Anti-piracy efforts "will not actually resolve the base problem of why piracy is occurring ... That solution lies in the stabilisation" of Somalia, Commodore Bob Tarrant, director of Britain's Royal Navy staff, told AFP at the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in Abu Dhabi.
"The symptoms (piracy) we're seeing now off Somalia, in the Gulf of Aden, are clearly an outcome of what's going on on the ground" there, said Australia's navy chief, Vice Admiral Russell Crane.
"As sailors, we're really just treating the symptoms," not the root of the problem.
Well put.
There are three stages needed to deal with the problem.
The first is to impose an IMO-backed ban on the payment of ransoms. The insurance companies are lucratively stoking the problem by handing out millions in ransom payments. Of course this is highly profitable for them as they claw back every penny, and a lot more, in elevated premiums.
The second is for the world maritime community to provide a fisheries protection patrol service for the whole of Somalia's EEZ. Interdict foreign 'pirate' trawlers. Arrest the crews and hand them over to the Somali Courts for trial and sentencing. Interdict the dumpers of toxic waste. Arrest them too.
Thirdly, and only when the other two conditions have been met, adopt a Russian style kick-arse military posture to deal with *every* case of ship hijacking.