Foreign Policy has a nicely done “no, it’s not this; it’s actually this” article on modern piracy:
Piracy is better compared to organized crime. The enterprise employs thousands: commando-like pirates who hijack the ships, international negotiators who secure payments, and logistic supporters who supply food, fuel, and weapons. Like other illicit networks, pirates have a faster learning curve than governments. During the past five years, pirates have readily harnessed off-the-shelf technology such as satellite phones, night-vision goggles, and GPS. They successfully combine this technology with simple weapons such as knives, AK-47 assault rifles, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The shipping industry — not to the mention the world’s navies — has yet to catch up.
That comparison mirrors some of pirates’ early sophistication in matters that governments and militaries would only later equal–representative democracy is just one example. The whole article’s worth a read.
Hi Joe-
Thanks so much for the tip about this article…I’d been hoping that you’d address the question of modern day pirates every time I’ve read about them in the last few months. .. But remember to send your readers back to the lovely chapter you wrote… the image of the pirates abandoning those who broke their laws… what would be the modern day equivalent?
cvh
Many thanks for that! I’m beginning to think that the main difference between the pirates of yesteryear and those of today is merely our temporal distance. Piracy then was as brutal as today, but Penzance and Jack Sparrow may have helped us to romanticize the historical bands. I’ve been trying to stay conscious in my writing of not sentimentalizing the pirates of the 18th century while also striving to see the continuing behavioral patterns in the violent Somalian crews of late. So many of the same organizational constructs persist: semi-formal governance, representative leadership, constitutional and provisional law and order… Some have been less than enthused about learning from pirate organizations because of their lawlessness, but the constructs are there to be learned from or ignored. I think it’s useful to learn from them.
Thank you for the kind words about the earlier article. Readers can find it here, and I would love to hear your feedback. I have occasionally posted small items on the moderns here, here, and here, but I haven’t added much original analysis. I’m hoping to put up a post shortly to expand on a theme from an October Foreign Policy article: the rise of piracy due to a vacuum of power. I’m also interested in one pirate’s explanation for why they do what they do: “we’re hungry”.
As always, I must note that the real pirate master is economist Peter Leeson, who is to pirates and organizations what William Starbuck is to space shuttles and NASA.
There is an official pirate scholar? Wow.
Seriously, would you consider just posting (as a post) the reply to me (above)? I myself had been thinking about (1) what makes these somalis authentic ‘pirates’, (2) whether it would be better to call them terrorists, (3) or are they more accurately described as organized crime, or (4) are they some kind of public and non-governmental legit organization.
What has intrigued me about the whole pirate thing these last 6 months is how so much of the time it gets treated as a joke– either they are joking calling themselves ‘like the coast guard’, or using boats with outboard motors, or not looking like Johnny Depp (sigh) — but rarely outside of a wonky mag (uh, like Foreign Policy) being discussed as something serious. So I’ll look forward to a fuller discussion. Also, is it the residual romance of pirates that helps to keep our international response to them so dissolute?
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