Pirates on the high seas

THERE IS nothing romantic about the piracy that has become a threat to sailors' lives and shipping off the coast of Somalia. The expanding reach and sophistication of the pirates' operations are a threat to maritime commerce and exacerbate the security concerns of countries dependent on open sea lanes.

The worsening peril of modern piracy was on display this week with the capture of a Saudi oil tanker 450 miles off the shore of east Africa - a hostage-taking that coincided with the hijacking of an Iranian cargo ship and followed the September seizure of a Ukranian ship with 33 Soviet-era tanks on board. Piracy in the heavily trafficked Gulf of Aden and a widening arc of the Indian Ocean has more than doubled so far this year, with 80 ships attacked and 60 hijacked.

This is a highly organized and lucrative criminal enterprise. Insurers and ship owners pay ever-larger ransoms to save the lives of captured crew members and to retrieve vessels and cargoes that are worth many times the payments made to the pirates.

There was concern that some of the weapons on the hijacked Ukrainian ship would end up in the hands of Islamists seeking to overthrow Somalia's weak interim government. But generally the pirates' operations have nothing to do with the Islamists. They demonstrate, however, how a failed or failing state such as Somalia can pose an economic and security threat to countries far from its shores.

The International Maritime Organization has ships from many nations that patrol international waters. But they have not deterred the Somali pirates. In the absence of a Somali state able to enforce the law, a multinational force is needed that can go ashore, capture the criminals, break up their support networks, and bring them to justice. The need for such a force highlights the case for a world order based on international cooperation and collective security.