The Economics of Piracy

I was pleased to see my Bloomberg column on piracy getting picked up in papers in Seattle, Taiwan and India, amongst others. I guess people are interested in pirates - one reason I might well use that as the subject of the next Death Force thriller. My main point was that you can't deal with pirates until you deal with the chaos in Somalia. I have a feeling that in the next 20 years, the world is going to start getting involved in Africa again. You can't just leave a whole continent in chaos. But what? Not a neo-colonialist soilution - no one wants that. Something more imaginative is needed.

Mercenaries for Africa

The Wall Street Journal has run an interesting editorial piece wondering whether a mercenary force shouldn't be sent into Dafur to try and sort the place out. It quotes Erik Prince, the controversial founder of the Blackwater private militart corporation, advocating a force of about 250 trained men, who would in turn train up a larger force of African soldiers. Could it happen, I wonder? I suspect it might, although it will be a long time before we are ready for it. Billions are being spent on aid to Africa, but we all know the problems are more political and military than economic. Until you have stable governments, with the rule of law, there isn't going to be any real progress. That mean toppling the madmen. In the long run it would be far cheaper and far more effective to employ a mercenary force to impose order. People will resist the idea, largely because of the legacy of colonialism. But it so obviously makes sense, I suspect they will come around to it eventually.