Tackling the Pirates of the Caribbean

As the nation of Venezuela suffers further indignities, and teeters on the verge of wholesale economic collapse, its population are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to secure the means to exist. Amidst the chaos and confusion of a socialist dystopian nightmare, some are resorting to more blunt means of capitalism to survive. Along the coastline small gangs are putting to sea and engaging in armed robbery of small vessels, and in doing so they have become the new pirates of the Caribbean. 

For the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, a former British colony just off the coast of Venezuela the notable increase in piracy incidents represents a not inconsiderable threat to national security. The Washington Post reported this week about the rise in piracy incidents and the growing concern about the risks this poses, particularly given their small Coastguard. (LINK).

The declining situation has led to some commentators on social media to ask why the Royal Navy isn’t being sent to do something about the situation. Ignoring the minor fact that the nation hasn't actually asked for our help, although apparently according to social media types the UK should be proactive and just offer it anyway. The view goes that as a friend to the UK and fellow member of the Commonwealth, we should send aid and support to deal with the piracy threat. Possession of a global navy means that it should be employed to counter pirates in the West Indies as a key military task.

Is tackling piracy though as simple as just ‘sending a gunboat’ or is it more complex, and most importantly what is the UK’s national interest in all these events?

In purely selfish terms the UK has a very limited strategic interest in the region. The nearest UK overseas territory is in Montserrat, several hundred miles away. This tiny island devastated by a volcano in the 1990s has a population of less than 5000 people. Beyond this, there are several nations who continue to regard Her Majesty The Queen as their head of State (such as Barbados, Grenada and Saint Vincent) although the UK has no responsibility for their external affairs.

There are other nations in Europe with a regional strategic interest – the French territories of French Guyana and the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, while the Dutch islands of Curacao and Aruba are also nearby too.

From an economic perspective, Trinidad & Tobago are not major economic partners of the UK, in 2010 it was estimated that the UK accounted for just 2% of export sales, and as of 2016 the UK is not in the top five economic importers for the country. Unlike the MENA region, where piracy flare ups directly posed a threat to the economic security of the UK by leading to a rise in insurance prices and thus cost increases for fuel and goods, in part due to the highly constrained waters making it easy for pirates to raid, there is no equivalent threat in Trinidad & Tobago. At best a small amount of LNG is supplied to the UK (forming a negligible part of the overall total imports), and the waters are far easier to sail in. Somali pirates formed a threat due to their ability to get relatively easy access to large merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea which were more predictable in their routes. 

The nature of the piracy remains, for the time being, highly limited – reports indicate low level incidents involving small craft being boarded, armed robbery occurring and the assault / murder of individuals. Whilst deeply distressing to those involved, this is not something that is a direct threat to UK territorial integrity. At best it represents an unpleasant and violent local problem, but it is hard to see where the direct UK strategic interest lies in providing military intervention to tackle the issue.

From the outset then it is hard to see why the UK would want to send a warship to deal with the piracy issue in the region, which appears limited to primarily low level incidents, and not risks to major shipping. But, for the purposes of this article, let us assume that the British Government is considering taking action to counter the problem – what sort of challenges would it face?

What is the mission?

To start with, before we launch eagerly in true internet style into the fantasy fleet world of deciding that only HMS MASSIVE (with modified 18.2” side batteries and Stingray submarine launchers) is able to do the job because of ‘reasons’, at which point the debate quickly gets lost in a tedious wave of ship comparisons, let us take a step back and ask what the mission actually would be.

At present the risk seems to be a small amount of criminal violence occurring from a disparate group of armed individuals, using small craft to go out to sea and commit crime on mariners in small craft. Very little is known about these groups beyond the fact they operate from Venezuela. It is reasonable to assume that the overall mission is to stop piracy and enhance regional security by creating the conditions where pirates are not operating at sea, and where local law enforcement organisations are able to effectively police the situation without recourse to external military support.

This in turn suggest that any solution is far more complex than just sending a warship to steam up and down and picking up the odd go-fast. It implies that the UK must work with allies to resolve the incredibly complex situation in Venezuela, helping stabilise the collapse of the nation state to avert a humanitarian catastrophe, and set the conditions where the local population do not feel the need to commit piracy.

This immediately suggests a blended mix of both diplomatic and aid-based support aimed to improve the quality of life of those most affected by the Maduro regime, and also set the conditions for a return to genuine democracy and improve the economic and political stability of the country. This will ease tensions and reduce the potential for some of the gangs to put to sea if they have a source of food, income and jobs.

The next task it implies is a need to look at how to effectively police the waters in the short term, improving the capacity of local Coastguards and other Law Enforcement Officials (LEO’s) to interdict, arrest, charge and convict people suspected of piracy. This is much more complex than just sending a boarding party to intervene and shoot people – it requires a mixture of training, capacity building and developing a culture where the entire boarding process is built around securing the evidence to deliver a conviction.

This suggests that the most appropriate activity the UK could do is provide a mixture of specialist training, offers of police support and help with working on how to deliver a long-term solution. This implies potentially some military training teams, particularly for boarding parties and intelligence assessment, and maybe in the very short term there may be a need to provide some assets to carry out some of the patrols to improve capability, but this would need to be carefully planned and executed.

What sort of constraints would we face?

It is easy to assume that sending a Type 23 out to patrol the local waters and steam menacingly about is all that is required to make the problem go away. In fact putting a ship on patrol is arguably one of the last things planners will want to do.

To begin with, we would need to understand the potential opponent – what is known about their tactics, means of working and how do these piracy raids get planned? Is it purely opportunistic, or is there a level of co-ordination and support involved that implies organised criminal or militia activity? What are the bases they work from, and where are they? What is known about their means of getting out to sea, how do they find targets and what is likely to influence them to change their behaviours? What is the normal pattern of life for the region – do fishermen go to sea armed with rifles (a common occurrence in the Southern Red Sea) and how do you distinguish between fishermen and potential pirates?

Keeping ships at sea on patrol is an expensive and time-consuming task, particularly if it just involves sailing at random through a large chunk of waterspace. Instead you want to make maximum use of the time that you’ve got the ship available for – which in turn means you need a accurate intelligence picture of what is actually going on. This would require a not inconsiderable level of intelligence collection, probably involving both open source and more discrete means of collection to understand the threat.

Once you know where the pirates may potentially strike, you need to work out how to catch them in the act. This probably requires use of ISTAR assets like helicopters, MPA and drones to observe at a distance and then move in quickly once they see evidence of a potential act of piracy occurring. This is not the movies, as a Commanding Officer, you cannot just charge down the bearing of an alleged pirate, having heard someone call up on Channel 16 that they are under attack, and with all guns blazing to shoot and kill the pirates.

Maintaining an effective evidence chain is key here – piracy is a crime, but you need to be able to prosecute it effectively. This means having an effective means of identifying suspects, catching them in the act, or post crime with proceeds of their loot and being able to produce an evidence chain that, if presented in court, could lead to a conviction.

This isn’t what most people think of when they think about boarding teams – they prefer to focus on all manner of ‘hard stops’ and bullets flying. In reality much of the work is about low-level intelligence gathering, building a picture of the pattern of life (e.g. consensual boarding of local fishing boats to gain information about the area) and over time understanding the normal, and the abnormal. Occasionally they may come across vessels and individuals that may have engaged in illicit activity, but the challenge is to prove it in a court of law.

What this means is that any ships conducting patrols need to be able to have an underlying idea of what to do with suspected pirates when they capture them. Do they ship them to Trindad and Tobago, where they will await trial? Do they enter Venezuelan territorial waters and return the suspects ashore to the custody of the local police (which in turn, even though Venezuela has abolished the death penalty, could raise serious human rights abuse concerns if they are put into prison and potentially left without trial for many years).

Much of the work done by the Royal Navy in counter piracy operations in the Southern Red Sea has involved this sort of throny issue. Its not as simple as just putting a gunboat into local waters and steaming about, you need to know who your potential pirates are, and how you can legally act against them and do so in a manner that ensures a conviction in a court of law, not summary execution at the hands of a Royal Navy boarding team.

Issues like handling captured suspected pirates are legally very complex, and not something that can just be handled overnight by a punchy CO with a desire to dispense justice. It takes a lot of international co-operation and agreement to resolve these cases – for instance here, any action would involve trilateral work between the UK, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela to agree on how to handle these cases.

How do you co-ordinate this?

Sticking a ship on patrol isn’t enough to make the problem go away by itself. Warships have finite endurance and need to come alongside regularly. At best you may be able to do 3-4 weeks at sea patrolling local waters before needing to come into harbour, at which point the presence is gone and its open season again for pirates, who will be able to know that the RN frigate is in port.

This means to co-ordinate effectively, you’d require multiple warships to be certain of patrolling the waters and maintaining a sufficiently visible presence to deter pirates from attacking. You’d need 2-3 ships, potentially drawn from different nations, to keep a 24/7 presence at sea constantly. This is a big operational commitment to meet the challenge of reducing a very small number of pirate attacks.

In turn it will require probably a multi-national HQ of some form to co-ordinate the patrols, share intelligence and pool assets to get the best out of the force. Looking at the example of Somalia, this is realistically going to require a 1* led HQ, standing up and supported by the full set N1-9 desks and supporting IT, infrastructure and accommodation, and an appropriate set of rules of engagement. These sort of HQ capabilities are in relatively short supply across Western nations, so to set one up would reduce the ability of countries to deploy elsewhere instead.

Suddenly we’ve gone from the fairly simple suggestion of ‘sending a gunboat’ to realising that to tackle localised piracy properly in the region is a long-term piece of work that would require multiple ships, personnel and assets. It also requires a large amount of complex legal and policy work too, all the time working in support of wider HMG efforts to generate a peaceful long term solution to the problem.

From an RN perspective, this task is likely to suck up several ships and detract resources away from other critical tasks. This isn’t to say it can’t be done – of course it could be done if the will and direction were there. But there is a real danger of advocating ‘sending a gunboat’ unless you have the will and determination to see the problem through to the end.

UK efforts in the Horn of Africa to reduce the risk of piracy have been ongoing for years now and the work of the RN is just one part of this puzzle. If you look at the wider MOD/HMG piece, its also involved capacity building and security sector reform, helping bring about societal change, generating the conditions for locals to be able to grow food and earn a legitimate income, but also not feel that they need to go to sea for money or to pay debts. It has seen the UK work hard too in distributing aid, working with regional partners like Kenya to strengthen the security environment, but also spend time trying to ensure society changes. A good list of reasons as to why Somalia matters, and what the UK government is doing about it can be found HERE – it is well worth a read to understand the enormous difficulties faced in really tackling the root causes of piracy.

In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, stopping piracy emanating from Venezuela would require a substantial multi-year commitment of aid, resources and finance to strengthen a chaotic situation and prevent the locals from engaging in piracy. This is not something that can be fixed with a quick deployment of HMS NONSUCH to wave the flag and reassure people that the Brits are back in town.

Such a solution will need to be international in nature, and probably require, assuming the increasing likelihood of outright regime collapse, an international peacekeeping force to deliver stability and support the rule of law at some point soon. The question is whether this is something that is in the UK’s national interest to actively work for, or if it is another nations responsibility.

The reality is that we live in a world where military resources are constrained, and the ability of most countries to deploy capability at distance is limited. The UK is one of a tiny number of nations able to sustain multiple operations across the globe, but even then there is a limit and tough choices need to be made about what is in the national interest. Good national security policy making relies on clear headed assessments of where the UK’s national interests lie, and where our resources could, and should, be deployed. Given this, it is hard to see what positive effect a short term frigate deployment could have, nor is there the threat to really warrant or justify a long term multi-national deployment to stamp out an issue that is at best criminal activity.

There is no wider threat to UK economic or energy security, as there was in the Horn of Africa, nor is there a risk of regime collapse threatening the UK or its overseas territories. Instead arguing that the UK should step in to solve the very low level piracy issue in a country far from home, with hugely limited UK economic and security interests, primarily because it used to be a British colony seems to be the height of vanity. There are plenty of other measures that can be taken, but sometimes the best thing you can possibly do is not send a gunboat at all…