Pirates me hearties, pirates!

[kandrathe]

First can you point me to some success stories? I'd like to broaden my knowledge.

The Malayan Emergency come to mind for the Brits, and the US has had mixed results in South and Central America usually helping some military dictator repel a Marxist insurgency. For failed states, I would look at the examples of post WWII occupations, where the US administered some various countries, and eventually backed out once the state was revitalized. In some cases, like the Philippines or Okinawa, we should have left a decade earlier.

I'm not a huge fan of the US meddling in the politics of other nations, nor the US taxpayer funding the destroy and rebuild missions. The alternatives might be worse however.

And how do you get them to agree?

You don't need them to like it, just understand that interfering is not in their best interest. In most cases, occupations are tolerated for a short term.

As you mentioned who pays for that transitional force even if they agree? Isn't what Ethiopia tried essentially that but now they can't pay so they pull out and there is a big vacuum again which just breeds more of the same. Where are the safeguards on that?

The best approach, as was done in Afghanistan, is to find the best of the strongmen. Then, swallow hard, and support their dominance of the country. It is tricky, because you don't want it to be seen as a puppet regime.

So you say we don't want to go in there, I agree, but then should we be blowing up the pirates? I want the piracy to stop but what good is treating the symptom going to do. It might buy a few years of peace but it won't stop it.

It is not an all or nothing proposition. You need to address the symptoms, until you can address the cause. Just as you must deal with crime, until you root out the underlaying causes of crime.

If I were writing the UN play book... The UN should call for a naval blockade of Somalia, this will help to stop the flow of arms and Islamic insurgents from Yeman. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti are eager for the malaise of Somalia to end and so should be a part of the UN coalition for peace in Somalia. This is a case where you need to force the bandit lords in Somalia to capitulate, to bring them into a negotiation for a lasting peaceful solution. The African Union Peace and Security Council might be able to supply troops to create secure enclaves where the refugees can get food and shelter. Once you have the warlords attention, you can move from region to region trading out their military weapons, and control for security, food, shelter and a place in the future government. After the last botched attempt by Clinton, I would see the US on the ground role as minimal. We have plenty of Navy to apply to the problem, if we are done blustering around North Korea and Iran. As was said earlier, its not that the US couldn't handle this problem, we just lack the political will to do much about it at this time.