The Wall Street Journal has this letter, in which Mark Helprin writes to the Somali pirates. The conclusion is interesting:

As you well know, the previous American president was held in check by his underestimation of the time and forces required by his policies in the Middle East. The current president’s most war-like virtue is the ability to apologize to people who should be apologizing to us—an extraordinary skill no doubt, but questionable. You might worry a bit more about Messrs. Sarkozy and Berlusconi, either one of whom could drive you out of business, but as for the rest, though the quivers are full, no arrows are likely to be loosed in the near future.
That is because the intelligence that controls them is also the hand that stays them. The powers that should be a threat to you are caught in a paralyzing web of abstract legalities, deference to hostile opinion, and even in the clearest cases a perverse contempt for self-defense, which rules out the ability effectively to define, prepare for, justify, and execute it—and execute you. You would think that if you fire upon our ships we would fire back. But those days are over, and you have prosperous times ahead.

Here is my Reason article on the economics of piracy. I suggest the privatization of the sea to deal with piracy. It seems like a good and more cost effective alternative to what we have now:

So while piracy may be on the rise, it still falls under the standard costs of doing business that have existed since man first started shipping goods by water. The world’s navies have effectively been tasked with protecting cargo and rescuing crew members.
But should the world’s navies be responsible for protecting shipping? It’s not clear they even can. As Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Good Morning America in April, “There are actually 16 nations who have naval vessels out there, and it is a tough area. It’s a tough problem. It’s a big area, over 1.1 million square miles, four times the size of the state of Texas. And it’s a going business for the pirates.”
There are deeper reasons why companies should secure their own ships. After all, their boats, their crews, and their profits are at stake.