Somalia hasn’t had a working government when Islamists started an insurgency against the central government in 1991. This failure of the Somali government to ensure its own territorial security and inability to gaurd its coastline have directly influenced the increase in piracy. This has caused the Security Council to authorize all countries, for six months, to enter Somali waters and use “all necessary means” to end the threat of piracy. This has resulted in NATO and Russia undertaking operations in the area to secure the territorial waters of Somalia and prevent piracy.

The other consequence of piracy, especially since a weapons shipment was captured by the Somali pirate groups, is what happens if pirated items such as weapons reach hands in the area. These pirated weapons could be used to destabilize the situation further in Somalia or could be used to destabilize the situation in neighboring countries like the Sudan, where rebel groups are looking for weapons to turn on their governments. This breach in the balance of powers would destabilize the area and likely plunge that section of Africa into further war.

One final piece of information that should be noted is in the Western oriented paper, there is no mention of EU or US and Russian forces co-operating.