Play Pretend Fun Time OK!
Let's play pretend.
Say you are the commander of a fleet in a modern Western nation's navy (pick any one you like). You're given a directive from your government to combat African piracy. Your priorities are as follows, in order:
1) Preserve the safety of any innocents captured at sea or held hostage at sea by pirates.
2) Keep the costs of your operations down.
3) Preserve the safety of your servicemen (and women, depending on who you are).
4) Inflict lasting damage on pirates' ability or desire to prey on Western merchant shipping passing near their operational areas.
5) Prevent loss or capture of ships and cargo.
It is OK if you're a little upside-down financially (that is, if your operations cost your government more annually than the pirates ever have); you have a mandate to protect the innocent and demonstrate to the world that France/Britain/The US/whoever is not to be fucked with.
Assume you have access to all the usual toys a modernized command would - submarines, destroyers (with helicopters), unmanned drones, guided missiles, special forces teams, even satellite reconnaissance if you give enough notice - but not exactly a surplus of manpower. (While it is unlikely that this will matter, your closest land base can be imagined to be Gibraltar).
You have the cooperation of your nation's Marines or an amphibious unit of the Army, but your government is unwilling to authorize actually landing on Somalian soil unless you are 100% sure (and can prove) the operation will bag them a huge PR coup. You will get absolutely no help from your government's civilian intelligence agency (ie MI6, CIA) - they can be imagined to either be inept or uncooperative.
Your superiors recognize that a "textbook approach" is not much good in this situation and will be understanding of the fact that some unorthodoxy may be required to get the job done.
What do you do?
Say you are the commander of a fleet in a modern Western nation's navy (pick any one you like). You're given a directive from your government to combat African piracy. Your priorities are as follows, in order:
1) Preserve the safety of any innocents captured at sea or held hostage at sea by pirates.
2) Keep the costs of your operations down.
3) Preserve the safety of your servicemen (and women, depending on who you are).
4) Inflict lasting damage on pirates' ability or desire to prey on Western merchant shipping passing near their operational areas.
5) Prevent loss or capture of ships and cargo.
It is OK if you're a little upside-down financially (that is, if your operations cost your government more annually than the pirates ever have); you have a mandate to protect the innocent and demonstrate to the world that France/Britain/The US/whoever is not to be fucked with.
Assume you have access to all the usual toys a modernized command would - submarines, destroyers (with helicopters), unmanned drones, guided missiles, special forces teams, even satellite reconnaissance if you give enough notice - but not exactly a surplus of manpower. (While it is unlikely that this will matter, your closest land base can be imagined to be Gibraltar).
You have the cooperation of your nation's Marines or an amphibious unit of the Army, but your government is unwilling to authorize actually landing on Somalian soil unless you are 100% sure (and can prove) the operation will bag them a huge PR coup. You will get absolutely no help from your government's civilian intelligence agency (ie MI6, CIA) - they can be imagined to either be inept or uncooperative.
Your superiors recognize that a "textbook approach" is not much good in this situation and will be understanding of the fact that some unorthodoxy may be required to get the job done.
What do you do?