Somalia is no place for President Obama to begin his foreign policy. Given that he inherited wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama will take ownership of any decisions he makes on the pirate menace in the waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Unless he gets a significant commitment from a bevy of interested nations, Obama should stay away from committing forces to Somalia. With no true government in the impoverished nation, there is not much reward to military action. The pirates are part of a warlord culture whereby those doing the actual pirating are simply pawns in the business of seizing ships. Though the 90s incursion by US forces was botched due to a lack of heavy weapons, the real lesson was a political one. The warlords of Somalia are like gang leaders. You kill one and another simply takes their place. Unless we are willing to take and hold ground in Somalia we should not commit forces there. And it would be foolish to contemplate such a pointless military endeavor. That was a lesson we should have learned from the Battle of Mogadishu.

For the most part the notion we should do something about Somali pirates is media driven. Just like Bush Sr. got sucked into the humanitarian crisis in Somalia in the early 90s by images of starving people in the Horn of Africa. The threat posed by a rag tag group of undernourished Somalis is not a threat to US security. That doesn’t mean we should do nothing. If insurance risk is keeping the tankers from being armed then do what was done in the World Wars: work out a convoy system. Ships could sail intermittently with destroyers or gunboats as protectors. The companies whose ships are being protected could pay for the maintenance and cost of the protection.

The United States has already bitten off more than is feasible to chew in our military incursions in the the Middle East. Somalia is a nation where military action will never result in long term dividends. Therefore Obama should either use his international clout to form a large coalition to help stabilize Somalia without a significant US presence or create a defensive strategy to combat pirating in the region with minimal US assets.