Pirates Are a Better Bargain Than Congress

Information Dissemination: Pirates vs. Congress: How Pirates Are a Better Bargain

Pirates are hardly a financial blip of the
total costs of maritime shipping. 

What entity costs the maritime shipping industries more money - pirates or the US Congress? You know the answer just from the way the question is phrased.

Stephen M. Carmel, Senior Vice President of Maersk Line, Ltd., given August 3rd, 2011 at the Commander Second Fleet Intelligence Symposium of the US Navy. This is a long but must-read speech to anyone who wants to understand the relative risks that shipping has to calculate. And the very tiptop risk of all is what draconian, expensive regulations will be laid atop the industry by the US Congress.

In fact, the Congress costs shipping so much money that piracy costs are barely a blip. Read the whole thing. Some excerpts:

First let me say right out of the gate I am no fan of pirates. Do not like them at all in fact, contrary to what many may perceive from my remarks on the topic. Pirates do impose a cost on our business that we would rather not bear if possible so it is something I worry about. But, while worrying about pirates I also worry about the effect of MARPOL Annex VI and the cost of complying with increasingly harsh emissions control requirements, something that will cost our industry roughly $6 Billion a year to comply with now and that figure will go up as tighter standards kick in in the 2014 time frame. I worry about the requirement to cold iron in LA [use commercial power while at dock], something that is very expensive and disruptive. And since while common for Navy ships to go on shore power, commercial ships never do it and are not fitted with a system to do so, a modification is required that will cost the equivalent of one ransom for each ship it is done on. ...

I worry about bad policy such as the requirement for 100% scanning of containers imposed by congress in the “Implementing the requirements of the 9/11 commission Act”, a requirement which the European Commission estimates will cost the global economy 150 billion Euros or about 215 billion dollars per year were it to be implemented by all our trading partners. With that single act congress potentially does 20 times more damage to the global economy than pirates do by even the most ridiculous estimates of the cost of piracy, and in the process actually degrades maritime security rather than improves it. ...

I worry a heck allot more about bad policy than I do bad guys, bad policy being easier to inflict and harder, and expensive, to recover from once it happens. And speaking of bad policy specifically as relates to pirates, there can be no better example than the Executive order which most believe heads us down the slope towards making ransoms illegal, which in my view is breathtaking in its shortsightedness. That would remove the only tool that is available to us that has proven effective at resolving a piracy incident. Making ransoms illegal is unenforceable, will increase the violence against the crew, will criminalize the victims, and will do nothing to deter pirates. Hostages are a commodity to pirates and they will always find a buyer. [Carmel goes on to explain that if companies can't pay ransom, pirates will simply sell captives into "the very active slavery market."] ...

I assume everyone here knows the basic statistics – piracy is a very rare event considering the volume of traffic that moves through the area. The probability of any specific ship being attacked is remote, and for the types of ships that actually move the majority of international trade even more so, approaching zero. Attack success rates have fallen into the 14% range. But we’ll not belabor the obvious at this point and instead dwell a little on the issues that hide behind the numbers – the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say.

From the US perspective it is difficult to see how piracy affects our economy or international trade in any significant way.

There is lots more, very compelling stuff from a man who knows firsthand what he's talking about.

I covered a lot of related issues in 2009. One thing I pointed out, that Mr. Carmel confirms, is that piracy off Somalia is not a matter of national security of the United States (link).

Piracy there doesn't even rate a blip on the screen of international maritime commerce. Barely more than one-half of one percent of ships transiting the waters concerned were even threatened with attack last year, much less actually hijacked. The "piracy tax," or the increased costs to shippers of the piracy, is virtually nil as a percentage of total operating costs. Besides which, what little financial end-costs there are are borne mostly by Europeans, not Americans. Only one kidnapped crewman has died in captivity, and he under circumstances not clear (which does not absolve his captors of culpability, it just means that he might not have been murdered).

This means that combating piracy should not displace, either in urgency or in budget, truly critical security issues such as fighting al Qaeda, stabilizing Iraq, winning in Afghanistan or continuing to discover and shut down nascent networks seeking to bring death and destruction to American citizens or possessions.

At best, anti-piracy has to remain an economy-of-force action.

But when it comes to "economy," the US Congress is clueless about what it is costing consumers because of all the layers of suffocating regulations it adds every session.

US Navy channels Monty Python

Of course you remember the command given by King Arthur at the end of the k'niggets' attack against the French castle:



"Run away!"

Well, that's the advice being given by a senior US Navy officer to ships transiting the piracy-imperiled waters off Somalia: "Navy ship outruns pirates, officials say."

The attempted attack happened Wednesday against the USNS Lewis and Clark, a dry cargo and ammunition ship that supports the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet and coalition ships in the area, the Navy said.

Two pirate skiffs pursued the Lewis and Clark for more than an hour as it headed north, the Navy said. They got as close as one nautical mile from the ship.

The Lewis and Clark sped up and tried to escape the pirates, and the ship's security team issued verbal warnings to the approaching skiffs, the Navy said.

The suspected pirates, who were then two nautical miles behind the Lewis and Clark, fired small arms at the ship. They fell a mile short of the ship's stern, the Navy said.

The Lewis and Clark sped up and the skiffs stopped their chase.

"The actions taken by Lewis and Clark were exactly what the U.S. Navy has been recommending to prevent piracy attacks -- for both commercial and military vessels," said Capt. Steve Kelley, commander of Task Force 53, assigned to the Lewis and Clark.

"Merchant mariners can and should use Lewis and Clark's actions as an unequivocal example of how to prevent a successful attack from occurring," he said.

To which Galrahn at Information Dissemination blog, devoted to matters maritime, responds,

On one hand, the US Navy is telling shipping companies they need to protect themselves, and Congress is suggesting they arm their ships to do it.

On the other hand, the US Navy is telling everyone to run from pirates. Maybe the Congress should go after the US Navy first, because apparently the US Navy hasn't even armed the gray hulled MSC operated US Navy ships to deal with piracy, because according to the US Navy, fleeing from pirates is an "unequivocal example of how to prevent a successful attack from occurring."

I'm not looking for blood, I'm looking for a strategy.

This response seems to confuse a strategic approach to dealing with piracy with the tactical solution to deal with individual pirate attacks. But the pirate threat is actually so low that the best strategy for now may well be simply to deal with individual threats on a case-by-case basis.

The fact is that Somali piracy is not a pressing national-security issue for the United States, so avoiding, rather than escalating encounters is indeed the preferable thing to do. Running away from pirates is the best course of action if the ship has that kind of speed. After all, "don't start nuthin', won't be nuthin'." Speedy sailing is the best tool in the toolbox for mariners in those waters, but it cannot be the only one. CNN's story points out that,

[L]ate Wednesday morning in the Gulf of Aden... a Greek vessel fended off a pirate attack. The Greeks hit the approaching skiff, causing the pirates' boat to capsize, the European Union's Maritime Security Center said in a written statement.

A Spanish crew recovered seven pirates from the water and detained them, the statement said. No casualties or damage was reported.

Which is bully good stuff. On the other hand, there may be large gaps in the tactical, too. Galrahn links to the blog of a merchant vessel captain who reports,

During my transits of the Gulf of Aden I receive no information at all regarding military assets available for protection. In fact the response I get to my numerous reports is ....NOTHING, not even so much as an automatically generated email, something along the lines of "your call is important to us", I mean nothing, not a single message or email even acknowledging that I exist, let alone that I am transiting the GoA. ...

I find myself transiting the Gulf of Aden wondering if any one is even receiving my reports, let alone reading them.

Not exactly a confidence builder, that.

Convoying past Somalia not a panacea

I linked yesterday to an op-ed in OpinionJournal urging merchant vessels transiting the waters off Somalia sail in convoys, escorted by warships. The piece is worth reading, but author Peter Zimmerman misstates why convoying was done during World War II's Battle of the Atlantic. He writes that the same convoying "tactic which defeated the U-boats can put an end to the majority of pirate attacks."

Problem is, convoying did not defeat the U-boats. Convoys, large numbers of ship sailing together under a unified command, had been devised in World War I as a defense against U-boats. Convoys' advantage lay solely in the fact that the Atlantic is so enormous that a convoy of even dozens of ships was not really easier for a U-boat to find than a single vessel. Besides, there would never be enough destroyers or corvettes to escort single vessels. Convoys grew in size as the war continued. Only very fast ships such as Queen Mary were permitted to cross the sea alone, on the supposition that they were fast enough to outrun any U-boat that might detect them (which proved correct).

In June 1940 Admiral Doenitz devised a new tactic for his boats. He called it Rudeltaktik, or "pack tactic," which the Allies called "wolfpack." Doenitz ordered submarines to patrol in lines to look for convoys. When a U-boat discovered a convoy, it would shadow it and report its speed and heading to "Admiral U-boats," as Doenitz's headquarters was known to U-boat crews. Admiral U-boats would then signal boats in reasonable range to converge on the convoy and make a coordinated attack.

This tactical innovation devastated convoys. Wolfpacks varied in size from only a few U-boats to 20 and sometimes more. Convoy ONS-5, for example, was attacked by a wolfpack that finally amounted to 55 U-boats in April 1943 in a convoy battle lasting two weeks. ONS-5 lost 13 ships totaling just under 62,000 tons. The month before, 43 U-boats sank 93,500 tons of convoy HX-229. These convoy battles were not hit and run affairs. They usually lasted many days, often more than a week. March 1943 was the worst month of the war for the Allies, with more than a million tons sent to the ocean floor.

Yet within two months, the U-boats began to suffer accelerated losses and lose the battle. Four big developments defeated the U-boats:

1. Signals intelligence and British codebreakers, who enabled Allied navy commanders to intercept and read orders to U-boats at practically the same time as the German commanders.

2. Improved technology in submarine detection, especially aircraft-borne radar and "huff-duff," or High Frequency Direction Finding radio receivers.

3. Improved anti-submarine weapons and weapons-employment technology, especially the mass introduction of small corvettes, a purpose-designed ASW craft.

4. "Intentional lethality" - the change of martial attitude of British commanders from neutralizing U-boats' ability to attack convoys to the determination to sink the U-boats. (Americans mostly followed the British lead in ASW.) In this tactical change, aircraft became the key players. German U-boat survivors (they suffered a 75 percent casualty rate) agreed that aircraft were their greatest threat, and none more so than the long-range, heavily-armed B-24 Liberator bomber.

I wrote in detail about the ASW campaign in the north Atlantic back in 2006.

As you can see, convoying was only one tool in the Allies' drawer. It was important but by no means decisive. Moreover, German commanders devised tactics of their own that gravely threatened convoys and had great success in attacking them in U-boat packs, though they came to pay a terrible price.

So convoying past Somalia may be a good idea, but it won't necessarily be a panacea to ward off pirate attacks. Unlike the Atlantic, convoys will not be hard to find at all. The larger the convoy, the greater the number of escort vessels needed to secure it. Since the powers patrolling the waters now are unlikely to increase the number of warships by much, escorting convoys may increase vulnerability of single ships, whose sailings will still be in the majority.

Just as the German commanders adjusted to allied convoying, so will Somali pirates. If pirates adopt pack tactics as the U-boats did, they will likely successfully seize merchant vessels despite the presence of armed escorts. Ships in convoy must keep station, they can't maneuver to escape. Attacks from three or four points on the compass will be very difficult to counter. And if the pirates manage to seize only one or two ships per convoy, they will win.

(We do have a great advantage that our WW2 predecessors did not, though, and that is helicopters and UAVs. Today as then, aircraft will prove decisive in protecting convoys. The responsiveness of helicopters and UAVs and the fact that many men-o-war already carry them gives us a huge leg up in countering pirates. This would be especially true in escorting convoys.)

Convoying ships without the determination to use force to repel pirates attacking them is no solution, unfortunately. The Germans, at war with their strong martial tradition, pressed on despite high losses. Will pirates be as determined in the face of lethal opposition? Let's hope not.

Related posts.

Piracy - next steps will be incremental

With the safe return of Maersk Alabama's Capt. Richard Phillips from pirate captivity, the commentati are abuzz with discussion of coming measures against the Gulf of Aden pirates. It has not helped matters that President Obama, feeling his oats, pledged almost immediately to halt piracy in the area. It's a fine sentiment and surely a desirable goal, but it's a bit of an over-promise - and somewhat of an overreach considering all the other things on the United States' military plate and national budget.

(In fairness, from all the accounts I have read, the president's handling of the high seas drama was very well done. He set the parameters and let the commander on the scene call the shots (literally, as it turned out). That's exactly the right way to do it and hopefully will be the model he uses for future events, and there will always be future events.)

The overwrought media euphoria since Sunday's rescue of Capt. Phillips makes me remember Han Solo's advice to Luke Skywalker:



"Don't get cocky." Good advice! So let's take a deep breath, shed the triumphalist jackets we've put on since Sunday, and try to take a cold, dispassionate look at some foundational facts.

1. Piracy off Somalia is not a matter of national security of the United States.

Piracy there doesn't even rate a blip on the screen of international maritime commerce. Barely more than one-half of one percent of ships transiting the waters concerned were even threatened with attack last year, much less actually hijacked. The "piracy tax," or the increased costs to shippers of the piracy, is virtually nil as a percentage of total operating costs. Besides which, what little financial end-costs there are are borne mostly by Europeans, not Americans. Only one kidnapped crewman has died in captivity, and he under circumstances not clear (which does not absolve his captors of culpability, it just means that he might not have been murdered).

This means that combating piracy should not displace, either in urgency or in budget, truly critical security issues such as fighting al Qaeda, stabilizing Iraq, winning in Afghanistan or continuing to discover and shut down nascent networks seeking to bring death and destruction to American citizens or possessions.

At best, anti-piracy has to remain an economy-of-force action.

2. Anti- and counter-piracy measures taken at sea can have near-term effectiveness, but history shows that decisive actions to end piracy have always been on land.

Pirate bases have to be eliminated. Just striking pirate vessels at sea does not solve the problem. There are, off the Horn of Africa, simply too many boats, too large a sea and too much money to be made for piracy to stop just because a pirate boat here and there gets sunk and its pirates killed or captured.

Despite the buzz about taking action inside Somalia, broken by Bloomberg Monday and picked up by other media since then, land actions such as raids or airstrikes will have only short-term success. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pointed out recently (can't find link again, sorry), the success in ending piracy in southeast Asian waters depended on mature, effective governments of local nations, including nations in which the pirates made their bases. No such government exists in Somalia, able to enforce a national will.

While it's true that the pirates want to make money, there's precious little to buy in Somalia, so what's the money for? Answer: to get out of Somalia. A large number, perhaps the majority, of hijackings are done by young men who commit only one or two acts to make enough money to leave Somalia for a better life elsewhere. The AP reports:

Diplomats in Nairobi say many pirates are eager for one-off assignments to make the $10,000 or $15,000 needed to get them out of the misery of Somalia. When they leave, dozens of recruits line up to replace them.

That helps explain why Mr. Gates also said this week that there is "no purely military" solution to Somalia "unless you get something on land that begins to change the equation for these kids." For every pirate who leaves, and for every one who may be captured or killed, many more are waiting in line.

3. The threat level is not higher now than it was before Alabama was hijacked.

Yes, a couple of pirates managed to get quoted by Western media that pirates will now kill crew of vessels of nations that have struck back (meaning the US and France), but this is almost certainly bluster and emotion of the moment. As I've explained before, there's no upside for the pirates to do this. Now, maritime analysts agree.

So despite the president's pledge to crack down, and despite the seizure since Sunday of four more vessels, don't expect an enduring piracy surge in the waters off the Horn of Africa. The AP reports,

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he doesn't see any immediate need to bulk up the military response to piracy on the high seas. Gates adds, however, that those decisions are being made moment by moment.

According to Crispian Cuss of London's risk mitigation Olive Group,

"The international community has to decide whether the scourge of piracy is so bad that it is worth intervening directly or indirectly in Somalia or, if insurance companies are happy to pay ransoms and shipping companies are happy to pay premiums, shall we just continue with the status quo."

I think the move is toward changing the status quo, but the momentum may be short-lived. If the pirates look upon their criminality from the standpoint of cost effectiveness (let's hope they do), then a lot of shippers and insurers and national-policy setters are going to do so, too.

Costs of patrolling the waters concerned are already very high. With patrolling governments already running national deficits and a deep recession continuing, there will be no shortage of banker's green eyeshades coming out in government ministries. The question simply will be: is the benefit gained from increased enforcement actually worth the costs? That is, is the marginal gain worth the marginal costs? Don't be surprised if the answer is no.

None of this is to say that nothing much more can be done. Already there has been talk of instituting a convoy system of merchantmen, escorted by American or foreign-flag warships. The class of vessels subject to hijacking so far has been fairly limited. Many merchantmen are simply too fast for the pirates to catch. Others are slow enough but lack the size to carry enough cargo to make the ransom worthwhile. So a convoy system may have considerable merit.

It would not be hard to announce to African nations and to coastal Somalis that a convoy would have a mandatory exclusion zone around it, say 1,000 meters, within which other vessels will be assumed to be hostile and may be dealt with accordingly.

There will be some near-term measures taken, but we really don't know yet what they will be. I don't much look for American action ashore in Somalia. For now, we have a momentum shift, but as operational experts start to take a cold-eyed look at things, they will realize that the parameters are less military than they are political and economic, in America, Europe and Somalia itself.

Endnote: As a proviso, I'll note that history also shows that people are controlled by events at least as often as they control events. After all, "rational actors" would never have let the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand lead to the deaths of almost 10 million people.

If there is a short-term surge in pirate activity, I think the best response is for shippers and navies to step up preventive measures to foil hijackers and not to take direct action against pirates except to save lives. Tribal societies such as Somalia's are heavily built upon honor-shame dynamics. It is not in our interests to catalyze the pirates to strike out to preserve their honor at the cost of their commercial interests. Al la the Godfather, we want them to stick to business, not make it personal. (And so should we.)

Time is on our side. We need to refrain from getting caught up in action-reaction cycles in order to maintain the freedom to plan and act mostly analytically rather than reflexively. We must not become enamored with a "quick fix" under the illusion that the whole piracy problem can be solved as easily or quickly as Capt. Phillips' kidnapping was.

"Military victory?" Sorry, no.

Roger Simon writing on The Politico:

The stories that followed the dramatic rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips off the coast of Somalia were the kind the White House staff dreams about. The Washington Post ran the headline: “An Early Military Victory for Obama.”

Military victory? Well, why not? We could use one.

Roger, Roger, Roger. I've been reading you a long time. This out of character for you, but I have to point it out anyway: "We could use" a "military victory"? Three shots counts as a real "military victory?" Please. A job very well done, certainly, and excellent shots they were, but this was not even a real military engagement, much less a "military" victory.

"We could use" a military victory? Did you so quickly forget Iraq?

Let's come down from the euphoric high everyone seems to be on from rescuing Capt. Phillips. Skillfully done though it was, and as good as it is to have the captain safe, there are three things to keep in mind:

1. Piracy off Somalia is not a matter of national security of the United States.

2. History shows that decisive actions to end piracy have always been on land.

3. The piracy threat is not higher now than it was before Alabama was hijacked.

As Han Solo told Luke Skywalker, "Don't get cocky, kid." I'll expand each of these points in detail in a posting to go online later today.

Analysts: Pirates won't start killing crews

Yesterday I posted that after the shooting of three pirates holding Capt. Richard Phillips, the smart play of the other pirates is not to shed blood for blood.

Today the AP reports that despite the pirates' talk, and shippers' fears of increased violence, "The most likely outcome, though, is business as usual for the bandits."

The pirates' primary concerns, however, are economic, and they have no interest in escalating violence.

Pirates armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades typically speed toward a ship in skiffs and use ropes and hooks to get aboard without shooting. Within days, a ransom of $1 million to $2 million is delivered, by sea or air, and the ship and crew are released.

As for the widely-cited quote by pirate Jamac Habeb, that, "From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill" the hostages,

[A]analysts say that is bluster that will blow away if heightened tensions are allowed to ease.

Instead, pirates more likely will avoid attacking U.S.- and French-flagged ships, said David Johnson of the British-based EOS Risk Management, which trains ship security officers.

"The pirates don't want to escalate violence because it's not in their interests to keep raising the stakes and it also isn't in the interests of other countries out there," he said.

Remember, the financial costs of Somali piracy to shippers and their insurers is actually minimal, less than one percent; the AP says,

Shipping companies have chosen to risk hijackings by going past Somalia and into the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal — the shortest route from Asia to Europe past ports of oil-producing Saudi Arabia. It's cheaper to take the risk and pay the tens of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums. Only two companies use the longer, more expensive route around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

Choong said there have been 74 attacks this year with 15 hijackings, compared with 111 attacks in 2008. About 20,000 merchant ships transit the Gulf of Aden annually.

That last datum is significant. Last year, only 0.56 percent of transiting ships were even threatened, and a smaller percentage successfully hijacked. I'd have to look it up, but I'd guess that losses to shippers because of storms may well be higher.

See related posts: piracy.

Worldwide maritime routes and piracy

Click for larger view.
This is a slide from a PowerPoint presentation put together by Professor Tom Fedyszyn of the Naval War College. The presentation's topic is American maritime strategiy under the Obama administration.

This slide shows why commerical shipping remains so vulnerable to piracy - the major maritime routes are mostly very close to land.

Why the piracy page has turned

And why there's no payoff for pirates in seeking blood for blood

Has a page been turned in dealing with piracy off the Horn of Africa? In response to the killing of three pirates holding American merchant Capt. Richard Phillips, some pirates have said they will seek revenge against American crew in future.

Somali pirates, meanwhile, vowed retaliation for the deaths of three colleagues killed by U.S. Navy snipers in the rescue. Their anger raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off lawless Somalia.

"From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, told The Associated Press from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl. "(U.S. forces have) become our No. 1 enemy."

We have to take them at their word, although it's doubtful that the pirates have anything like a unified command. Just how widespread the sentiment revenge is among the pirate population can't be known, but is likely high, at least for now.

I think the urge to take blood for blood will attenuate, though. For the pirates so far, hijacking has been a purely commercial enterprise. Obtaining ransom has been the point. Shippers and their insurers have been willing to redeem freight, knowing that the crew will be returned with it.

Passenger vessels could be hijacked, too, but only at greater risk to the pirates, who would be vastly outnumbered in the attempt, and at much higher overhead costs to the pirates, who would have to shelter, provision and guard many dozens or hundreds of people. And governments would have no patience with kidnapping people for ransom as they have been patient (even complacent) with hijacking cargo.

As Strategy Page explains, the financial costs to shippers is actually quite low. Increased insurance premiums, to cover insurance-paid ransoms, are hardly a blip on the scope of overall costs. Call it a "piracy tax."

The piracy tax is basically a security surcharge on maritime freight movements. It pays for higher insurance premiums (which in turn pay for the pirate ransoms), danger bonuses for crews and the additional expense of all those warships off the Somali coast. Most consumers would hardly notice this surcharge, as it would increase sea freight charges by less than a percent. Already, many ships are going round the southern tip of Africa, and avoiding Somalia and the Suez canal altogether

One reason little has been done to counter piracy so far is that its overall effect on commerce has been basically an inconvenience. Crews of seized ships have actually been treated well, even allowed to call their families from ashore using pirates' own satphones.

But a page has been turned. The problem is, the pirates almost certainly don't realize it. With the attempted hijacking of Maersk Alabama and the holding at gunpoint of its captain, the human element has come to outweigh the financial (at least for now). The focus of the past week on the fate of a single man, who heroically put himself in harm's way to save his crew, has given a human face (Capt. Phillips') to piracy's costs that seizure of mere cargo could never do. The blessed outspokenness of Alabama's crew has amplified broader understanding of the toll piracy has been taking on the crews and their families.

The smoldering resentment of Somali piracy has become an open flame to put a stop to it altogether.

If sane heads prevail among the Somali pirates and tribal elders (whom the pirates cannot ignore), they will understand that resolve against their lawlessness has solidified among shippers and nations affected. Their smart play is not to seek blood for blood. It is to realize that we care little for mere freight, but intensely for our people. Killing crew, especially American crew, will bring down the thunder on their heads (it's already being discussed).

My advice to the pirates would be to release all the crew members now being held, knock off revenge talk and just lay low for awhile. It would be financially costly in the near term, but not nearly as costly as the 1,800 Marines of USS Boxer going into downtown Eyl.

Three shots freed Capt. Phillips

Vice Adm. William Gortney said the shooters who killed the three pirates holding Capt. Richard Phillips fired one shot each.

Asked how the snipers could have killed each pirate with a single shot in the darkness, Gortney described them as "extremely, extremely well-trained." He told NBC's "Today" show the shooting by the snipers was ordered by the captain of the Bainbridge after the pirates came into view.

Military officials were widely praising the snipers for three flawless shots, which they described as remarkable, coming at night and from the stern of a ship on rolling waters.

Such shooting at night is actually not very remarkable. The military's night-vision equipment is so good that it is often used even in daytime. The Army's Thermal Tank Sight (TTS), for example, on the M1 Abram tank, is routinely used in daylight to observe or sight on targets.

Furthermore, the range from USS Bainbridge to the lifeboat was only about 25 meters. Seriously, folks, this is pistol range and if it was SEALs who actually pulled the triggers, they literally could have used pistols to make the shot (they are that good) although rifles are obviously the better choice.

Finally, the lifeboat was being towed by Bainbridge,, although only making a few knots. The wake astern of the destroyer would have been smoothed by the vessel's passage, so the lifeboat would not have been bobbing up and down very much.

None of this is to subtract from the skills or preparations the SEALs and the other Navy elements on the scene displayed. But the shooters themselves probably didn't think the shots were especially remarkable. Army recruits, for example, have to qualify with the M16 rifle by hitting targets out to 400 meters, and Marine recruits qualify out to 500 meters.

So yes, the Navy definitely earned a "Bravo Zulu" yesterday, but no one familiar with the training and capabilities of the regular Navy and SEALs is surprised at the outcome of the few seconds that elapsed from Cmdr. Castellano's decision to order the shooting to its completion.

Did Navy SEALs board pirate boat before rescue?

Only Saturday I posted a thought experiment on how a Navy SEAL team could approach the lifeboat where Capt. Richard Phillips was being held hostage. I wondered whether an underwater approach by the SEALs to the lifeboat, followed by covertly making it founder, might enable his rescue.

In his briefing via telephone to Pentagon reporters Sunday, Vice Adm. William Gortney, speaking from Bahrain, openly acknowledged that SEALs played a key role, but he was rather unforthcoming as to just what that role was. He seemed comfortable letting the reporters assume that it was SEALs aboard USS Bainbridge, only 25 meters from the lifeboat, who shot the pirates after Bainbridge's commander determined Phillips' life was in imminent danger.

But the SEALs might not have been aboard Bainbridge at all. Judith Miller reports on FoxNews site,

Details continue to emerge. But it seems that hours before his rescue, a C-130 had secretly dropped a team of SEALS and their boats into the waters far enough away from the lifeboat that held Capt. Phillips to avoid being detected by the four Somali pirates who were seeking some $2 million for his release. The team quietly approached the boat and boarded the board [sic] as sharpshooters from the Bainbridge took deadly aim.

If true, the SEALs' boats herein referenced could not have been surface craft. Obviously, a surface craft approaching the lifeboat would have been seen from some distance away, especially during the daytime hours of the rescue.

This is an SDV - SEAL Delivery Vehicle, a small submarine that SEALs use to get around underwater. It is less a manned sub than one the SEALs hang onto for a ride, although the driver does have a station inside. Whether an SDV can be dropped from a C-130 I don't know. I do know that C-130s can fly very low and slow so I would be wholly unsurprised that a pallet-drop system can be used to absorb impact with the water, similar to the LAPES system long-used by the Army with C-130s. The SEALs would simply parachute into the water. (There is another, larger model, too.)

Again, the provenance of Miller's report has not been confirmed. But it makes me wonder whether a SEAL rescue operation was already mostly underway when Bainbridge's captain, Cmdr. Frank Castellano, gave the split-second order to shoot.

It would also explain why Vice Adm. Gortney says the Navy received permission twice from President Obama to use deadly force to save Capt. Phillips' life, the first time Friday, the second time Saturday. Friday may have been explicit permission to shoot if necessary, as Cmdr. Castellano finally did. Saturday's order might have authorized or even ordered direct action to rescue Phillips and would necessarily included using deadly force. (However, as I pointed out earlier today, the president would not actually have need to authorize shooting the pirates to save his life, since that's pretty much standard procedure in any hostage situaton.)

My guess is that the FBI negotiators advising the Navy (over the five days of the ordeal, at least one FBI team would have been able to reach the scene) figured negotiations were going nowhere fast and that Phillips' safety was increasingly endangered. So the status quo had to be changed at our initiative, and quickly. So in went the SEALs. But right now, we don't know exactly how.

Update: The Washington Post reports that there were "dozens of Navy SEALs" involved in the operation overall. Also, during the last discussion US officers had with the pirates on the lifeboat, the pirates explicitly threatened to kill Capt. Phillips.

Soon afterward, two pirates moved to one of the hatches of the lifeboat and stuck their heads out. The third pirate advanced toward the captain, and pointed his AK-47 straight at Phillips' back, the rifle touching it or inches away, the official said.

U.S. military observers believed that Phillips was about to be shot. SEAL snipers, who were positioned on a deck at the stern of the Bainbridge, an area known as the fantail, had the three pirates in their sights. The on-scene commander gave the SEAL snipers authority to fire.

"As soon as the snipers had a clear shot at the guy who had the rifle, they shot him and the other two in the hatches," said the senior military official.

A member of the Special Operations team slid down the tow line into the water and climbed aboard the lifeboat. Phillips was then put in a small craft and taken to the Bainbridge.

The WaPo also says that at least some of the SEALs at the scene had parachuted after dark Saturday into the water near the US warships.

See also: 

Three shots freed Capt. Phillips 

Navy rescues Captain Phillips

Navy rescues Captain Phillips

Maersk Alabama's Capt. Richard Phillips with Cmdr. Frank Castellano, captain of USS Bainbridge, after Phillips was rescued earlier today.

The US Navy rescued Captain Richard Phillips from his Somali-pirate captors today. According to Vice Adm. William Gortney, speaking by telephone from Bahrain to a televised news conference at the Pentagon, three pirates were shot to death by US Navy shooters. The fourth was taken prisoner.

Highlights:

The lifeboat upon which Capt. Phillips was being held was being towed by USS Bainbridge toward calmer waters when the rescue was effected. The boat was about 25 meters behind Bainbridge at the time.

The three pirates who died were aboard the lifeboat while the fourth, who lived, was actually aboard Bainbridge in discussion with US officials about resolving the situation.

At no time did the US negotiate with the pirates in terms of paying ransom. Discussions were limited to measures to obtain the safe release of Capt. Phillips without rewarding the pirates.

Bainbridge's commanding officer, Cmdr. Frank Castellano, had standing authority to use force to end an imminent risk to Capt. Phillips' life. Vice Adm. Gortney said that President Obama had specifically authorized such action if it proved necessary. [Such contingency is routine in any kind of hostage situation, civil or military - DS.]

Navy SEALs were involved in the shooting, but the admiral declined to say where they had been brought from.

Just before the shooting, Capt. Phillips was topside of the lifeboat. One pirate was behind him, pointing an AK-47 rifle at him. The head and shoulders of each of the other two pirates were also visible above deck of the enclosed lifeboat. Determining that Phillips might be shot at any moment, Bainbridge's commander ordered the action.

Capt. Phillips was taken aboard a Navy RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) quickly, then to Bainbridge. Vice Adm. Gortney said he was in excellent health. He called his family, took a shower and was given fresh clothing. (A RIB is basically a Zodiac inflatable boat and is used by various navies around the world. There are civilian models, too.)

The AP's summary:

Gortney says the pirates threatened throughout the ordeal to kill Phillips. Gortney says the pirates were armed with AK-47s and small-caliber pistols, and were pointing the AK-47s at the captain.
Gortney says the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge believed Phillips was in "imminent danger" when he ordered sailors to fire at the armed pirates.
Gortney says the White House had given "very clear guidance and authority" that if any time the commander Capt. Phillips' life was in danger to take action to make sure it was not.

Vice Adm. Gortney either did not understand the question or evaded it when asked whether Phillips had been pulled from the sea or directly off the lifeboat once the shooting stopped. He answered only that Phillips was taken onto the RIB, thence to Bainbridge. Some early reports said that Phillips had leaped into the water either just before or just when the shooting started, but these may have been conflated with an escape attept Phillips made Friday. However, if Phillips did leap off the boat, the Navy could have used machine guns to take out the three pirates in a matter of seconds. In any event, trained shooters, probably SEALs, had the boat under constant gunsight and needed only a single word to open fire.

Put Phillips and the pirates in the water

So the pirates of the Horn of Africa are holding American merchantman Captain Richard Phillips hostage in a lifeboat of Maersk Alabama, Phillips' ship.

A lifeboat of the type used aboard Maersk Alabama, an update from the earlier photo I used here.

A "pirate spokesman" (pirates do PR? Who knew?) claimed from dry land this afternoon that a deal has been reached with US negotiators to pay a "small ransom" for Phillips' release. The pirates would be flown to safety by a US helicopter that would also carry Phillip away (details).

But the deal could break down easily said the pirate spokesman. Yeah, I guess so.

Let's suppose for a thought experiment that it does break down. Let's be clear about the objective: it is to obtain the release of Capt. Phillips unharmed. That must take precedence over capture of the pirates. Years of weak-kneed responses to Horn piracy mustn't be corrected at Phillips' expense.

But if there is no deal, what then? I would say this: sink the lifeboat. I don't mean blow it out of the water. I mean to send a SEAL team to the boat, underwater, about 3 a.m., to penetrate the hull non-explosively in several places. Boat sinks rapidly. With no overt act on our part, even the pirates won't know why they're sinking, at least at first.

In the confusion, SEALs reach in and pull Phillips overboard, then head for nearest US warship. They can even make way underwater and motorized, Phillips wearing appropriate breathing gear. SEALs and Phillips gain safety, pirates learn how long they can tread water.

The on-scene US commander announces over loudspeaker that we will honor our word not to take the pirates prisoner. Then he bids them goodbye and good luck. Everyone sails away.

This might be a tactic to rescue the hostages of the Italian tug pirates seized today, though with 16 crew held captive, it's more complicated.

Update: Thanks to the a commenter who linked to a merchantman captain's blog whence came photo of the lifeboat, above. I'm not sure this invalidates my proposition, although it would complicate it some. As commenter RebeccaH points out, when the boat starts sinking the exits will come open PDQ.

There are four pirates holding Capt. Phillips. Minimally, the SEAL team would need, IMO:

• Four SEALS to puncture the hull. Enough opening must be made fore and aft, port and starboard, to bring the boat down on an even keel.
• At least four designated shooters to take out the pirates in case they made a hostile move toward Phillips or the SEALs.
• Two assigned to grab Phillips and get him into the water. Maybe two SEALs per side to this task. If necessary, they can buddy breathe with Phillips until they get him outside the boat.
• One SEAL (or one per side) with breathing gear for Phillips.
• A reserve team of two or three to intervene if need be.
• An escape team with motorized underwater transport.

Full disclosure - I was an Army officer, not a Navy man, so if any reader has better credentials for this, chime in.