Guns ready, fire!

Little reported in the British media is the fact that the European Union is currently mobilising for a naval expedition in the Gulf of Aden. In the last few years, this region has suffered ever more from pirate activity, with significant infestations along Somalia’s eastern coast. But as a report by Chatham House recently indicated, the pirate attacks have moved onto a higher plane since 2007, both spatially and functionally. On a spatial level, they have moved further north, into the Gulf of Aden; this means they are now encroaching on the world’s foremost shipping route, between the European Union and the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia. And on a functional level, the pirates have become more aggressive, readily using rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns to assault their victims. They are also demanding ever larger ransoms for the release of their hostages, and for captured goods or ships.

The French military has already mounted operations against the pirates on at least two occasions, and the number of naval vessels in the region has steadily grown since the start of the year. American, Russian and Indian gunboats have been sent, and a maritime patrol area has been set up by Task Force 150, comprised of vessels from the Atlantic Alliance. Yet the attacks have continued, culminating in the pirates’ seizure of a Ukrainian vessel in late September, with over thirty battle tanks on board.

The security situation has deteriorated to such an extent that shipping corporations have threatened to send their vessels all the way around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, adding another 6,000 kilometres to the journey—with significant increases to the price of goods and pollution. And there are lots of ships passing through the Gulf of Aden, on their long voyage through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea until they reach the English Channel ports, such as Rotterdam, Le Havre, Southampton and Felixtowe. Indeed, this is the world’s busiest maritime line of communication, linking 495 million Europeans with 3.5 billion Asians. The shipping route carries approximately one fifth of the European Union’s energy requirements, and almost half of our cargo trade.

Map of the Gulf of Aden


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It is in this context that we can understand the European Union naval activities off the Horn of Africa. The Council of the European Union agreed on 15th September 2008 to establish EU NAVCO, a naval coordination unit set up four days later to synchronise the Member States’ already-deployed assets and enable their working together with merchant ships using the region. This is headed by Captain de Navío Andrés A. Breijo Claúr, an officer from the Spanish Armada.

However, further in the works is the European Union’s first ever naval expedition, which will be led by the British warship, HMS Northumberland. This is a Type 23 frigate, armed with powerful guns, missiles, attack helicopters and equipped with sophisticated sensors and arrays. As the Western Morning News reported, this will serve as the command ship for a European Union expeditionary fleet comprised of British, French, German, Italian and Spanish ships—perhaps with further contributions from other Member States. The flotilla will be commanded by Vice-Admiral Philip Jones at Britain’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, near London. After some apprehension about Britain’s willingness to take part in European Union military operations, this shows that the British are ready to step-up and do what is right, leading what is perhaps the most significant European operation to date.

Why? Because although this expedition will provide greater protection to food shipments and other aid bound for Somalia, it also has a less-altruistic motivation: the defence of the main west-east shipping line, carrying most of our maritime cargo and energy imports to the European Union. Previous European military operations were for primarily humanitarian considerations, such as the small European interventions in Congo, or the moderately-sized—and ongoing—intervention to help alleviate the ‘spillover’ from the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, which is harming Chad.

Some politicians at the European Parliament have already realised this difference. First, the British conservative MEP, Geoffrey van Orden, called the operation ‘military nonsense’, stating—quite wrongly—that it would jeopardise the Atlantic Alliance. The trouble here is that NATO is already hard pressed with efforts in Afghanistan, and the United States still has its work cut out in Iraq, as well as with deterring Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, and China from annexing Taiwan. It just makes sense for Europeans to share more of the burden, particularly on their own shipping route.

Second, Ana Maria Gomes, a Portuguese socialist MEP, said she had a ‘moral problem’ with the naval expeditionary flotilla, which was only for ‘protecting oil tankers’. Really?! One can only wonder what Ms. Gomes will tell her constituents if their heating goes off, or if there is no petrol at the petrol pumps? Or if the electricity stops working? Or if patients in our hospitals must be sent home because there is no fuel for the boiler? Quite simply, if not for protecting our trade routes, what else is naval power for?! An economy such as ours—heavily dependent on oil—makes it our foremost priority to protect European oil tankers. When necessary, we must remain willing to use decisive military force to secure the European interest; indeed, our economic productivity and social security depends on it.