries, and tackled the problem at its source. The US Marine Corps uses this event as a part of its theme song "....to the shores of Tripoli....". This would probably generate more ill will toward the US, especially with Somalia's Islamic factions, but would certainly end the immediate threat for the forseeable future.