Mystified: Continuing Somali Piracy

Piracy is a capital offense under international and US law. I do not understand why we and the rest of the world are failing to deal with this definitively as we surely can.

First we must establish constant satellite surveillance of this area. Since it is near the equator, we can do so with a geosyncronous satellite. Although such satellites are most commonly commercial and equipped primarily to support communications, it is well with our capabilities to use one for this purpose. There may already be a commercial satellite in place with the capabilities we need.

Use the satellite surveillance to identiy the "mother ships" used to launch attacks on ships far from the coastline. The small boats used to board are far too small to operate on their own. They must be launched near the targeted vessel in reasonably good weather.

Once "mother vessels" are identified, they can be followed closely by satellite. As they approach potential victim ships, helicopter or other airplanes can be directed to the area to destroy any small boats which are launched and the mother ship itself.

A few such actions would, I assert, serve to dramatically curtail piracy in the Indian Ocean near Somalia. The cost would be far less than that required to maintain enough military warships in the area to check this illegal and dangerous activity. Keep in mind that the money involved is 100's of milions of dollars per year, certainly enough to represent a danger in the middle east
should the money be used to acquire weapons.