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asdffyesterday at 6:54 PM2 repliesview on HN

Seems like piracy is more about the land than the sea. I can't think of any major american military action against piracy aside from actions against somali terrorists. Seems piracy as it was known historically died out as the old historic pirate havens of say Tortuga or Outer Banks went from places of anarchy to places that were controlled by some government in some capacity. And that is exactly where we see the somali piracy today: here is a state that is unable to govern its land mass and thus there is piracy, even with the american navy directly taking action against this piracy. Seemingly this has nothing to do with the american navy at all, even though that is supposedly one of its mandates and it takes actions in the spirit of advancing these anti piracy goals. The fundamentals of why piracy does and doesn't occur don't really change. It seems it comes down to government capacity on land, not from projecting naval power.


Replies

throwaway27448yesterday at 7:28 PM

> somali terrorists

Pirates are many things, maybe even criminals under international law, but terrorists they are certainly not.

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_DeadFred_yesterday at 7:22 PM

I mean that is ignoring the American military experience with Islamic pirates and Islamic slavers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_corsairs

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