Nobody notices that the US crew retook the ship. I am not sure we know whether they had arms or not. It really does not matter. If they did, they should not say so. Actually, knives are permitted and would be sufficient to the task. Israeli paratroopers and naval commandos are taught how to fight with knives. US Merchant Marines should be.

The important thing is that the American sailors had leadership, training, and courage — the “moral” counting for more than the “material”. That is something our Merchant Marine was legendary for. It is something action-movie or video-game fans and chickenhawk politicos have no idea of and most ship-owners will not pay extra for.

The naval ordnance implications of piracy today are not simply smaller and faster vessels. As any naval architect knows smaller makes it harder to go faster, and faster reduces ordnance and crew. The LCS — the Royal American Navy would certainly not lower itself to calling it a corvette — may not be the answer. How did that Israeli corvette do off of Beirut in operations against Hizb’allah? Not so hot.

The best we can do with faster, smaller paramaters are our nuclear submarines. But, they are not designed for littoral patrol, recon, or surveillance. We do not have and the USN does not want to have small, diesel-electric submarines — too German.

The key to irregular naval warfare — already demonstrated during the Tanker War phase of the Iraq-Iran war — was a pipe-laying barge chartered for the USN from Brown & Root by the Santa Fe Drilling Company on behalf of the Emir of Kuwait. Our resourceful Admiral captured the first prize vessel in about a century and suppressed the Pasdaran. He got a medal and walking papers by the Navy Department for making fools of the Grand Admirals and their big-ticket, nearly useless capital ships.

For a time after that, the Navy actually considered what I called an Auxiliary Platform Ship — T-APX. That would be a huge semi-submersible vessel which could be dynamically positioned or anchored anywhere for very long periods. It would be “cheap” (per ton) and “re-configurable” to support all manner of aircraft and boats and military, logistical, or humanitarian missions.

But, it could not deploy fast unless towed by some warships whose captains would find that a slight to their dignity. Even then, not much more than 15 kts. And, it would just be a “tender” — nothing out of Hornblower or Mahan.

The USN has nothing to fight piracy with and does not tolerate any sort of innovation in its ordnance other than the “figure of merit” absurdities it cannot afford to fight. It does not welcome improvisation by commanding officers trained for nothing but silly drills, rigged war-games such as Gen. Van Riper was canned over, and, of course, the revolving door of Congressional lobbies and industries.

I hope the merchant captain will be returned. I don’t care what happens to the pirates — there will always be millions of them everywhere. They can be suppressed and deterred but only to a certain point.

This will not be a turning point though until a dozen admirals maybe even twenty stars all told are relieved for the gross unpreparedness of our preposterous fleet and the Secretary of the Navy is more than just a large campaign contributor.