Securing our seas

By Jonathan Roberts / @jroberts82

There is a war brewing – another one – slowly, silently and hundreds of miles out of sight. It is putting the lives of British people, and those from countless other nations at risk. Some have already died because of it, and the threat is growing by the week.

You will have heard of it; but because of the childhood fantasies and Hollywood spectacles to which we are more accustomed, you may not have taken much notice of it. It is a war on the high seas, a war with pirates.

As an island nation we are dependent on shipping, and with over 80% of global trade – worth hundreds of billions of pounds – being moved by sea it is vital to the interests of all economic powers that our trade, including oil and gas imports, is adequately defended.

One of the busiest shipping routes in the world is also the most treacherous – the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. The close proximity to land, the heaviness of traffic and sheer value of goods being transported provide rich pickings for criminals. Somali pirates in particular are desperate to flee the poverty of their failed homeland state but make no mistake, these are no seafaring Robin Hoods. They are ruthless, brutal, violent and increasingly sophisticated. Respect for life is not something they philosophise about.

800 people are currently being held hostage in the area; their captors awaiting huge ransom payments from ship owners. In many cases the ransom is paid, with some companies setting aside millions of pounds in their annual budgets understanding that such attacks may be inevitable. For the pirates this is a business. They take advice, recruit staff, have sophisticated communications techniques and, more recently and most worryingly, have turned at least 20 captured vessels into motherships. These motherships act as a base for speedboats to launch further attacks, and by providing fuel and shelter, pirates are now able to target ships much further out to sea. Two tankers have been taken this way in the last week alone.

The only solution lies with the military. The British Navy has joined with naval forces from across Europe and the world to help provide safe passage for vessels – but with six warships covering four million square kilometres of ocean, they cannot be everywhere at once and our trade – and the men and women that carry it – remain heavily exposed.

It is now time for us to abandon the hope of defending each ship through regular naval patrols in favour of more standard military tactics – where the supply chain of the enemy is cut off as a means to draining the resources sent to the frontline. The Navy needs to engage directly with motherships, seek them out and destroy them if necessary. Special Forces need to be made available to retake control of motherships where civilian hostages are being held. If they do not, then pirates will only further increase their capability and strengthen their control over the area; more ships will be taken, more criminals recruited, more motherships created and more lives put at risk.

This is not a matter of changing or creating policy. All that is needed is an order from the government.

To his credit, David Cameron and the current government have listened to industry concerns. But to stop the rise of piracy and the threat to our energy and trade security that it poses, Mr Cameron needs to give the order to the Navy – and for the sake of thousands of seafarers working in dangerous seas, he needs to do it fast.