Dan Drezner and I talk some piracy at Bloggingheads:
The gist of the clip is that we can conceive of some military options that might reduce piracy, but that those options are likely to be more costly than simply paying ransoms to pirates. By costly, I mean the literal cost of the ammunition, fuel, work hours, and wear on operating platforms; pirates simply aren't exacting that much of a price on the United States, or on most of the rest of the world. As such, piracy really isn't one of the more pressing priorities for the Obama administration. Fortunately, Robert Gates seems to understand this. See also Spencer Ackerman on the way that piracy has affected the reform debate within the USN. --Robert Farley
