We here at Dino have seen the disturbing upward trend in piracy this fall. We are also aware of our constituency’s deep concern about this issue. You may be asking yourself, where is that 20-ton shipment of short-shorts I ordered? How come my Saudi crude oil hasn’t arrived yet? And our Dino-Staff is committed to bringing you answers to these questions.

That is why we are introducing the Piracy Dino-Tracker, so you can get all of your maritime hijacking related news in one condensed post. Check out this week’s entries:

• Somalia’s Pirates Flourish in Lawless Nation
• Pirates Seize 7 Ships in 12 Days
• Hijacked Supertanker Reaches Somali Port
• Thai Fishing Boat Hijacked
• Indian Navy Sinks Pirate Ship

In the wild waters off the Horn of Africa, local fishermen have turned to piracy. And this week they hit the jackpot in the form of a ship registered in Belize - $30 million of Ukrainian arms bound for Kenya. The booty includes grenades, small arms, and yes, Soviet tanks.

Piracy has been an increasing problem in the Indian Ocean waters hugging Somalia. Earlier this year a Jordanian ship was seized en route to Mogadishu with international aid supplies. Pirates took hostage a French yacht and her crew in April before the French military led a successful raid on the pirates’ headquarters in the Gulf of Aden on the northern coast of the country. The International Maritime Bureau believes that pirate attacks were up 10% in 2007 from 2006 – and most of these attacks occurred off of Somali and Nigerian waters.

Piracy is an increasingly popular career option in the nearly-anarchic Horn nation, which is one of the most lawless countries in the world. After independence and unification in 1960, rebels forced out the president in a 1990 invasion of Mogadishu; a UN invasion followed in 1992. In 2006, an Ethiopian-led coalition stepped in, in order to shore up a government besieged by rebels. Violence has continued between Ethiopian forces and various insurgent groups up until now. The de jure government in the south can not control the de facto independence of the northern regions, where the pirates operate.

We should seemingly be quite dismayed that pirates now have a column of T-72 tanks. Not exactly so – they may be in possession of them, but it remains to be seen that they have the technology to offload them. In fact, most pirate operations are known to store captured ships in coastal caves. None are known to have the technology or know-how to get the tanks off the ship, which requires specific types of machinery.

Where this episode will get interesting is the international response. Russia has already deployed a flotilla to hunt down the missing ship. The U.S. Navy is not far behind. I do not expect African Union and Ethiopian forces to delay long. I do not think it would be a stretch to say that, in conjunction with their military exercises South America, this is a great opportunity for Russia to assert influence in a Third-World area and possibly gain some friends among Somalia’s more stable neighbors.

America’s involvement is interesting, within the framework of African criticism of American military presence in Africa. The Africa Command, established in 2007, has come under fire as being a vehicle for combating Chinese influence in oil-rich African nations. The U.S. military responds that its primary mission is to prevent terrorist networks from operating effectively in Africa. The current pursuit of the pirates could also be an excellent opportunity for the United States to aid the political stabilization of the Horn, strengthen relations with Kenya (by rescuing their arms – which might similarly help relations with the Ukraine, but hurt those with Russia), and then return to a general policy of non-interference.