In 2009, the Mogadishu government formed and armed a 500-man anti-piracy force. No one seems to know where they have gone.

So the international community continues to spend millions on its naval fleet, a solution that Somalia analyst Stig Jarle Hansen called “expensive and seemingly inefficient” in a recent report on piracy funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Defense.

Hansen recommended that instead of focusing on rebuilding a central Somali state and coast guard, resources could be directed to regional administrations capable of providing security — like Somaliland, which he said “might have been a very good ally in the fight against piracy, [but seems] to be ignored.”