Piracy in Somalia - Assignment Example

Piracy in Somalia Insert Piracy in Somalia Piracy off the shores of Somalia has recently garnered international attention due to the frequency and audacity of the pirates which operate with impunity from the Somali coast. Pirate gangs in the Indian Ocean as well as the Gulf of Aden operate with callousness and a flagrant disregard for international law in their quest for ransom. Massive vessels have been overpowered by ragtag bands of pirates intent on seizing these ships for the sole purpose of one day releasing them for a profit. Somalia is a failed state and has been without a functioning government for more than two decades with warlords battling in the streets of Mogadishu, Baidoa and Beledweyne. Lawlessness has been a feature of the Somali condition since the early days of Civil War which ravaged the country, making it one of the poorest places on earth. Accordingly, rampant lawlessness is directly related to both the implosion of Somalia domestic security as well as the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia. Piracy in Somalia is an important policy problem with international ramifications and from a strategic management position, worth extensive analysis. What can the international community do to solve the piracy problems off of the Somali coast? Is there a role for international actors in solving this problem? If so, who should act? Do regional actors have a role in providing maritime security along the Gulf of Aden, and if so, do they have the means to safeguard the shipment of goods through this region? What roles can NATO and the European Union play in ensuring security along these troubled shores? Should the world’s military hegemon, the United States, act to ensure that international law is followed off the coast of Somalia? These questions, and many more, will addressed with reference to the problems associated with piracy in Somalia. 1. The Somali Condition The African continent, although the cradle of humanity and endowed with vast natural resources, is home to some of the poorest countries on the planet. Accordingly, Africa is characterized by a growing population and a basic lack of resources to sustain this high level growth. Seeking to explore poverty and malnutrition in Sub Saharan Africa through an analysis of the political and economic situation in Somalia, one of Africa’s poorest countries, the following will show the linkages between poverty and political instability. In the context of Somalia, it is apparent that political instability perpetuates economic stagnation and any attempts at resolving the poverty crisis in the region must address the political causes behind underdevelopment. Underdevelopment breeds poverty in Somalia which is demonstrated through widespread malnutrition, low life expectancies and poor rankings in a variety of indicators of overall health. Endemic poverty is what drives violence and international piracy off the shores of Somalia.1 Somali Economic Situation As with GDP, unemployment and inflation in Somalia are difficult concepts to quantify and measure. While it is known that there is extreme poverty and unemployment in Somalia, actual numbers are hard to come by. In fact, in its annual Human Development Report for Somalia, the United Nations was unable to measure unemployment in Somalis and listed it as “not available” (HDI, 2007/2008). Despite this estimates exist and in 2005 the World Bank reported that Somalias labor force was an estimated 4.6 million (or 56% of the countrys total population) with a whopping urban unemployment rate of 66%.2 A figure for inflation, as a measure of the annual increase in consumer prices, is equally hard to measure and is absent in the literature. Somalia’s total lack of functioning government and institutional capacity inhibits economic growth and the result is one of the world’s smallest GDPs per capita. Accordingly, in its annual Index of Economic Freedom 2008, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation made the conscious (and conspicuous) decision to omit Somalia due the complete absence of the rule of law, stating that “economic freedom in Somalia is impossible to analyze” (Holmes et al, 2008). Internationally renowned and well-respected British periodical The Economist followed suit and omitted Somalia in its annual economic rankings, The World in 2008.3 Political Stability and Poverty? There is a direct and very strong relationship between a lack of political stability, articulated in the West through democratic government, and poverty. The case of Somalia emphatically shows that the absence of democracy or the rule of law breeds poverty and overall societal deprivation. Poverty and malnutrition are features of the Somali experience and are caused by an absence of political authority and a precarious - some would say non-existent -political system. This analysis of Somalia has demonstrated that political stability and democracy are integral to the alleviation of poverty and lawlessness. The acts of piracy perpetrated with impunity off the shores of Somalia are a response to political instability and poverty. 2. International Actors and SOMALI Piracy Can a short-term solution be found to the international problem of piracy off of the Somali coast? First and foremost it has become apparent that due to the anarchic nature of the Somali state it is imperative that international actors intervene to establish a modicum of control over the dangerous waters of Somalia. Due to the fact that Somalia does not have a functioning, nor representative state, which international actors should be involved in safeguarding the waterways? Can the oil producing countries of the wealthiest multilateral organization in the region, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) safeguard the waterways? Is there a role for the GCC to play in providing security to international ships, many which are used to transport oil, in local waterways? What other international actors can/should be involved in a short-term solution to a problem with international ramifications? Can NATO and the European Union participate in a joint security mission against piracy? Is there such a precedent? Does the United States, as the world’s most powerful military force, have a role to play in safeguarding the Somali coast? What role will the American legacy in Somalia have in determining whether or not the United States chooses to intervene in the region? And finally, is the United Nations the proper international organization to promote peace and security in the waters off the coast of Somalia? Can this international actor provide security in the troubled international waters? These questions and many more will be analyzed in depth with respect to a short term solution to the problem of piracy in Somalia and the need to facilitate international maritime traffic in the face of piracy.4 The Gulf Cooperation Council and Neighborhood Piracy The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a multilateral organization which promotes the economic and social integration of six Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. A regional trade bloc which includes some of the fastest growing economies in the world, the Gulf Cooperation Council was devised and implemented in 1981 under the auspices of a unified economic agreement which established a unique social and economic bond between the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region. Do the GCC countries have the means to combat the problem of neighborhood piracy off the shores of Somalia? No, unfortunately not. While the GCC exists to harmonize the Arab countries of the Gulf region on a variety of social and economic fronts, a joint military command has been envisioned for this multilateral organization. Issues presently being addressed by the GCC include the increased promotion of free trade, the loosening of tariffs and the one day transnational currency are the major issues being promoted by this international body. Security it seems remains a domestic concern for each of the member states of the GCC and a coherent strategy aimed at providing regional security is presently on the backburner. Attempts at economic diversification are underway while social and economic priorities at presently paramount to the GCC, leaving the question of Somali maritime security to others. We now turn to an exploration of two multilateral actors which may have an important role to play in establishing Somali maritime security, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. An EU-NATO Common Security Strategy In December of 2003, the Council of the European Union adopted the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), a sober assessment of the security situation in the post 9/11 world and a proactive attempt to enhance international security. Understanding that EU member states face common security challenges and that the most dangerous threats facing Europe today are the same that the United States has had to confront post 9/11, the CFSP represents the most clear European strategy to combat global terrorism. Accordingly, this document makes explicit the transatlantic threats posed by international terrorists and necessitates an active role for the European Community in combating terrorism. Sadly, the Madrid bomb attacks (March 11 2004) and the London bombings (July 7 2005) respectively brought home just how real and sustained the terror threat is to the democracies of Europe. Understanding that Europe is not immune to attacks from Islamic fundamentalists and terror in general, the Common Foreign and Security Policy reaffirms the commitment of EU member states, in conjunction with their NATO allies, to work together in the spirit of global security. A major component of the CFSP is the need to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ensure forth righteously that these weapons do not land in the hands of terrorists bent on wreaking havoc on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, the adoption of the CFSP recognizes that failed states and regional conflict can also provide haven for terrorist and seeks to address these issues accordingly. The adoption of the Common Foreign and Security Policy clearly brings the European and North American perceptions of threat closer together and is “an immensely valuable contribution to the transatlantic security relationship.”5 NATO is an important safeguard of transatlantic defence and during the 1990s, the most important issue facing the transatlantic defence community was the question of whether or not NATO would act outside of its traditional scope or sphere of operations and play a role in establishing security beyond the territory of its member states. Following the violent break-up of the Yugoslav Federation, the peace operation undertaken by NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina forcefully demonstrated that NATO would act outside of its traditional sphere of operations to ensure that civil war on the periphery of its member states would not threaten the security of its European members nor those of the European Union. Later, the decision by NATO to send AWACS to patrol the skies of the United States that fateful morning of September 11, 2001, emphatically demonstrated that NATO would protect not only the skies of Europe but also North American ones as well. Accordingly, the decision by NATO to lead Afghanistan’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in August 2003 showed just how willing this organization, composed of Europeans and North Americans, is to confront and combat the threats of the world, wherever they may be. Stressing the importance of NATO’s role in Afghanistan, former NATO secretary general Lord Robertson stated “If we fail, we will find Afghanistan on all of our doorsteps…” This provides an excellent precedent for NATO intervention in Somalia .6 American Foreign Policy and Somalia As the ill-fated American humanitarian intervention in Somalia in 1993 in which 19 American soldiers were killed emphatically demonstrates, US interest in the Somalia is waning at best. Accordingly, dreams of peace and prosperity ushered in the end of the Cold War; a new world order with the United States and liberal democracy firmly entrenched as the dominant power and ideological system in international affairs. Ethnic conflict threatened the territorial integrity of countries throughout the world including Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia in Africa; Bosnia and Kosovo in Eastern Europe; state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in East Timor in Asia and extreme violence on the North American island nation of Haiti. Although ethnic conflict and humanitarian crises have existed since the dawn of time, for the first time ever images of extreme bloodshed, violence and even genocide were broadcast into the homes of everyday Americans through international television stations like the Cable News Network (CNN), Fox and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The foreign policy of the United States in the Americas has largely been driven by considerations of realpolitik and maintenance of the sometimes precarious balance of power in the region for the past sixty years. At the end of the Second World War the United States emerged as the undisputed economic, military and political leader in the Western hemisphere. With much of Europe in ruins and emergence ideological conflict between the Soviet empire and the United States, the US earned it place as the preeminent Western power following the defeat of fascism and Nazism in 1945. The power and influence of the United States in the post-War period stretched around the world yet remained particularly powerful close to home. US Foreign Policy in Practice When the United States has a strategic geopolitical reason to intervene, its interventions in the name human rights and the protection of core values will likely be short and with much less gusto than when its key concerns of hegemony and structural stability are at stake. The Kosovo War ostensibly occurred to protect the rights of Kosovar Albanians from the genocidal inclinations of the Serb-dominated remnants of the Yugoslav federation. Accordingly, the US and NATO-led bombing campaign in Kosovo was justified on humanitarian concerns yet not one American nor US soldier set foot on Kosovar soil as a combatant during the campaign. The war in Kosovo, from an American and NATO perspective, was thus an exclusively aerial war, in which fully half of the belligerents conducted their “humanitarian” campaign from the air. With only 2 attributed to the NATO forces (both were non-combat deaths), the overarching belief today is that US and NATO soldier’s lives were not worth risking in support of a conflict which did not threaten core Western values and interests. Thus, while humanitarianism was the stated objective before the conflict, soldier’s lives were not worth risking in support of this end.7 Furthermore, interventions by the United States in Africa – or lack thereof – candidly demonstrate how geopolitical concerns supersede concerns for human rights in the determination of foreign policy objectives. The Rwandan genocide claimed the lives of between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in less than 100 days and is characterized as the most recent and arguably most violent genocide in modern times. Following the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and the abrogation of Arusha Accords, genocide was unleashed and undertaken by extremists with impunity. The United States did not intervene to stop the genocide while it was being carried out as strategic geopolitical concerns, particularly in the post-Cold War world did not include this small and politically “insignificant” African nation. The result was up to 1 million deaths in just over three months.8 In seeking to define something as complex as the elaboration of US foreign policy, a variety of factors must be analyzed. Fundamentally though, this of American policy in the post-Cold War world has shown that strategic interests trump all other concerns in foreign policy. Intangibles factors are superseded by strategic geopolitical concerns, both in the Cold War as well as in the post-War period. Today, the United States operates in a unipolar world and is the world’s hegemonic state. Although state behavior is less constrained than during the Cold War, US state interest today reflects geopolitical power conditions. This is realism at its core. As the ill-fated American humanitarian intervention in Somalia in 1993 in which 19 American soldiers were killed emphatically demonstrates, US interest in the Somalia is waning at best. As history as shown us, American intervention in the region is likely to be tempered unless Somalia proves to be of strategic value. As of early 2009, the piracy problem in Indian Ocean/Gulf of Aden region has thus far not warranted an American military response. The United Nations Option As a multinational organization which espouses universal values, rights and responsibilities (as embodied in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights), the United Nations serves to safeguard human rights and security across the global community. Established in the wake of the Second World War, the United Nations was created to ensure that the horrors of that conflict never happen again. As such, the protection and promotion of human security is an important goal of the United Nations. Accordingly, peacekeeping has been at the heart of United Nations global endeavors since 1948 and continues to be an important component of the United Nation’s promotion of global security. The United Nations was created with the goals of ensuring that the calamity of the Second World War never occurs again through the promotion of peaceful diplomacy and the maintenance of international security regimes. As a multinational organization, the United Nations exists to promote peace and harmony on an international scale. More specifically though, the UN promotes cooperation and multilateralism in the following realms: international security, international law, human rights, social progress and economic development. Peacekeeping is an important initiative of the United Nations and the following will explore the UN’s conception of security and how this conception has affected the structures and practices of the UN. In response to the extension of the concept of security, the United Nations has grown substantially in both organizational size and scope and it may be the ideal international actor to safeguard the waters of Somalia from international piracy.9 Concluding Remarks Piracy off the shores of Somalia has gained international attention audacity of the pirates who have terrorized the international maritime community and who operate with impunity from the Somali coast. From a strategic management perspective, piracy in Somalia poses a whole handful of problems to all stakeholders involved. Pirate gangs in the Indian Ocean have demonstrated a flagrant disregard for international law in their quest for the highest ransom. How can the international combat the problem of rogue piracy off the shores of Somalia? This is perhaps the most important international policy problem in recent years and one which needs to be addressed at the highest international levels. Accordingly, Somalia is a failed state and without a functioning government in which lawlessness and chaos reign supreme. As a result of this rampant lawlessness, Somali domestic security is practically non-existent and the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia continues unabated. What can the international community do to solve the piracy problems off of the Somali coast? Yes, international actors including the United States, NATO, the EU and others must work in tandem to protect the waters off the coast of Somalia. As a regional neighbor, the countries of the GCC can also play an important regional role in combating the threat of piracy. This is a short term solution to this important international policy problem but one that must be addressed immediately. The safe passage of cargo and ships through this region must be safeguarded. Is there a role for international actors in solving this problem? Most definitely. First and foremost however, the domestic policy problems in Somalia must be tackled with vigor. Seeking to address piracy in Somalia the international community must expand considerable effort to attack poverty and political instability. Somalia’s political, social and economic conditions have led to the emergence of persistent piracy and this remains the most important threat to peace in the region. The international community must thus tackle poverty and underdevelopment in Somalia to put an end to the piracy threat. REFERENCES Bereuter, D 2004, NATO and the EU Security Strategy, Oxford Journal on Good Governance, 1(1): pp. 21-27. Country Profile: Somalia, 2008, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). June 24 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1072592.stm Goldsmith, AA 1987, ‘Does Political Stability Hinder Economic Development? Mancur Olsons Theory and the Third World” Comparative Politics 19:4 (Jul., 1987): pp. 471-480. Gourevitch, P 1999, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. London: Picador. Hurwitz, L 1975, ‘Contemporary Approaches to Political Stability’, Comparative Politics , 7, Jan, pp. 449-463. Perry, F 2008, ‘In Somalia, a Fragile Hold on Power’, Time Magazine June 2nd 2008. McCalla, R 1996, NATOs Persistence after the Cold War. International Organization, 50(3): pp. 445-475. Somalia, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): World Fact Book. 2009. June 24 2009 < https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html> Somalia, Human Development Index, 2007/2008, New York: The United Nations. Spencer, DS 2008, Infrastructure and Technology Constraints to Agricultural Development in the Humid and Subhumid Tropics of Africa. African Development Review 8, 2, 68. Sutterlin, JS 2003, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Security, New York: Greenwood Publishing Group. The World in 2008, January 31 2008, The Economist. Yoder, A 1993, The Evolution of the United Nations System, London: Taylor & Francis. Read More