The French solved one incident yesterday by boarding a captured yacht and killing two pirates and rescuing four crew. One yachtie died. As in all hostage situations, if you are willing to occasionally lose the lives of a few innocents, the problem goes away.

It can be argued that losing an occasional hostage to a prompt military response is worth it in the long run: over time, less hostages will be taken and the problem will go away. I personally agree with this approach, although I am not related to any of the hostages. I once had a close friend whose brother was taken captive by the Iranians during the embassy takeover, and I can guarantee you that my solution of the problem (destroy a major Iranian industrial facility every day until all the hostages were released) was not very popular with him. In Somalia, this isn't even an option. The pirates are private entrepreneurs, not a fanatical state. There are no identifiable targets.

This problem is further complicated by the fact that many more hostages are being held by other pirates ashore, so their lives are at risk too.

I was on one of the destroyers that was stationed off the coast of North Korea after they captured Pueblo and took our 60-odd sailors hostage. The whole time we were there we thought war was imminent, and there wasn't one of us there that wasn't eager to fire the first shot. If I had been in charge, I would have flattened that country to a radioactive glaze. But that wouldn't have gotten any of our people out alive.

To be blunt, powerful nation-states are simply not equipped to fight this kind of war. They never have been. Even during the Barbary War, made famous by the Marine Corps Hymn, we were still forced to pay a ransom to get our hostages back alive, even after having defeated the pirates militarily. As can be expected, our histories don't often mention that part.