OPINION | Somalia’s Maritime Crossroads: Multilateral Gains, Bilateral Gambles

by Commodore Ranjit B Rai (Retd)

From Hijacking to Cooperation: The Turning Point of 2009

The seizure of the Maersk Alabama in 2009 was a punctuation mark in a chapter of maritime insecurity; the drama of that hijacking rattled shipowners, insurers, and navies alike. What followed was not a single nation’s crusade but a coalition’s labour: a web of navies, task forces, and civilian missions that together welded the Gulf of Aden into a corridor of relative safety. That cooperative patchwork - unwieldy, imperfect, but effective – reduced a spectre into an episodic problem. Today, as Somalia welcomes fresh bilateral security pacts, the question haunting Mogadishu is whether rapid bilateralism will slowly unravel the fabric that once held the seas together.

The Architecture of Multilateral Maritime Security

The architecture that delivered results was multi-layered and painstaking. The European Union’s Operation Atalanta, launched in late 2008, protected World Food Programme shipments and pushed pirate activity down to levels once scarcely imaginable; its patrols and escorts rescued lifelines for millions and diminished hijackings through a combination of presence and deterrence. Parallel to the guns on deck were the institutions that stitched long-term resilience: the Combined Maritime Forces and its counter-piracy wing, CTF-151, which coordinated multinational patrols and intelligence sharing across an international roster.

Numbers and prosecution pathways matter. Reporting by international bodies charts the arc: piracy incidents, which once numbered in the hundreds, contracted dramatically as naval patrols, improved communications, and legal mechanisms took hold. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB)’s annual reviews catalogue the decline and, crucially, underline that suppression was not merely kinetic but procedural; prosecutions, transfers of suspects, and legal frameworks in partner states made interdiction meaningful rather than symbolic.

That is the core lesson: security is a collective public good, and collective provision demands interoperable systems, agreed standards, and transparent chains of custody. When ships from different flags operate as parts of a coherent machine, information flows, rules of engagement are synchronised, and prosecutions can proceed along agreed lines. Shipping firms regain confidence, insurers lower premiums, humanitarian corridors remain open - the feedback loop is real and measurable.

The Bilateral Turn: Promise and Peril

Yet new bilateral pacts risk opening fault lines. Turkey’s investment in Camp TURKSOM, a major training hub in Mogadishu established in 2017, has indisputably built capacity and produced thousands of trainees; Ankara’s footprint extends into infrastructure and education alongside military training. Pakistan’s five-year memorandum, approved by Somalia’s cabinet in August 2025, promises technical assistance, vessel maintenance, and training at Pakistani war colleges. Each agreement offers real benefits. Each also creates a discrete chain of doctrine, supply, and loyalty that can diverge from multilateral norms.

The practical hazards are deceptively simple. Training curricula that differ from one patron to another produce personnel who expect different procedures at sea. Maintenance streams tied to specific vendors mean spare parts and technical knowledge are routed through single suppliers, creating single points of failure. Radio protocols, mission tasking, and legal handover procedures that are not harmonised increase the time needed to coordinate responses – minutes that matter when a skiff is closing on a merchantman. In short, what looks like redundancy can rapidly become fragmentation, and fragmentation erodes the very predictability that multilateral patrols created.

The Geopolitical Undercurrent: Influence by Another Name

There is also a geopolitical calculus that cannot be ignored. Bilateral deals are instruments of influence. Turkey’s presence has expanded Ankara’s diplomatic and economic ties with Mogadishu, and its energy and reconstruction pacts deepen that bond. Pakistan’s outreach, in turn, inserts a new patron into Somalia’s security equation. For a state rebuilding from conflict, the allure of immediate assistance can mask gradual constraints on strategic autonomy: decisions about patrol priorities, port access, and maritime resource management become contested, not by open diplomacy, but through the slow accrual of dependence.

Recent incidents remind us that the lull is fragile. Reports in 2024 and 2025 of renewed attacks, sometimes compounded by unrest across the Red Sea corridor, show that the operational environment remains volatile and that unilateral or bilateral responses cannot substitute for a cohesive international posture. When crises intersect - for example, where Houthi activity in the Red Sea heightens transit risks - the absence of a single, coherent command culture complicates reaction and magnifies danger.

The Path Ahead: Integration over Isolation

The policy prescription is straightforward, if politically demanding. Somalia should treat bilateral assistance as a supplement, not a substitute, for multilateral integration. Any training slot, any maintenance contract, any donated vessel must be conditioned on compatibility with CMF standards and on transparent reporting to EU NAVFOR and AU or UN partners. Joint Defence Committees should include multilateral observers and publish annual summaries that make procurement and operational linkages visible. Donor states should be encouraged to pool certain capabilities, such as maintenance hubs and legal liaison offices, rather than establishing exclusive chains that fragment interoperability.

The alternative is a gradual drift from coordinated stewardship to a mosaic of patrons, each with their favoured doctrines and suppliers. That outcome would not only jeopardise shipping and aid flows; it would cost Somalia the very agency it seeks to reclaim. Security constructed through many hands can be cumbersome, but it is resilient. Security built through separate bargains is efficient only in the short term and brittle in the long run.

If the Maersk Alabama episode taught the world anything, it taught this: no single navy, no matter how capable, can secure a global commons site alone. It is the choreography of many that creates safety. Somalia’s leaders, and its partners, must choose whether to preserve that choreography or to trade it for the quick applause of bilateral attention. The seas do not wait while politics are sorted. The price of delay is measured in crisis, and the currency is sovereignty itself.

---

About Author

Commodore Ranjit B Rai (Retd) is the author of the book 'The Indian Navy @75: Reminiscing the Voyage. He is an RNSC-qualified officer who served as Director Naval Intelligence and Director Naval Operations and writes on maritime matters. He also served as the India Representative of Waterman Steam Ships USA and curated the New Delhi Maritime Museum.