Originally Posted by Tribesman

Inexpensive?
So lets take a busy month in pirateland, say 1800 ships just using the gulf of aden for the canal, add on a couple of thousand ships in coastal trade, a few thousand taking the southern route.
Put just four mercenaries on each boat and that's a hell of a big expensive wage bill even without all the overheads.
Now if you add the many many thousands of fishing vessels in the red sea and Indian ocean which are also subject to attack that "inexpensive" solution becomes a truly astronomical cost.
Just sayin'.