by
Austin BayFebruary 26, 2025
The 21st century may well be the new age of privateers -- armed commercial sailors fighting pirates, terrorists and cartel criminals threatening offshore oil rigs.
Why hire private naval security? Because national navies and coast guards are stretched thin by a lack of funding or threats of war. Or, in the case of the USA, vexed by short-sighted Pentagon fleet-building and general American military global overcommitment (Red Sea?) exacerbated by the prospect of war with China in the Pacific.
The last paragraph summarizes America's strategic maritime security dilemma.
Private commercial maritime security companies may be part of a responsible and effective answer to naval mismanagement and overcommitment. Privateering is a transactional option. Issuing the Letters of Marque and Reprisal to the new breed of capable anti-pirate and anti-terrorist sea dogs would make sense to the transactional Trump White House.
Honest history helps frame the present dilemma.
Wikipedia's privateering summary gets the gist. Historically, Letters of Marque authorized private sea captains or vessels (the privateers) "to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with the issuer, licensing international military operations against a specified enemy as reprisal for a previous attack or injury."
The writs let governments employ private captains and armed private ships to conduct commerce raiding and other naval operations instead of deploying their own national naval fleets.
The usual goal: save money. While the privateers roamed, the national battle fleet could protect the homeland from peer fleets (e.g., England squaring off with France). Secondary goal: privateers could quickly and globally expand naval combat capabilities when the national fleet was 1) overtasked, 2) overextended or 3) overmatched by a peer enemy.
Today the U.S Navy and Coast Guard are definitely Case 1 (overtasked) and frequently Case 2, which indicates, should war with China erupt in the western Pacific U.S., maritime forces could face a Case 3 disaster -- overmatched in the critical theater.
In a July 2022 column addressing threats facing U.S. maritime and offshore assets in the Gulf of Mexico (America!), I noted Coast Guard shortfalls and suggested this answer: "In WWII Washington deputized private craft to patrol against U-boats, with Ernest Hemingway aboard his fishing boat being the most famous example."
Yes -- FDR hired shrimp fishermen and yachtsmen as U-boat hunters.
In a May 2023 column, I revisited the Gulf and international maritime vulnerabilities:
"Mexican drug cartels have seized drilling platforms in the Bay of Campeche ... (they) rob drilling crews and demand ransom ... Pirates, Iranian ayatollahs and other bad actors engaged in sea crime send a message about the vulnerability of the global supply chain ... The statistics are no secret: 80% of international trade by volume goes by ship, 70% by value ... The U.S. Navy needs to focus on China, not escorting ships through (the Strait of) Hormuz. The U.S. Coast Guard has too many tasks and too few ships ... How to solve the escort problem?
"On-shore we have private security companies. So why not carefully regulated private maritime security companies, to defend offshore oil rigs, pipelines and wind farms? Marine insurance corporations may eventually demand their ships provide escort for commercial vessels -- and stop the pirates from boarding."
2025 -- suddenly a privateer media wave?
On Feb. 11, Breitbart.com summarized an "Alex Marlow Show" interview with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Lee wants to employ privateers, per Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution authorizing Congress to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal." Lee argued letters of marque would be "a really creative tool" that could "weaken the drug cartels."
In his Feb. 24 New York Post column, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds reported, "On Feb. 13, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) introduced legislation allowing the president to issue letters of marque and reprisal against cartels ..."
Reynolds (see Instapundit.com) also speculated privateers could chase Iran's illegal oil smuggling fleet.
As for arming privateer counter-smuggling and maritime escort missions? In September 2022, I wrote a column about a boat Forbes mentioned in 2020: the H96, designed by Texas-based technologist George Hamilton. H96-type small but longer-range vessels can pack powerful anti-ship and anti-air weapons -- and give the Navy some backup.