and these are only American-based mercenaries.

Pretty soon, pushback for the US slave army, too.

Some shipping companies are likely hiring security to protect themselves from the armed pirates.

It's bad. It's invasion.

You want to fight pirates? That ain't the way.

The best way to fight pirates is for countries to deploy their navies. That's one reason they have navies.

But what happens if the countries are unwilling or unable to deploy?

I can envision a prime minister saying "Why should I spend money sending our warships out just to protect some old tramp steamers?"

Then what? What would you advise the ship owners to do? Just go out of business? Or maybe take a deadly roll of the dice with their ships and their crew?

I'm not so sure what I'd advise them myself, but I can understand their desire to arm themselves.

steaming around one of our cities, right?

allowed to be armed and individuals on the ships are not allowed to be armed. IOW, shipping companies cannot hire armed guards for their ships.

If for some God-knows-why reason some container ships running from Portugal to Canada decided they needed armed guards aboard, and Canadian and Portuguese authorities allowed it, that would be the end of that and they could go about doing so.

If it was an Italian company doing the same thing, then they'd also need the okay from Spain and Morocco (and possibly other countries depending on the specific route).

The main reason it doesn't happen so often isn't because there's a blanket ban, it's because the process is incredibly complicated, especially if you're going through high-piracy areas that have a lot of countries with varying regulations on such things.

never carried arms because of the convoluted maritime regulations.

begin to emulate the people they're supposed to be fighting against (i.e., the 'Minutemen' supposedly guarding the Mexican border)

bloodthirsty people traffickers, gun runners and drug smugglers...

Or are we just losing clout.

(Reuters) - India has charged 33 men aboard an armed ship operated by a U.S. maritime security firm for failing to produce papers authorising it to carry weapons in Indian waters, police said on Saturday, a move that could trigger diplomatic tensions.

The captain and the chief engineer were not among those arrested in Friday's action.

The crew have been charged with illegal procurement of diesel and possession of arms and ammunitions without required documentation.

"The captain kept saying that he would produce the required documentation, but whatever was produced was inadequate," a police officer, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters from Chennai.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/10/19/india-ship-seaman-guard-ohio-idINDEE99I02V20131019

(the headline currently says 'US sailor', but the text says the nationality is unknown)