More than 20 countries have joined anti-piracy patrols in the Indian Ocean in an effort to curb the often brazen acts of piracy that have increasingly become the norm off the coast of Somalia. Despite the contributions of individual states as well as the European Union and NATO, and despite the common interest of eliminating acts of piracy, pirates armed with AK-47 rifles and light speedboats continue to evade capture and often overtake significantly larger targets.
Commenting on the problem, Michael Codner, the director of the military science department at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said “militaries need to integrate all the information they have. That is where the problem lies because a lot of information is classified. You don’t want to give information away that is militarily significant.”
Although the combined forces patrolling the Indian Ocean share the common interest of preventing piracy, they do not share the common interest of reducing military privacy. However, Admiral Gary Roughead, the overall Commander of the US Navy, stated that progress has been made and that “levels of co-operation have increased.” What is clear is that the ultimate success or failure of the fight against piracy is conditioned upon the ability of states and regional organizations to share information and coordinate more effectively.
For more information see: Al Jazeera.
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