Is NATO winning the war on piracy?

The Afghanistan operation may be in trouble, but NATO officials think the campaign against Somali pirates–launched in 2008– is going quite well. Via Reuters: [I]n the first half of 2012 there were just 69 incidents involving Somali pirates, compared with 163 in the same period last year, International Maritime Bureau data showed. "We are expecting ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The Afghanistan operation may be in trouble, but NATO officials think the campaign against Somali pirates--launched in 2008-- is going quite well. Via Reuters:

The Afghanistan operation may be in trouble, but NATO officials think the campaign against Somali pirates–launched in 2008– is going quite well. Via Reuters:

[I]n the first half of 2012 there were just 69 incidents involving Somali pirates, compared with 163 in the same period last year, International Maritime Bureau data showed.

"We are expecting the activity rate to be lower than last year at this time … that is based on the lack of activity in the past six months," said Commodore Bruce Belliveau, NATO’s Deputy Chief of Staff Operations.

"We are not seeing the buildup of logistic supplies that they would have had in the past for outfitting fishing vessels or dhows to use as motherships," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a shipping conference in London on Wednesday.

NATO’s own explanation of how the anti-piracy mission has evolved is available here

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

Tags: NATO, War

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