Chinese flag up anti-pirate fleet

China is considering sending ships to fight pirates off the Horn of Africa in what would be the country’s first significant long-range naval combat mission since the 15th century.

Senior Colonel Huang Xueping, spokesman for China’s ministry of national defence, told the FT an anti-piracy mission was “still in the consideration stage”. But he said: “There will be an announcement very soon.”

What’s wrong with this? Nothing in and of itself, but why isn’t the US Navy acting against piracy?

What in the heck do we have the 5th Fleet in the Indian Ocean for?

The U.S. Navy built its first ships in the 1790’s specifically to respond to demands for “tribute” from Islamic pirates operating from North Africa. Prior to the vote, one Congressman proclaimed “MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE! NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE!”, and Congress voted accordingly to build such historic ships as the frigate USS Constitution (which is still officially commissioned and on the fleet list).

Nowadays we’re saddled with Admirals that apparently couldn’t find their posteriors with assistance from GPS, extra lookouts, along with surface and air-search radars as evidenced by their apparent lack of knowledge of what our naval ships can do.

Admiral Mike Mullen has expressed surprise at the range of action demonstrated by the Islamopirates operating out of Somalia, and has apparently forgotten that navy ships have GUNS that REALLY can shoot, and MISSILES that do a good job at killing enemies and breaking their stuff too. Perhaps India, whose Navy has demonstrated that it remembers this basic knowledge can send us some advisors to refresh the memory of the Pentagon about the capabilities of naval warships.

The Chief would have thought that the US just MIGHT be able to exercise some leadership in dealing with this problem…but not until those in charge manage to rediscover that they have some cojones. Unfortunately, there probably won’t be much, if any, improvement from the incoming B.O. administration. More’s the pity.