Does anyone have access to Jane's Fighting Ships?

[fatty]

I'm trying to find info on Indonesia's navy. Nothing too in depth - basically the types and names of surface combatants and when they were commissioned. The more modern the better - nothing older than 2003 will help me.

If someone can scan some excerpts for me it would be appreciated. Wikipedia has what I need and it cites JFS, but, well, it's Wikipedia. I dunno if my school has a license but I might ask around next week.

Thanks in advance.

[JALU3]

Have you tried Hazy Gray, FAS, Global Security, or world warships?

[fatty]

Haze Gray and GlobalSecurity are out of date and FAS has nothing. WorldWarships on the other hand seems to have a pretty comprehensive list and is a resource I never knew about! Thank you JALU3

[Marcantilan]

Fatty, old writing partner, how are you?

The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World (the main Jane´s antagonist) could be partly accesed online via Google books.

And luckily for you, the Indonesian Navy chapter (p. 307) is fully readable.

http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=...orld#PPA307,M1

Regards,
Mariano

[fatty]

Originally Posted by Marcantilan

Fatty, old writing partner, how are you?

The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World (the main Jane´s antagonist) could be partly accesed online via Google books.

And luckily for you, the Indonesian Navy chapter (p. 307) is fully readable.

http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=...orld#PPA307,M1

Regards,
Mariano

Perfect Mariano! Up to date as well with the new Sigma corvettes. Thanks so much.

I am not doing too badly. Another foot of snow today is making me wish it was June. I am working on a thesis project evaluating core conditions underlying maritime piracy and was looking for info on Indonesia's navy for a chapter on deterring pirates.

How have you been? I sent you an email a few months ago asking if you were interested in working together to prepare something on the San Luis to submit to Proceedings, but didn't hear from you. Hope all is well.

[Marcantilan]

Wow, snow.

37º in here. The place is like an opened oven. "Luckily" for me, I spent all day inside an air conditioned office.

I don´t recall the mail you told me, but because is last year I was "invaded" by Lola, my baby daughter. And everything was a mess then.

Now, things more settled down, I´m writing an essay about ASW in the South Atlantic conflict, from the Argentine perspective. (I already interviewed many former Tracker / Sea King pilots, surface ships officers and NCOs, checked official and unnofficial sources, etc. - lot of work involved)

Anyway, is a pleasure to hear from you and know that you are fine.

And surely we can work together this year to submit something about naval warfare (San Luis or others!) to Proceedings or Naval History!

Please, and finally, could you sent me your thesis when finished (I enjoyed very much your previous works)?

Best Regards,
Mariano

[fatty]

Ok, be sure to let me know by PM here or by email (mattgillis@dal.ca works best) when you want to take a look at something. My schedule is pretty thick through March but April and beyond, I should be pretty free.

And thanks, I will be sure to forward my thesis on to you. My draft is due 6 March so expect it sometime around then.

[JALU3]

When you do submit to proceedings, the USNI magazine right? Please send us a link, I would love to see what you have to contribute.

[fatty]

Will do JALU

[fatty]

For Mariano and all others who may be interested, I have uploaded my penultimate draft. You can find it here. Comments and criticism appreciated

[JALU3]

Up to page 13 so far, and it's a good read so far. A little dry, but I like dry, I watch C-SPAN for entertainment.

Up to this point I would like to point out, something that you have pointed out to this point, but can be expanded beyond piracy ... non-state actors are able to grow and act freely where a nation's sovereignty (laws) are not enforced. Pirates, are non-state actors, acting in accordance to their own individual and private wills. We don't call State vessels assigned to attack merchant shipping pirates, we consider them merchant raiders who are part of a navy, or if they are private individuals with contracts from the State they are termed Corsairs or Privateers. Even in areas where there is poverty and high unemployment, as long as the sovereignty of the state is enforced, piracy is lowered.
This I assume supports the theory that failed or failing states is a leading factor in piracy. In cases such as Iraq which you stated as an example of a failed state with low piracy events reported, there are still active groups enforcing a law based structure (coalition, and to some extent militant islamist, forces).

Will add more as I continue to read.

Page 29:
"Long period of growth and prosperity in East Asian markets was shattered in 1197 with an unprecedented crash in values of currencies and stocks coiciding with a spike in privately-held debt."
Hmmm ... Sounds familar, but unrelated to your purpose of writing this essay. Moving along.

Great section 6 by the way. Jurisdiction analysis, force make up, and cooperation between the maritime nations in the region, all well done.

I have to wonder though whether older admiralty laws still apply for navies that had them, or can be extended.
Furthermore, although there is an acting UN backed government in Mogadishu. Where there is no State, how can another nation violate the sovereignty of a State that doesn't exist, unless it can be argueed that the UN backed government in Mogadishu is the sovereign one, and thus couldn't it then give authorization for forces other than their own to assist it in policing its territorial waters?

(Making comments at about page 46) Piracy and Terrorism, Section 7. Hijacking & Kidnapping by Abu Sayyaf. Something else you can look at, also in terms of how often it has happened in the past, and how it has declined or is different (with the "pirates" only taking people due to the target for the authorities that the ship itself creates for domestic authorities) from those within, and originating from, Indonesia and Somalia.
Also, something relating to security effectiveness. Is it possible that due to the lack of Navy and enforcement and protection of Panamanian and other Flag of Courtesy Vessels form those nation that are supposedly responsible (the flag which the vessel is registered to) for them, does that increase the likely-hood of those vessels being targetted. Where as, for example, there is a known risk of bring the wrath of the Royal Navy or US Navy against your pirating group, when targetting UK or US flagged vessels. For even in a foreign nation's waters, the nation which a vessel is registered to still has a certain authority to act on those vessels behalf (much in the same way, in the air, the laws of the nation which the aircraft is registered to, are the laws that are enforced upon that aircraft).

(made at page 51) The question is, and thus a big policy debate between enforcement types and economic/rehabilitation types (which is debated in areas outside of Piracy, and which we have seen here on these forums), which is more cost effective? Economic elevating of a coastal region (thus the lack of need of piracy), or the lack enforcement of laws against piracy (thus the increase of risk associated with the act).

Overall a good essay. To bad you couldn't use or cite some of the discussions from Subsim forum in your essay (I know, it would decrease the professional look of the paper). But can you toss us a collective bone? Maybe include us as proof readers? ;-)

[fatty]

Thanks for your comments, this is good practice for my thesis defence. I will try to address your points in order and clarify things in the essay.

I think I can see what you mean with your first point; Iraq is considered a failed state yet has no piracy, so the failed state condition is of limited utility, but wait, there's a huge coalition navy (big deterrent) keeping station off the coast. The Failed State Index is a curious animal that way. I challenge its utility in describing or predicting piracy for this reason; there's a lot more to the kinds of opportunities available for coastal economies and to effective deterrence then is accurately conveyed by the Failed State Index. So out of the top ten failed states listed in the FSI, only Somalia really has any pirate activity worth mentioning. Indonesia is #60 in the list (actually beneath Israel) but up until a few years ago had more piracy than Somalia. A failed state by definition lacks legitimate alternatives for would-be criminals and is unable to enforce its sovereignty or security, but only evaluating countries through this perspective is too simplistic. To accurate predict a specific occurance like piracy you need to put more weigh on variables like profitability (are there lots of juicy targets out there?) and access to equipment (are we unemployed fishermen with boats we can use for piracy?). The FSI doesn't do this.

Haha, I swear I wasn't trying to draw any connections, I swear Just trying to give some background on the fallout from the Asian Financial Crisis in Indonesia, I will revise.

Thanks, I assume you mean the section 5, on dimensions of risk, my supervisor also thought this was my strongest chapter.

Mogadishu has expressed its interest in cooperating with international security forces in battling pirates but my suspicion is that they are getting a cut of the profits and won't follow up on this.

I am not sure I understand your bit about p.46, can you maybe clarify?

You are right about the flagging bit. Under Article 98 of UNCLOS, if a U.S.-flagged warship saw a U.S.-flagged merchant under attack by pirates within Somali territorial waters, the warship can invoke self-defence and move in to assist. As you note the problem is that there is not much U.S.-flagged commercial traffic. Hopefully the UN resolutions I cite will make the problem of Somali maritime sovereignty a non-issue.

Regarding risk vs. gain as cost-effectiveness, and thanks for reminding me that this needs clarifying, you need to address both. You can bring in your navy or marine police and piracy will disappear, but to keep piracy down you're going to need to maintain a significant presence (deterrent) indefinitely, because as soon as you leave you can expect piracy to return. A perpetual security presence is an expensive prospect. On the other hand, if you want to develop a region, build roads, schools, warehouses or whatever, a lot of angry guys with RPGs and AKs are going to make that a little challenging. Think of it this way. If you, the coastal settlement, have only security, nobody is going to come and buy your fish because you aren't selling any. If you have only development, nobody is going to come and buy your fish because you chase everyone away in your speedboat with your RPG. The two approaches must go together.

Thanks again for your comments. I will put SUBSIM.com in my acknowledgements If you want, PM me your real name and I will put that in too.

[JALU3]

Originally Posted by fatty

I am not sure I understand your bit about p.46, can you maybe clarify?

What I meant to say is, piracy, although not as common in the waters of the Philippine Islands/Republic of the Philippines as it is with its neighbor to the south (partially due to the fact that the shipping lanes in Indonesia are that much more active), is still present, this is due to the fact that inter island travel is very important. As with shipping to air transportation, shipping is a more cost effective alternative when time sensitivity is not an issue. However, in the Philippines there is as with Indonesia a very strong security presence which allows for enforcement of the nation's sovereignty which makes keeping a hijacked vessel very easy to target. Therefore, rather than taking ships, most often groups associated with terrorist organization, who use piracy as a funding source, rather than taking the vessel which would only tie them down to a single location, take individuals, and ransom the individuals instead. Illegal detention and ransoming of the vessel and cargo as you pointed out is only one part of modern ransom based piracy, the other part are the crew and/or passengers. Very often passengers of wealthy nations will be specifically targeted, usually from the west, because they can bring a higher ransom. Furthermore individuals are far more hide-able and transportable than vessels.

Originally Posted by fatty

Regarding risk vs. gain as cost-effectiveness, and thanks for reminding me that this needs clarifying, you need to address both. You can bring in your navy or marine police and piracy will disappear, but to keep piracy down you're going to need to maintain a significant presence (deterrent) indefinitely, because as soon as you leave you can expect piracy to return. A perpetual security presence is an expensive prospect. On the other hand, if you want to develop a region, build roads, schools, warehouses or whatever, a lot of angry guys with RPGs and AKs are going to make that a little challenging. Think of it this way. If you, the coastal settlement, have only security, nobody is going to come and buy your fish because you aren't selling any. If you have only development, nobody is going to come and buy your fish because you chase everyone away in your speedboat with your RPG. The two approaches must go together.

I see what you are talking about.
It's been my opinion that security breeds investment, which brings economic growth and local than regional prosperity. Provide a secure and lawful environment and the market needs of the population will eventually draw business to it, whether from outside sources or from within that area itself. Security will allow goods from that market to flow out safetly, and will allow goods from outside that market to flow in. Granted, because it's a near cashless system (due to lack of foreign capital), it may need to start on some sort of barter base at first, but eventually that'll change to a money based systems once things stabilize

[fatty]

Thanks again for your input and help, all. I defended my thesis last Friday and was awarded an 'A' overall, and was told I am a strong contender for the award for best thesis in the programme, which comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

My finalized thesis is here, including my thanks to SUBSIM.com in the acknowledgement section