Frontex - Operation Hermes 2011

Frontex is the external border control agency of the Schengen countries that was set up in 2005. It tries to streamline all the national capabilities in the Schengen countries, and they can call upon Frontex to help them when they have problems.

Several countries in the south of Europe have done so in the recent past. That is why there was a Dutch minesweeper doing Coast Guard duties in Spanish waters and there were Dutch gendarmes guarding the Greek border.

Italy is the latest country to call upon Frontex to help them with the massive influx of Tunisian refugees.

Frontex received a formal request for assistance on February 15th from the Italian Ministry of Interior regarding the extraordinary migratory situation in the Pelagic Islands. The Italian Government requested assistance in strengthening the surveillance of the EU’s external borders in the form of a Joint Operation. Additionally, Italy requested a targeted risk analysis on the possible future scenarios of the increased migratory pressure in the region in the light of recent political developments in North Africa and the possibility of the opening up of a further migratory front in the Central Mediterranean area.

The Dutch have said they will help, thus you can now see a Dutch Coast Guard plane flying over the Mediterranean Sea.

So in the past 6 months 3 of Europe's southern countries have asked Frontex to help them and with the current situation in Libya chances of less refugees trying to get to Europe look slim.

Libyan Navy Bombs Residential Areas

From the Guardian Live Blog following activities in Libya.

Salem Gnan, a London-based spokesman for the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, says eyewitnesses in Tripoli have told him the navy has opened fire on parts of the capital.

We have just heard that the military ships are bombing an area in Tripoli and many people have been killed although we don't know how many at the moment because people have just called to tell us it is happening.

Gnan said the navy appeared to be bombing a residential area outside the city centre as part of a desperate crackdown by Gaddafi's troops.

He is even turning the ships on his people now. His plan is to use absolutely everything he can to stop what is happening.

Gnan said he had had also had reports of ongoing shooting around Gaddafi's residence in Tripoli and said more people were taking to the capital's streets as darkness fell. "This is going on because if it stops that means it is finished. This will be the last act." He said people were travelling to Tripoli from across the west of Libya for a "final showdown."

I have had calls from people in towns and cities all across Libya. Those in the east can not get out but those in towns and cities in western Libya, everybody is saying: "We are going to Tripoli." The plan is to come from everywhere and go to Tripoli to sack the city, for the finish.

There are also reports that several Air Force fighters have defected to Malta, suggesting there may be some cracks in the military as well.

Libya no longer looks like a revolution, it is starting to look more and more like a civil war.

Wikipedia has a list of vessels in the Libyan Navy here.

Iranian Navy Set to Cross Suez Canal

The Associated Press has confirmed when the Iranians will cross the Suez Canal.

Suez Canal officials say two Iranian naval vessels are expected to start their passage through the strategic waterway early Tuesday.

Canal officials say the ships are expected to pay a fee of $290,000 for the crossing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

If the ships make the passage, it would mark the first time in three decades that Iranian military ships have traveled the canal that links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

It seems pretty clear that from the Iranian point of view, this is a communication exercise. Timing for Tuesday, they are hoping for maximum impact to make the headlines on Tuesday as folks get back to work after a three day weekend.

The question isn't if anyone will do anything - the US Navy guarantees freedom of the seas to the world, including Iran. The question is whether people will overreact politically to news of the transit. Keep in mind, it is to the advantage of Israel and Iran for the US markets to overreact, because impacts to our markets give cover to politicians who support Israel's claim the Iranian Naval movements are bad for the US. I

don't see any scenario where the US Navy reacts to the Iranians in any way. I will never to presume to know what Israel will do when it comes to Iran.

For those who are curious, yes, I do believe the purpose of the Iranian naval force is to deliver weapons for Hezbollah in Lebanon. This voyage is expensive for Iran, so I am thinking there must be a payoff in it somewhere otherwise it wouldn't be done.

Somali Pirates Hijack American Flagged Yacht

On Friday news began to emerge that an American flagged yacht S/V Quest had been hijacked by pirates about 275 miles off the coast of Oman. It is believed there are 4 American citizens on the yacht. Below is the news report from CBS News.

If the yacht is not disable somehow and the yacht reaches the coast, this is going to get ugly. The value of "four hostages and a little yacht" is less than the value of "four American Christian missionaries - who make for excellent propaganda tools worth plenty of money in that part of the world. Yes, pirates are capitalists, which means they will sell to Al Shabaab, or can use them as barter to keep Al Shabaab out of their business.

Thucydides and the Maritime Sphere

Since Thursday I’ve been in San Antonio attending a Liberty Fund conference on Thucydides. I have some thoughts on our approach and on the general thrust of discussion over at LGM (and some thoughts on the utility of the iPad during conferences at iPatt), but here I thought that I’d talk a bit about a couple of the strategic and political issues we identified that had maritime implications.

1. What accounts for the passivity of Athens initial strategy, and could a better strategy have been chosen? Even the primary advocates for war against Sparta pressed for a passive, peripheral strategy that avoided direct confrontation with Athenian land power. This led to the odd and potentially contradictory combination of Periclean rhetoric that emphasized passion, honor, duty, and sacrifice with policy that was coldly calculated, and that viewed the repeated Spartan depredations of Attica with dispassion. It is unclear that the Athenians ever had a clear, robust theory of the Spartan center of gravity. We get hints of such a theory occasionally, as when the Athenians feint toward supporting a helot revolt, or when Cleon emphasizes the need to humiliate Sparta in front of its allies following the disaster at Pylos. One of the reasons that the Sicilian Expedition seems poorly thought out is that it lacks a clear and obvious connection to the defeat of Sparta and Sparta’s allies. Indeed, the debate over the Sicilian Expedition seems characterized in large part by the need to use the greater portion of Athenian military power in some fashion, without a particularly well thought out idea of the connection between operations and strategy. At the conference, we theorized that the Athenian democracy may have been poorly constructed on this point, and not very good at linking operational capability to a broader strategic theory. We wondered whether this was generally the case with democracies, but didn’t come to any solid conclusions. For my own part, I’m quite skeptical that the Periclean strategy pursued by Athens at the outset of the war could have produced “victory” in any meaningful sense. I think that in the case of the Second Punic War, you do see a state pursuing a passive, peripheral strategy (at least after Cannae) to a successful conclusion, but it’s difficult for me to see how the Athenian strategy in the Peloponnesian War leads to a Spartan Zama.
2. What was the relevance of Athenian seapower? Athens was obviously the major maritime power in the Peloponnese, although the Spartan coalition eventually defeated Athens at sea. The fleet was, in essence, Athens center of gravity; destruction of the fleet meant that the Athenian war effort could not survive. A question that emerged in one of the sessions was whether Athenian seapower had any “soft power” implications. Thucydides talk a bit about trade and about piracy, but he doesn’t provide a robust theory of seapower. We can probably assume that, as the dominant navy in the region, the Athenian fleet provided some of the collective goods that we associated with modern seapower. This is to say that it deterred the Persians, quelled piracy, facilitated trade, and probably carried out some basic relief and rescue functions. The Athenian navy obviously lacked big deck amphibs, and it probably lacked any kind of sophisticated theory of common goods, but simply by the weight of its numbers must have played a large role in such operations as rescuing shipwrecked sailors, carrying VIPs and merchants to new locales, and even resolving some maritime disputes. One might expect that some form of “soft power” would flow from this regulatory function. In Thucydides, however, this effect is nowhere in evidence. For the most part, people don’t like Athens, don’t see Athens as a necessary regulator, view Athenian military power in zero-sum terms, and often take risks in order to hurt Athens. This leads to a few questions. First, does Thucydides not see the soft power effect of maritime strength because he’s not looking for it? The idea that naval power can be positive sum is a relatively modern development, so the effect of Athenian systemic regulation might exist without anyone noticing its impact. This leads to a second question, however. Does the development of “soft power” through maritime means require a robust theory of the relationship between strong navies and system regulation? In other words, do we need a compelling theory of how navies create soft power in order for the effect to happen? If Athens allies didn’t have a vocabulary with which to understand the value of Athenian naval hegemony, and if Athens itself also lacked that vocabulary, then whatever positive effects Athenian power had might have been lost. Third, can we read Thucydides as a challenge to the idea that naval power (or really any power) can be understood in positive sum terms? Broadly speaking, the Athenians, their allies, and their enemies seem quite skeptical about the idea of positive sum interactions. Even the alliance against Persia is positive sum for the Greeks only. I wonder if Thucydides would be dismissive of the ideas that a cooperative seapower strategy could hold any benefit for a power with hegemonic aspirations.