Piracy Pays Almost as Well as Working on Wall Street

In the past year, no less than 100 ships have been attacked and 42 have been seized by Somali pirates, with their crews ransomed for tens of millions of dollars. The UN Security Council has authorized military action, and this week Germany and China said they would join Britain, India and other nations in an effort being coordinated by the United States. But today, the US military said it would ransom a Ukrainian ship full of tanks, grenade launchers, small arms and ammunition that's has been in pirates' hands for three months. Peter Chalk is a senior analyst of transnational security threats at RAND.