EU-NATO Co-operation and the Pirates of the Gulf of Aden

Abstract

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden has been a rising issue since 2005, threatening merchant shipping using the Suez Canal, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. The problem was exacerbated when Somali pirates began hijacking World Food Program ships, en route to Somalia. The world’s navies responded, and the result is three coalitions of naval forces conducting anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and surrounding areas: NATO responded in October 2008, the European Union (EU) established an anti-piracy operation in December 2008, and the Combined Maritime Forces operating from US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain established a dedicated anti-piracy task force of their own. Efforts at closer cooperation in the Gulf of Aden have largely been successful. The EU and NATO have found ways to cooperate that are fairly easy and cheap to implement, with the innovative use of the Internet as a coalition communication system is one example. NATO’s presence alone has affected naval cooperation in the area, as NATO standards often provide a common link between the systems of different ships. Although piracy is unlikely to be stopped through naval efforts alone, EU-NATO naval co-operation in the Gulf of Aden appears to be successful in that it is resulting in less ships being boarded by pirates.