Observing Calls for Unreasonable Security Expectations

Rod Nordland of Newsweek has historically been a very good military reporter, but clearly his knowledge doesn't extend to Naval tactics, nor Navy history. In an editorial over the weekend, Mr. Nordland suggests that the international community should blockade Somalia, which on its face isn't a bad suggestion, but I don't think he quite understands the difficulty, nor the scale.

"The one way to prevent all this would be to make sure pirates never set sail in the first place. That may sound like a daunting task. Yet Britain successfully blockaded France, with a coastline 400 nautical miles longer than Somalia's, for more than a decade—and that was 200 years ago, using sailing vessels and signal flags. The allied fleet off Somalia today has nuclear-powered warships, aircraft and unmanned drones, radar and sonar at its command. So how hard could it be?"

If we assume Mr. Nordland is informed, we must also assume he is advocating blowing up every speed boat in Somalia. The difference between the English blockade of France and any blockade of Somalia is that major ships of sail required ports, which allowed the Royal Navy to blockade known locations to prevent French commerce activity by sea. In the case of Somalia, a Naval force has to blockade the longest coastline in Africa at every point there is sand, because that is all it takes to launch a speed boat that is refueled by a hand held gas tank.

Editorials, including Mr. Nordland's, are noting that there are only 12 to 15 warships in the area to potentially fight piracy. Time for perspective. Somalia has an extensive coastline of some 1700 miles, extending the entire length of the Gulf of Aden and around the Horn of Africa. Coalition naval forces are responsible for over 2.4 million square miles of open sea in the region, and piracy is only one of the problems in that region. For context, Iraq has 167400 square miles of physical area.

If someone was to suggest the US should be able to secure a country the size of Iraq with a single Bradley Fighting vehicle that is not allowed to travel faster than 35 mph, we would rightfully call such a person a damn idiot. But that is exactly what Rod Nordland is suggesting we do with naval forces against piracy off the Coast of Somalia, and he is seriously asking the question "how hard could it be?"

I don't know Rod, but I'm going to assume you never really pondered your own question.