Security

Can Guns-for-Hire Really Deter Pirates?

John Harris, the CEO of HollowPoint Protective Services, is in the business of maritime security and anti-piracy operations. And he tells DANGER ROOM his company has seen a surge in calls from shipping companies that ply the Gulf of Aden, where dozens of ships have been attacked by Somali pirates. Over the past few weeks, […]

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John Harris, the CEO of HollowPoint Protective Services, is in the business of maritime security and anti-piracy operations. And he tells DANGER ROOM his company has seen a surge in calls from shipping companies that ply the Gulf of Aden, where dozens of ships have been attacked by Somali pirates.

Over the past few weeks, he said, HollowPoint "started receiving a lot of e-mails from shipping companies -- they had questions, and they wanted to talk." In fact, he added,"I just got an e-mail today from another company that operates in the Gulf of Aden."

HollowPoint provides a range of services, from security details to training and consultation. The company also offers covert security teams that could blend in with a ship's crew. While Harris would not give specifics about his clients or their protection package (HollowPoint is a small outfit compared to aspiring pirate-fighters Blackwater), he said a couple of companies "were in the final stages" of contracting for services.

Shipping officials have also called for naval blockade of the Somali coast. But according to Harris, sending naval vessels to patrol 2,400 miles of coastline would be a poor remedy. "The only way to successfully deter that operation is to put people on board the boat," he tells DANGER ROOM.

Pirate boarding parties on small boats may elude a naval blockade,
Harris argued, but they can also be repelled. "My perception all along has been – It’s all about a show of force," he said. "They [pirates] are looking for something they can pick off and move on to the next target."

Somali pirates are also getting wise to naval tactics. In a discussion yesterday of piracy at the Heritage Foundation, Dominick Donald, chief analyst with UK security firm Aegis offered an interesting explanation of why piracy has spiked in the Gulf of Aden.

*I think the pirates have worked out what it is they can get away with. they've worked out the extent of naval capabilities;
they've worked out the extent of what navies are permitted to do; and they've adapted. they've found out that the 25-nautical-mile-wide shipping lane off the eastern littoral of Somalia wasn't that good of a target-rich environment: A lot of the vessels might have been a bit difficult to reach, but they weren't tramping up and down with great frequency. The Gulf of Aden, on the other hand, you're talking about perhaps 20,000 vessels a year -- 80 to 100 vessels a day. *

If these pirates are essentially opportunistic, all you need to do is park your mothership out at some point in the Gulf of Aden where you know there is a shipping lane and wait for a suitable target to come along.

Sending naval ships, Donald added, may not deter such attacks.
"There is, in reality, only a 15-minute window in which naval forces can actually use lethal force against a pirate," he said. "And that is the 15 minutes between when the watchkeeper on the bridge of the commercial vessels says, 'We're being attacked by pirates,' and the point at which the pirates take control of the bridge."

Granted, Aegis is also in the business of selling private security. But Donald's argument squares with what Harris seems to be suggesting. So will shipping firms start hiring security agents in serious numbers?

Perhaps not yet. In his presentation, Donald said he did not see any
"systematic" push to hire armed escorts for merchant vessels, especially tankers. "At the moment, tanker vessels absolutely will not carry armed escorts on board; they will not carry any firearms; they don't like armed sailors -- naval personnel -- on board, let alone private security operators. And the downstream legal implications of hiring private security are really pretty substantial," he said.

Individual charterers -- who want to escort one cargo, on one ship -- may, however, be in the market for such services, Donald added.

[PHOTO: Defendamerica.mil]

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