Changes in the international power structure in the last two decades as well as the rapid increase in international trade have created an environment that is both vulnerable to maritime piracy and lucrative for those who might engage in such activity. The volume of trade conducted on the high seas (in excess of $1 trillion annually) provides would-be pirates a tempting target, especially where legitimate economic opportunities in their home countries may be unsatisfactory or even non-existent. Further, the collapse of the global security umbrellas characteristic of Cold War power dynamics has meant that maritime security around small, weak states virtually does not exist. The Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy has prepared this Policy Brief to survey the history of maritime piracy, explain the drivers of its recent resurgence as a global security threat, evaluate the success of recent antipiracy measures, and suggest some policy tools that may be more effective at curtailing the lure of such brigandry.

The Brief is divided into a short introduction describing the recent trends in and impact of maritime piracy and three more substantive sections. The first section provides a brief history of maritime piracy as well as its evolution into a more recent phenomenon. Innovations and improvements in maritime technology and the expansion of international sea trade coupled with the absence of a capable police presence by smaller states in heavily trafficked trade routes are the underlying global conditions that have led to the resurgence in the incidents of maritime piracy.

The second section differentiates between the factors that motivated piracy in ancient and early modern eras from those that underscore the frequency of attacks in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Though the root factors – poorly regulated seas or profitable economic opportunities – are common to both past and contemporary incidents of maritime piracy, there are some differences in the drivers of piracy in the modern period, especially state fragility and the absence of legitimate employment opportunities in weak states. Also important here is the diversion of resources from maritime security to protections against international terrorism.

The third section elaborates on the trends in maritime piracy incidents over the last 20 years. Maritime attacks, though a global phenomenon, occur largely in specific regional clusters. These often coincide with established and highly trafficked shipping lanes close to territorial waters. Moreover, not all states near such trade routes experience episodes of maritime piracy with equal frequency. Those who rank higher on The New Barbary Wars: Assesing the Threat of Modern Day Piracy 2 The Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy Baker Center for Public Policy Policy Brief | 2 political fragility indices, are prone to corruption, or that experience high rates of unemployment are much more likely to serve as shelters for pirate groups.

Our concluding section evaluates the effectiveness of international policing mechanisms and argues that though these must necessarily be part of any successful global antipiracy regime, they are insufficient to deter would-be pirates from pursuing such illicit activity. Rather, policies that address the underlying conditions that enable pirate groups – fragile and corrupt governments and dissatisfactory economic environments – are much more likely to succeed at decreasing the frequency of such attacks.