Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Monday, November 28, 2016

U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 25 October - 23 November 2016 and NATO Ending Indian Ocean Counter-Piracy Operations

In addition to the information in the following ONI report, it is of interest that Voice of America reports NATO has announced that it is ending its counter-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean:
NATO has ended Operation Ocean Shield after a sharp drop-off in attacks by Somali pirates.

The Royal Danish Air Force carried out the last Indian Ocean surveillance missions for NATO.

The NATO operation had been one part of a highly successful coordinated international response to the threat of piracy that also included the European Union, the United States and other independent nations.

During its peak, piracy off the Horn of Africa had an economic impact of $7 billion, with more than 1,000 hostages taken. There hasn’t been a successful piracy attack since 2012, down from more than 30 ships at the peak in 2010-11. The NATO planes flew from the Seychelles.
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NATO is now shifting resources to deterring Russia in the Black Sea and people smugglers in the Mediterranean.

NATO's spokesman Dylan White said in a statement that the global security environment had changed dramatically in the last few years and that NATO navies had adapted with it.

After more than a decade of NATO-led operations far beyond its borders, the military alliance is shifting its focus to deter Russia in the east, following Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
According to NATO, operations will cease on 15 December 2016.



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