Tags: Piracy, Dynamics, Security, Geography, Disorder, Politics, Maritime traditions, Risks, Payoffs

The prospects for piracy are worryingly good. The spread of land-based disorder makes offshore disorder more likely. Cooperation between pirates and terrorists is possible, depending upon local circumstances, but remains unlikely and unnecessary from the pirates’ 6 perspective. The inherent mobility of piracy suggests that solutions depend upon the development of regional maritime security regimes whose members recognize that suppression depends upon land-based action to reduce the economic incentives and raise the disincentives for piracy’s growth. So long as the international community remains wedded to sea-based solutions and reluctant to intervene on land, piracy is likely to continue. Last, so long as the international piracy effort continues to stress defence, thereby conceding the initiative to the pirates, pirate successes — and perhaps spectacular ones — must be viewed as highly probable.

Future Scenarios and Future Threats.pdf