Decreasing Variance in Response Time to Singular Incidents of Piracy in the Horn of Africa Area of Operation

摘要

Instances of piracy have been increasing since 2006 and the international community can ignore this problem no more. Unfortunately, legal, socioeconomic, and technological issues hinder multinational efforts to combat piracy effectively. Responses to events of piracy are oftentimes late, as the reporting of incidents can be mired in legal issues. However, there is a technology that can notify companies that a ship is being attacked by pirates as the attack occurs, or even prior to the attack if the attackers display intent. This technology is the Ship Security Alert System (SSAS), and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has mandated that all ships greater than 500 gross tons be equipped with an SSAS. The problem lies in who should receive the SSAS attack alert notification. Currently, these distress signals only go to the company that owns the ship. This thesis will investigate the implications of SSAS reports being directly fed to existing Navy networks. The thesis shows that small changes to existing Navy Maritime Operations C2 structure could result in an optimization in force employment and timeliness of response.