January 23, 2025: The Somali pirates are back in action. It’s been eleven years since the last outbreak of piracy in the Red Sea. Violence against commercial shipping in the Red Sea region began in 2010 when it had reached levels of activity not seen in over a century. But over the next three years that all changed. By 2013 attacks on ships by Somali pirates had declined 95 percent from the 2010 peak. The rapid collapse of the Somali pirates since 2010 began back in 2009 when 80 seafaring nations formed the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia. The most visible aspect of this was an anti-piracy patrol off the Somali coast. Over two dozen warships and several dozen manned and unmanned aircraft were involved. This force was backed by space satellite surveillance and foreign intelligence agencies.

Back in 2010 the Somalis accounted for nearly all the hijackings. There are still pirates out there, but they are more into robbery than kidnapping.

Piracy hit a trough from the late nineteenth century into the late twentieth. That was because the industrialized nations waged a worldwide campaign against pirates. With no place to hide, pirates disappeared.

Then there was a revival in the 1970s, with the collapse of many post-colonial governments. At the same time there were problems defining what exactly an act of piracy was. What most people agree on is that piracy is non-state sanctioned use of force at sea or from the sea. This could include intercepting a boat to rob the passengers, but that's usually just thought of as armed robbery. And something like the seizure of the Achille Lauro in 1985 is considered terrorism, rather than piracy. In the past, some marginal states have sanctioned piratical operations, like the Barbary States, but that rarely occurs these days.

There has been more since 2001. For example, in 1991 there were about 120 known cases of real or attempted piracy. In 1994 that increased to more than 200 cases. In 2000 there were 471 cases, in 2005 there were 359 and by 2010 there were over 400. There was a resurgence in 2023 and 2024 with a dozen minor incidents. These involved hijackings of a few large ships that were quickly resolved by military action or a ransom payment. The European Union Naval Force patrolled the areas where the pirates were present and prevented any attacks on ships.

An international effort to suppress Somali piracy halted most attacks. What remained was the fact that only off Somalia could ships and crews be taken and held for ransom for long periods. Everywhere else the pirates were usually only interested in robbing the crew and stealing anything portable that they could get into their small boats. Off the Nigerian coast pirates sometimes take some ship officers with them to hold for ransom or force the crew to move small tankers to remote locations where most of the oil cargo can be transferred to another ship and sold on the black market.

Pirates usually function on the margins of society, trying to get a cut of the good life in situations where there aren't many options. This is usually in areas where state control is weakest or absent. In Nigeria, Indonesia, or the Philippines, where the government is faced with serious problems that are sometimes out of control, pirates can do whatever they want.

The solution to piracy is essentially on land; go into uncontrolled areas and institute governance. This has been the best approach since the Romans eliminated piracy in the Mediterranean over 2,000 years ago. Trying to tackle piracy on the maritime end can reduce the incidence of piracy but can't eliminate it because the pirates still have a safe base on land. In the modern world the land solution often can't be implemented. Who wants to put enough troops into Somalia to eliminate piracy?

Meanwhile there are two areas where pirates still thrive. Piracy is a major threat, because most of the world's oil exports pass through the Straits of Malacca. This was largely an Indonesian problem. As Indonesia began stabilizing itself after the 2004 Aceh Peace settlement, the number of piracy attacks declined. Since 2010 there has been an increase in piracy off Indonesia, largely because the Indonesians reduced their anti-piracy patrols without warning or explanation. There are lots of targets, with over 50,000 large ships moving through the Straits of Malacca each year. That’s 120-150 a day. Lots of targets. The shallow and tricky waters in the strait forces the big ships to go slow enough under 30 kilometers an hour for speed boats to catch them. If pirates do get aboard, they rob the crew of valuables and carry off any portable goodies. With limited capacity in their speed boats these attacks result in small losses to the ships involved. By 2025 piracy attacks off Somalia and nearby areas were becoming so rare that shipping insurance rates were declining to normal levels. This was a sure sign that the pirates, for the moment, were gone.