Charles Strathdee looks at some recent cases of piracy both off the Horn of Africa and in the Atlantic.

• MORE US MARINES FOR THE STAN
• NORTH KOREA v SOUTH KOREA
• UKRAINE & GEORGIA SHOW NATO DESIRE
• CANADA INITIATES ARCTIC NAVAL BASE

MORE US MARINES FOR THE STAN

A surge aiming to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan is being spearheaded by the US Marines, who will lock horns with the insurgents in the south of the country by next summer. The primary objective in boosting troops levels, particularly in the south of the country, is to fight for the ultimate prize in any insurgency - which was also the case during Iraq’s surge - which is the support of the local population, via providing better security. In that way the NATO forces hope to drain away support for the Taliban and enable the Afghan government’s troops to eventually take over security duties. It is a gamble that may or may not pay off, for rural Afghanistan is not urbanised Iraq, particularly as the enemy there did not have safe havens in another country (the Taliban are commanded from and recruit in Pakistan) while Iraq arguably had a better sense of nationhood with a history of national military and security apparatus. As a rider to sending in an extra 30,000 American troops, President Obama announced that the USA would possibly begin to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan in July 2011. While this placed a deadline on the Afghan National Army (ANA) and other elements of Kabul’s forces to be ready to take over, it clearly signposted the way ahead for the Taliban, too. Some military analysts expressed fears that the insurgents would pursue a strategy of laying low and avoiding fights where possible to preserve their power for after the American pullout.

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NORTH KOREA v SOUTH KOREA

A two-minute clash between navies along a disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea resulted in one vessel retreating on fire and badly damaged. The North Korean patrol ship reportedly had one of her officers killed and three sailors wounded, the South Korean vessel with which fire was exchanged suffering only minor damage.

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UKRAINE & GEORGIA SHOW NATO DESIRE

Despite the recent war in which Russia staged a chaotic, but extremely damaging, blitzkrieg into its territory, the former Soviet state of Georgia, on the Black Sea, is clearly determined to somehow obtain entry to NATO. American marines are in country preparing its troops for a deployment to southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, with the Georgian Army’s 31st Light Infantry Battalion going through a tough six-month training regime. Across the Black Sea, the Ukraine has been expressing its own desire for tighter integration with Western military forces, as a counter to Russian military dominance it fears, by sending a warship to take part in the counter-terrorist Operation Active Endeavour (OAE).

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CANADA INITIATES ARCRIC NAVAL BASE

The Canadian government has awarded a contract for the construction of a new naval base to provide increased support to operations in the Arctic. Due to global warming, the frozen seas of the region are melting, opening up the prospect of increased levels of shipping and also the potential threat to them. The Canadians, Americans, Russians and Danes are all enhancing the abilities of their navies to police the Arctic.

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