more piracy

This is mostly a placeholder.

A blog by the name of Organic Warfare has two recent entries on contemporary piracy and insurgency: Piracy in the Malacca Straits and Piracy and the Global Insurgency.

“Organic Warfare” states that “modern pirates are now using tactics similar to terrorism to capture ships and goods.” By contrast, of course, I’d suggest that the relation is inverse: it is the terrorists who are the inheritors of piracy’s historic tradition. Which does not preclude feedback and cross-contamination between the two forms of activity.

UPDATE: John Robb of Global Guerrillas (I’m not sure what the relation is between his two blogs) points to an article in the Sunday Herald on private navies, also in the Malacca Straits.

But as I point out in my comment on Robb’s entry, the irony is that “private navies” are far from being “a radical new solution.” After all, “privateers” were, precisely, private military forces that flourished before the nationalization of naval warfare. So from privateers to pirates, and back to privateers…