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US Navy Creates MMO To Fight Somali Pirates
dotarray writes "Ever wanted to fight Somali pirates without leaving the safety of your computer? Well, believe it or not, the United States Navy could use your help. MMOWGLI is a new video game project (that's Massive Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet, by the way) that is being used to crowdsource ideas on how to fight off maritime terrorists and hopefully secure the Horn of Africa."
This game is too complex. To stop piracy: just sink these damned pirates. When they will all be in the depths of the sea the problem will be solved.
One pirate in the depths of the sea is pollution, all the pirates in the depths of the sea is the solution.
Or give the pirates WoW subs. They'll be too busy with the rep grind to do anything else
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
Where's the "nuke the site from orbit" button?
Rudyard Kipling would be pissed.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
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Just a summary of how it'll go.
I was with one of the first groups that 'went out to fight pirates' I was with the coast guard, traveling on a Dutch oiler is support of a bunch of navy and coast guard coast guard patrol craft that were supposed to take on the pirates. At one time we knew the location of 7 ships whose crew were actively being held hostage. What did we do? Absolutely NOTHING. At the time all the hostages were Indian of Filipino, and none of the vessels flew a U.S. flag. Also, were were always worried about invading Somali territorial waters (TTW).
One of the problems was that we had three different services from two different countries operating under 3 different combined task forces. We also had 2 Navy lawyers on-board, where were there to make sure we didn't violate any sovereign territory (I kid you not).
Every time someone wanted to like maybe do something, we had to run it by three different chains of command plus the JAG.
If you want to fight pirates, fight pirates don't play games (MMO's). Fighting pirates (unlike fighting an imaginary war on terror) is something that the whole world can get behind. No-one would really care if we invade Somali TTW in order to kill pirates. This was about 5 years ago. At the time perhaps little bit of force could have made a huge difference. My understanding is that the Somalis have gotten a lot more organized in the time. But I really don't know. I no longer am in the service, but somehow I doubt that the U.S. military has (gotten more organized). With that said, I think the U.S. Navy could probably win a war with Somali pirates. It is just that the U.S. Navy is more worried about an incident where say a 20 people die trying to rescue the fillipino crew from a non u.s. flagged vessel. Heaven forbid some of the innocent crew members get killed in the rescue operation.
Providing every crew member of a vessel going through the area with access to a rifle would probably go a long way to combat the problem.
i really doubt teabagging and grieffing the pirates is gonne be the solution.
Also, i agree with some earlier posters, just sink the damn pirates, the only modification i propose is leaving one pirate from every ship alone, to return home and tell the other would-be pirates of what happens to pirates. But you can just set that one adrift in a life-raft somewhere near the cost, the rest can be made to walk the plank after seeing their ship burned and sunk.
People, what a bunch of bastards
Now "piss poor fishing men who had their fishing grounds ravaged by international fishing-fleets and turned pirates because of that" have become "terrorists".
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Funny that americans should ponder how to fight pirates.
the American Navy and Marine Corp have their root in the fight against Barbary Coast pirates in the Mediterranean Sea, where the solution was to bring the fight on land to deny to pirates access to the sea lanes. In short: sink the ships, ANY of them, on the whole coast, and watch the somalis try to walk their way to the targets. What part of "to the coast of Tripoli" baffles you?
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
No they couldn't. There's the requirements you are ignoring like "without invading Somalia". Sure we ignored that recently in Pakistan, but do you really want that to be the norm?
Protecting shipping in international waters is part of the Navy's job. It's in their god damn mission statement: "maintaining freedom of the seas".
Which other of their reasons for them existing do you want them to ignore?
Maybe they'll have better luck fighting that kind of piracy.
Click the link and a pdf opens with a wonderful graphic on the front... a somewhat familiar graphic....
So, they want to fight piracy by stealing the cover off of the pirates of the Caribbean movie?
Fight pirates... with piracy!
The problem of the US Navy is that it is not set up to combat piracy economically. Its ships and munitions are too expensive to operate, and its systems are intended to detect tactical level threats, not identify which of a hundred similar fishing boats is in fact a pirate boat. It would probably be cheaper and more effective just to give the pirates reasonably well paid jobs, lack of which explains why they are involved in piracy in the first place.
In this country, General Wade was once despatched with an army to deal with the rebellious, raiding Highlanders. When he got there he decided that the problem was poverty. He set them to building roads in the Highlands, bringing trade to the area. It worked. Later, the Caledonian Canal was built for much the same reason: it wasn't economic as a canal but it brought employment and opportunity. These are the examples that the US should be looking at.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Can we stop overusing the word terrorists? They're pirates and criminals, nothing more. Are they committing "a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State, and appears intended
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government and by assassination or kidnapping."
(according to the definition of "terrorism" defined by the US Congress)
There's no need to waste time by playing games. Change the rules of engagement to allow anyone merely being approached by pirates (the gun-toting in small water craft type) to fire at will.
4.1. Entire crew on captured ship killed, ship scuttled in revenge. Cameras get beautiful shots of small pieces of children scattered across burning remains of bombed village. Massive calls go for war crime tribunal for people who ordered strike on civilians. US loses essentially all political clout it had with "human rights issues" worldwide. Company that owned the ship/its insurers and teary wives and children of killed seamen go to court against US and likely win huge damages, as potential ransom costs but a small fraction of ship and its cargo's value.
Why is USA fighting only somali pirates and not for example nigerian pirates? A cynical person might note that it's because Somalia's coast has oil.
Because we're working with this Nigerian prince who is helping us with our financial crisis. We've sent him the PIN for the Federal Reserve accounts and Obama's signature so that he can transfer some money over. Getting violent could fuck up the sweet, sweet payday that is coming any day now.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
1.Do something like what they did in the second world and escort civilian ships through the (relatively small) danger zone. Any pirates that show up get to find out just what the massive deck gun or missile launcher of a navy destroyer does to a small pirate boat. Enough pirates will get back to Somalia and tell all their pirate buddies about it that many will think twice about taking the risk.
Or another alternative would be to provide guns (or armed officers) on shops as they enter the danger zone and remove them when they leave. Any pirates that try to board get shot at with a large caliber rifle. I am not a Somali pirate but I suspect even Somali pirates dont like being shot at (and possibly seriously injured or killed).
2.Apply international pressure on the government of Somalia to clean up its act and clear things out. Offer them incentives (foriegn aid, support to eliminate the warlords and guns or whatever else) if they are willing to clean up their country and stop the pirates.
and 3.Offer direct aid to the Somali people (aid that comes with checks to make sure it ends up in the hands of the right people and not the warlords). Find things the Somali fishermen-turned-pirates can use to earn a legitimate living. If they have enough money to live off without piracy, they are much less likely to take the risk (especially given #1 above).
These people arent terrorists, they have no political agenda, they are only in it because they feel like they have no other choice if they want to survive. So you attack in 3 ways, you increase the risks for the pirates (so that the risk vs reward equation changes), you offer them incentives to stop being pirates and you apply political pressure to the government to make it illegal (if it isn't already) and to enforce the law.
If the law in Somalia doesn't make piracy illegal, it should be changed. And it should specify that any pirates who are caught have their ships impounded by the government and destroyed/sunk/on-sold.
There is a limitless supply of pirate wannabes, and there is a limited supply of relatively cheap boats for the pirates to use. Far better to target the kingpins, organizers, and financiers of piracy. The facts are, the pirates have better funding.
Much cheaper to just pay the ransom. Let the insurance companies take the hit. Pirates got kids to feed to ya know.
You clearly know neither the history nor the content of the UN Conventions of Law on the Sea. It's impressive, though, that you manage to spin a document to aid safety of navigation into a UN attempt to check unbridled American imperialism. You tip your hand, though; you won't get many people hating the US with that kind of sudden intensity.
US does nothing, people complain that we can't do anything with our super-powerful navy. US does something, people complain that we're sticking our noses into blah blah. It's getting hard to give a shit about generally uninformed opinion in the face of piracy.
Somali MO: Attack unarmed vessel, capture crew, demand ransom, kill crew if no money transferred, steal ship, sell cargo.
US MO: Approach armed hijackers, negotiate first, offer to pay ransom, honor ransom negotiation if accepted, escort rescued ship's crew, even if not American.
Oh yes, I see the hypocrisy in using different terms for what amount to basically behaving the same way.
As for your last point, maybe you should do some research into the operating cost of a single destroyer vs. what percent of shipping is affected by piracy. While you're at it, check out the legal ramification of attacking pirates. My guess is since you haven't yet, you won't do it now.
They are having good success in recent times in dealing with these pirates.
Piracy was a big problem for India, as many of the ships registered in entire south and south east asia have a large contingent of India crew. So every time hijacking took place, a bunch of Indian nationals got caught in the crossfire.
To fix this problem, the Navy has started patrolling the international waters, and they have sunk quite a few pirate ships!
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Providing every crew member of a vessel going through the area with access to a rifle would probably go a long way to combat the problem.
As I understand it, aren't many of the crews already armed? Maybe not every single crew member has access to a rifle, but there are armed people on board (in particular, don't the $millions oil tankers usually have a few ex-forces mercs types on board?) But life is cheap in Somalia, and the potential profits are huge, so the prospect of encountering armed defence isn't such a great deterrent as it would be elsewhere in the world.
you think its only a game but you're really piloting their unmanned drones for them....
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ