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The private sector: not enough against piracy. The Chinese presence: to watch

(BRUXELLES2) When the remark comes from an American officer, it is worth the detour. The rear admiral Terry McKnight warned recently during an interview - on leaving a visit to the private company AdvanFort (read here), that care had to be taken not to withdraw too quickly the warships of the various countries patrolling the Indian Ocean, under the pretext of a drop in piracy. An interview conducted by Martin Edwin Andersen, and detected by our colleagues from the maritime blog GCaptain.

The security vacuum cannot be properly covered by solutions from private security companies alone. " If the marines pull out I think you'll see the private security teams aren't as protective and you'll see piracy pick up again he clarified. " It is when we all act together, private security companies, navies and the maritime community, that we can reduce the number of acts of piracy ».

Pirates beyond India?

« The pirates are constantly refining their tactics, seeking to circumvent international efforts to control them,” he added, “but they are also improving the level of their operations. They have a business that makes money. Like all of them, they're going to take consultants and say, 'How do you get to armed guards? How to do better?' ". The area could expand according to him. " We saw them 1500, almost 2000 miles offshore near the coast of India, one can imagine that if they take ships and extend their hunting radius, they will be able to go outside of this area.

Watch out for skids

If there are private ones, they must respect the same standards of engagement as those used by the military, underlines the American admiral. Care should be taken to ensure that security teams are “licensed by their governments and get certification on how they are trained and what they are trained to do. This is the case for the majority of them, he said. But the worst thing we can want is to have a firm that sends people, untrained and having an incident that puts blame on the maritime community ».

Last interesting point: China

On China, the admiral has a more balanced opinion than those expressed so far openly. In private, many senior officers share his opinion. China shows a sustained interest in the freedom of maritime commerce, also linked to the fact that it has a large commercial fleet (it owns 5 of the 7 most important commercial lines). But " we have to be mindful of China's goals. Are they there just to just fight the pirates? Or are they to see how to become an overseas navy like we were in the early 1900s. We have to be careful how we weave deals with China he concluded.

 

 

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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