The Not-So-Jolly Roger: Dealing with Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea
A new essay by SWJ El Centro fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown:
In “The Not-So-Jolly Roger: Dealing with Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea,” featured within Brookings’ January 2014 “Foresight Africa” report, Vanda Felbab-Brown explores policy options for responding to maritime piracy off Eastern and Western Africa, and its modalities, manifestations, and causes in the two regions. While the incidence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden has declined in the past two years, pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea are on the rise. In some key ways, including as a result of preexisting bunkered oil smuggling networks, the modus operandi of pirates off West Africa is fundamentally different than off Somalia. For this and other reasons, policies that helped suppress piracy off Somalia will not easily be implementable in the Gulf of Guinea.