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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.
Rudyard Kipling would be pissed.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
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.
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)
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."
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
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.
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.
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.
Does Somlia have a government? I thought that this was the problem.