Ironic as it may appear, Naval reformers think the successful rescue of Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates may have highlighted structural imbalances in the U.S. Navy’s ability to handle irregular warfare — just as difficulties experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan awakened the U.S. Army to counterinsurgency requirements.
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I’ve spent the last 24 hours desperately compiling a forward-looking piece on efforts within the naval community to make the Navy a more effective anti-pirate force. I filed about an hour ago and my diligent editor, Laura McGann, has been tweaking ever since. And suddenly I discover, thanks to More…
Here’s Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, making a clear distinction between Somali pirates and Somali terrorists, while indicating that both scourges are rooted in the dysfunctional state of Somalia itself — a condition he says the United States should work to correct. From More…
… or actually, the pirates’ reprisals might be direct, too:
Pirates attacked another cargo ship early Tuesday morning in the Gulf of Aden, continuing a spate of attacks despite recent U.S. and French military action against hijackers in the waters.
Pirates attacked the M/V Irene between 1 and
Prompted by skepticism from Blackfive, Adam Serwer at TAPPED gets Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman to clarify President Obama’s role in yesterday’s rescue of Captain Richard Phillips’ rescue from the Somali pirates:
Bryan Whitman from the Office of the Secretary of Defense told me that “The Secretary of Defense
I woke up this morning to the Grandy and Andy show on 630 WMAL, conservative talkers who gave the president a “B” grade on his handling of the Somilian pirate situation.
“He has saved the world,” grumbled Andy. “You are led to believe that this morning.”
“Had this led More…
Michael Shear of The Washington Post assesses that the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from the Somali pirates — a commenter points to this apt cartoon about the discrepancy between the pirates’ aims and the way they’ve been treated as a joke — is an “early victory that could More…
Can I be real for a moment? I don’t know a thing about what can or should be done about the Somali pirates. It seems as if the unionized crew of the Maersk Alabama can take them one-on-one, but that’s not a systemic approach, and the fact that More…
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