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The joint operations have created challenges such as who actually has jurisdiction. And merely escorting ships and chasing off pirates is not a long-term solution.

Even a medium-term solution will require forces put on shore to clean out the pirate's bases, much as was necessary in dealing with the Barbary Corsairs some 200 years ago.

The long-term solution, of course, is to stabilise Somalia.

For the time being, we can expect extended naval activity in the Gulf of Aden and, to a lesser extent, off Somalia's east coast as the major maritime trading nations move to protect their free use of the sea routes in the area.

None of this should be all that surprising: Some 20 000 ships transit the Gulf of Aden every year, carrying, among other cargo, 11% of the petroleum products transported by sea. The alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope can add two weeks to a one-way trip, seriously increasing the overall cost.

Any interruption of the sea lanes in the Gulf of Aden must, therefore, sooner or later draw a response by the world's main trading nations. Also, of course, continued success by the pirates would bring the real danger of piracy expanding into the northern Indian Ocean.

What is disappointing is that Africa is doing nothing to help.

African leaders like to complain that they are not taken seriously by the major powers, and it is true that they are not.

However, the failure of Africa to respond in any way at all to the piracy problem in Somali waters is a very good example of why they are not taken seriously: Africa all too often does nothing to help itself, let alone others.

It is true that most African countries have extremely small navies that simply lack the capability to deploy elements to Somalia. It is also true that some of those with larger navies have other problems to occupy them. Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria are cases in point.

Libya, for its part, has a fairly substantial navy but has long lacked personnel to operate all of its equipment.

However, two African countries have the naval capability to do something useful, have a very real interest in safe sea routes, and yet have failed to do anything at all: Egypt and South Africa.

Egypt has the largest navy in Africa and a large navy by any standards: 6 frigates, 4 light frigates, 4 submarines, and 10 modern fast attack craft, as well as a large number of older and smaller vessels, supported by a small number of coastal patrol aircraft.

Egypt also has three medium-sized landing ships that would be well-suited to the role of offshore base for special forces teams used to recapture ships.

And Egypt earns some $500-million per month from ships using the Suez Canal, about 5% of its total economy.

So piracy in the Gulf of Aden is definitely a matter of concern for Egypt.

Yet Egypt does not appear to have so much as considered deploying ships or aircraft to assist in countering the piracy in the very sea lane that leads to its Suez Canal.

South Africa, for its part, has by far the largest economy in Africa (almost a quarter of the entire continent's economic activity), is one of the top 30 economies in the world, is among the top 12 international maritime trading nations, accounting for about 6% of world seaborne trade, and depends on seaborne trade for about 90% of its foreign trade.

A proportion of that trade passes through the Gulf of Aden, to and from Europe and elsewhere, and a high proportion of South Africa's imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf in tankers that must pass by Somali waters en route to the Mozambique Channel and South African ports.

This inaction is not due to a lack of capability.

The navy has a fleet composition that would allow South Africa to:

It is past the time to put our ships where our mouth is. - Independent Foreign Service