Maritime Piracy in the Horn of Africa and its Security Implications on the Arab Region

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-331
Author(s):  
Yasser A. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
Arab Region

لقد ظَهرت القرصنة البحرية في منطقة القرن الإفريقي لتداعياتٍ إقليميةٍ ودوليةٍ ارتبطت بالظروف التي أملتها التغيرات التي حدثت في بعض دول المنطقة مثل: الصومال؛ وذلك يتطلّب ضرورة تعزيز فُرص مكافحة نشاطات القراصنة وتجفيف منابع مواردها المالية، بالإضافة إلى معاقبة القراصنة وتقديمهم إلى المحاكم من أجل القضاء على الظاهرة وتحقيق الأمن البحري وانسياب التجارة العالمية بكل سهولةٍ ويسرٍ.

scholarly journals War on Piracy: The conflation of Somali piracy with terrorism in discourse, tactic, and law

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 440-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Currun Singh ◽  
Arjun Singh Bedi
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Risk Area ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Security Discourse ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Developmental Responses

This article argues that since 2005, the global security discourse has confused maritime piracy off the Horn of Africa with terrorism. US and European policymakers and financiers have tapped a vulnerable public imaginary to exaggerate Somali pirates as ‘maritime terrorists’ linked to Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda, driving the militarization and legal obfuscation of counter-piracy operations. And while Somali piracy has all but disappeared since 2013, international naval coalitions remain deployed in the Indian Ocean, which is still declared a war risk area. The discursive conflation of piracy and terrorism has thereby launched a tactical War on Piracy that mirrors the War on Terror. While pirates were active, this approach pushed them to become more daring and dangerous in response. Drawing on interviews with piracy stakeholders in Kenya, the article concludes that the tactical extension from counter-terrorism to counter-piracy is unresponsive to the origins, motives, and realities of Somali pirates. The article proposes a shift from military to developmental responses to countering and preventing piracy, with an emphasis on respecting local institutions of law enforcement and governance in Somalia.

Piracy and Maritime Security in Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jatin Dua
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Maritime Security ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Gulf Of Guinea ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
Legal Responses

In a seemingly virtual era, maritime commerce and shipping retain a central role in contemporary global capitalism. Approximately 90% of global imports and exports currently travel by sea on around 93,000 merchant vessels, carrying almost 6 billion tons of cargo. Oceanic mobility and long-distance networks of trade are made possible and sustained by the life and labor of over 1.25 million seafarers currently working at sea as well as regimes of global security and governance. Yet, this oceanic world and its role in shaping politics, sociality, and regulation remains, for the most part, obscured and hidden out of sight in everyday life. As one of the oldest perils at sea, maritime piracy is not only a daily threat to seafaring and global shipping but makes visible this oceanic world and the larger networks of security and regulation that govern maritime commerce. In recent years, coastal Africa, specifically the waters off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Guinea, has seen an unprecedented rise in incidents of maritime piracy. The geopolitical and global trade importance of these areas has led to numerous national, regional, and international military and legal responses to combat this problem. While often seen as a seaborne symptom of failed states or criminality, maritime piracy has a more complex relationship with land- and sea-based governance. Occurring primarily in spaces that are politically fragmented but reasonably stable maritime piracy is better understood as a practice of extraction and claim making on mobility that emerges from deeper historical contexts and is linked to land-based economies and politics. Emphasizing maritime piracy in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea within these wider historical and geographic contexts highlights the imbrication of the political and economic in shaping the emergence and transformations of this practice. This is not to deny the violence that constitutes maritime piracy, but to locate piracy within larger processes of mobility, governance, and political economy on the African continent and beyond. In addition to impacting local communities, seafarers, and global shipping, maritime piracy is key to apprehending challenges to global governance from the vantage point of the world’s oceans.

Illegal Fishing and Piracy in the Horn of Africa

2018 ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
Afyare A. Elmi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Toxic Waste ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
Illegal Fishing ◽  
Iuu Fishing

The Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean have always been vital routes for world navigation and traveling. These waters are particularly important for most of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa. This chapter examines the geopolitics of maritime piracy and IUU fishing in the Horn of Africa waters. First, the chapter provides historical background on maritime piracy in Somalia, arguing that this is a new phenomenon in the region. Second, it discusses the extent of illegal fishing in Somali waters. Third, it assesses the political and economic explanations for clandestine maritime activities of statelessness, illegal fishing, toxic waste dumping, and poverty. Fourth, the chapter analyzes the implications of piracy and illegal fishing for the MENA region.

Transforming the Economic Conversation in the Arab Region

1970 ◽  
pp. 8-16
Author(s):  
Mansour Omeira
Keyword(s):  
Arab Region ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Development Paradigm

The Arab uprisings have laid bare the abyss between the rhetoric and reality of the dominant development paradigm in the region. It is widely agreed that socioeconomic discontent was a major cause of the uprisings. An early slogan raised at the start of the uprising in Tunisia was “employment is a right, you gang of thieves”. The slogan contrasted the denied universal right to employment with the actual accumulation of illicit privileges by a narrow minority.

Cracking national integration after the events (the Arab Spring) and its impact On regional stability

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Muhannad Al Janabi Al Janabi
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Regional Stability ◽  
National Integration ◽  
Arab Region ◽  
Political Media ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Arab Spring

Since late 2010 and early 2011, the Arab region has witnessed mass protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and other countries that have been referred to in the political, media and other literature as the Arab Spring. These movements have had a profound effect on the stability of the regimes Which took place against it, as leaders took off and contributed to radical reforms in party structures and public freedoms and the transfer of power, but it also contributed to the occurrence of many countries in an internal spiral, which led to the erosion of the state from the inside until it became a prominent feature of the Arab) as is the case in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq.

Conflict of international and regional strategies and the future of wars in the Arab region "Political stability or political chaos"

2019 ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
Ahmed Fadel Jassim Dawood
Keyword(s):  
Political Stability ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Arab Region ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Regional Strategies ◽  
Regional Competition ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Political Differences

The Arab region is of great importance as an important part of the Middle East for both international and regional powers.This importance has placed it and its peoples in the suffering of international and regional interventions and has placed it in a state of permanent instability as it witnessed international and regional competition that increased significantly after the US intervention in Iraq in 2003. Accordingly, the research aims to shed light on the strategic directions of the global and regional powers by knowing their objectives separately, such as American, Russian, Turkish, Israeli and Iranian. The course aims at determining the future of this region in terms of political stability and lack thereof. Therefore, the hypothesis of the research comes from [that the different strategic visions and political and economic interests between the international and regional powers have exacerbated the conflicts between those forces and their alliances within the Arab region.. The third deals with the future of the Arab region in light of the conflict of these strategies. Accordingly, the research reached a number of conclusions confirming the continuation of international and regional competition within the Arab region, as well as the continuation of the state of conflict, tension, instability and chaos in the near term, as a result of the inability of Arab countries to overcome their political differences on the one hand and also their inability to advance their Arab reality. In the face of external challenges on the other.

Turkey’s Burgeoning Defense Technological and Industrial Base and Expeditionary Military Policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Summer 2020) ◽  
pp. 115-130
Author(s):  
Can Kasapoğlu
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Hybrid Warfare ◽  
Industrial Base ◽  
Weapon Systems ◽  
Drone Warfare

As the incumbent Turkish administration strives to pursue more aspiring goals in foreign affairs, Turkey’s military policy is fast developing in line with this vision. The nation’s defense technological and industrial base can now produce various conventional weaponry. Of these, without a doubt, Turkey’s drone warfare assets have garnered the utmost attention among the international strategic community. In tandem, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) have gradually gained an expeditionary posture with forward deployments across a broad axis, ranging from the Horn of Africa to the Gulf and the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the military’s doctrinal order of battle has been transforming to address the unfolding hybrid warfare challenges in Ankara’s hinterland. Turkey’s proxy warfare capabilities have also registered an uptrend in this respect. Nevertheless, Ankara will have to deal with certain limitations in key segments, particularly 5th generation aircraft and strategic weapon systems which, together, represent a severe intra-war deterrence gap in Turkey’s defense posture. The Turkish administration will have to address this specific shortfall given the problematic threat landscape at the nation’s Middle Eastern doorstep. This study covers two interrelated strategic topics regarding Turkey’s national military capacity in the 21st century: its defense technological and industrial base (DTIB) and its military policy, both currently characterized by a burgeoning assertiveness.

Afars of Ethiopia in the system of ethnic federalism

2018 ◽  
pp. 126-146
Author(s):  
Roza Ismagilova
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
State Structure ◽  
Ethnic Federalism

The article pioneers the analyses of the results of ethnic federalism introduced in Ethiopia in 1991 – and its influence on Afar. Ethnicity was proclaimed the fundamental principle of the state structure. The idea of ethnicity has become the basis of official ideology. The ethnic groups and ethnic identity have acquired fundamentally importance on the political and social levels . The country has been divided into nine ethnically-based regions. The article exposes the complex ethno-political and economic situation in the Afar State, roots and causes of inter- and intra-ethnic relations and conflicts with Amhara, Oromo, Tigray and Somali-Issa, competition of ethnic elites for power and recourses. Alive is the idea of “The Greater Afar”which would unite all Afar of the Horn of Africa. The protests in Oromia and Amhara Regions in 2015–2017 influenced the Afar state as welll. The situation in Ethiopia nowadays is extremely tense. Ethiopia is plunging into serious political crisis. Some observers call it “the beginning of Ethiopian spring”, the others – “Color revolution”

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