The world picture of today has a particular thing of the past in terms of piracy emergence and its drawing ahead. The thing concerns the multiple examples of pirates’ captures of vessels, mainly of merchant destinations. The route coming through the Gulf of Aden is characterized by a long coastline that belongs to Somalia. This factor is a major catalyst for the raptures and attacks of pirates operating with hooks and various kinds of ladders along with arms of different types who are highly intended to gain what they need from this or that capture of a ship.
The New York Times previous reports published, after the pirates seized the Alabama Maersk ship, that notwithstanding the current protection of Aden waters by the American Navy ships the cases of piracy are still observed (Piracy at Sea, para. 3). This is caused by the internal lawlessness in the country of Somalia and the fact that violence on land presupposes violence on the sea. (Kaplan, para. 1). Here the theme of stakeholders involved in process of gaining money is rather significant. The amounts of money are really too high and present hundreds of million of dollars a year. The anarchy inside Somali presupposes an engagement of higher layers of their society headed by warlords. Under their commands, the pirates search for probable emergence of a ship loaded with some goods, especially strategic, as in the example with Ukrainian freighter ‘Faina’, and then using fast-moving ships try to seize a gigantic ship by means of weapon menace. Ship crews are the direct victims suffering from pirates’ invasion and disturbances along with injuries that may be caused easily by cruel pirates. This lasts until a shipowner company or a shipowner pays a ransom for people’s life and cargo on the ship. What is more, Somalia Government is helpless in this situation because of political disorientation and a state of constant war, particularly, in Mogadishu, where the population from early childhood is brought up in circumstances of violent relationships (Kaplan, para. 2). International communities provide today a wide control over the water in the Gulf of Aden supporting the international ships sailing through this strategic point of international ways of trade. This also cannot restrain the power of piracy near Somalia.
Maersk shipping giant is a well-known carrier of goods by sea in the world and its logistic structure presupposes the main point of the delivery of goods to a customer in time. Here the company urges to make out strategic priorities, financial aids, and schedule of such initiatives (Wagner & Busse, p. 142). The fact of piracy is a great obstacle for a company when providing routes to the eastern coast of Africa and to the Middle East. It is a real challenge for a company, because of the risk to place crew members’ lives in danger and pays the ransom, as a result, but for a company, it is quite cheap to pay a ransom than to have their vessels broken or destructed (Gvosdev, para. 2). A panacea from piracy is, on the one hand, another scheme of a route and, on the other hand, a complex of measures in the epicenter of danger so that not to be caught. A supposed strategic consultant should take into account the following measures prescribed in African Business:
The IMB recommends that ships keep at least 50 miles and, if possible, 100 miles away from the Somali coast. They advise that the use of radio communications including VHF in these waters should be kept to a minimum because pirates monitor transmissions (Evans, p. 39).
To conclude, it is apparent that the root cause of pirates is money and the fact that the political and economic situation within the country provides pirates as citizens of Somali with irresponsibility for their actions and making the business of this way in the world arena (Mazetti & Otterman, para. 5).
References
- Bot, Bernard L., Pierre A. Girardin, and Moira F. Goulmy. “First-Class Returns from Tramsportathoo.” The McKinsey Quarterly (2001): 108.
- Ewans, Graeme. “Pirates Still Rule off Africa: Despite Tighter Security, Piracy in African Waters Is on the Increase.” African Business 2002: 39+.
- Gvosdev, Nikolas. Capture Pirates, on Land and Sea: “The ‘Black Hawk Down’ Effect.” The New York Times, 2009.
- Kaplan, Robert D. “Anarchy on Land Means Piracy at Sea.” The New York Times, 2009.
- Mazzetti, Mark, and Otterman, Sharon. “U.S. Captain Is Hostage of Pirates; Navy Ship Arrives.” The New York Times 2009.
- “Piracy at Sea.” The New York Times, 2009.
- Ploch, Lauren, Blanchard, Christopher M., O’Rourke, Ronald, Mason, R. Chuck, and King, Rowle O. “Piracy of the Horn of Africa.” Congressional Research Service, 2009. Web.
- Wagner, Stephan M., and Busse, Christian. Managing Innovation: The New Competitive Edge for Logistics Service Providers. Haupt Verlag AG, 2008.