Somali Pirates: Rise and Fall of the Piracy Tide

Thanks to our friends at the IMB's Live Piracy Map, we have a chance to review the rise and fall of the Somali piracy tide.

What follows is a little over 7 year look at the impact of the pirates in the offshore Somalia region and in the Indian Ocean area writ large:

It took some time for the response to catch up with the threat to the sea lanes - for navies to deploy, to create a structure, to organize convoys, plan and carry out interdiction and for the use of armed guards on merchant ships to take effect.

A rather dramatic effect.

Will it last?

Let's hope.

For those of you needing a primer or refresher on sea lanes or sea lines of communications, you might go here or here or here from whence the following graphics on sea highways came:

Blue arrows point to major choke points

One day's ship traffic as seen from space

An overlay I created of pirate attacks on traveled sea lanes in Feb 2011