Somalia’s Safer Option: Why The World Trusts Multilateral Patrols, Not Pakistan – OpEd
If Somalia’s aim is safer seas, the evidence is clear. Multinational patrols have delivered protection with a proven record, while Pakistan’s new five-year defence MoU is an opaque, untested bet that risks swapping transparency for influence.
For more than a decade, EU NAVFOR’s Operation Atalanta has protected aid and merchant traffic off Somalia with documented results. A 100% success rate in safeguarding World Food Programme vessels and a long history of deterring and disrupting piracy through shared rules, joint command, and public reporting have been achieved and recorded. These results are audited outcomes from a standing coalition with clear mandates and oversight.
India’s navy has shown the same reliability in real operations–complex rescues and vessel recaptures in 2024 removed pirates, freed crews, and handed detainees to courts. These actions were visible to the world, not hidden in closed bilateral channels. That consistency, from detection to prosecution, is what shippers, insurers, and coastal states trust over multi-year horizons.
On the contrary, Somalia’s August 28, 2025 MoU with Pakistan is a bilateral experiment with few public guardrails. It promises training from basic to advanced levels, naval assistance and maintenance, modernisation support, and an annual Joint Defence Cooperation Committee. Yet, it offers little on transparency, reporting standards, or integration with established multinational command structures. In plain terms, numerous inputs, unclear outcomes and minimal external scrutiny.
This gap highlights a broader issue of transparency. While international coalitions routinely publish mandates, operational data, and progress reports, the MoU offers little beyond vague cooperation promises and a yearly committee meeting. Furthermore, the governance structure raises concerns. Multilateral frameworks typically distribute oversight, helping to depoliticise operations and ensure accountability. In contrast, a bilateral agreement like this centralises authority, making it easier to steer decisions toward narrow interests or discreet secondary missions. Without stronger checks, Somalia risks becoming a security partner without a voice.
The timing of the MoU also raises red flags. The MoU sits alongside Turkey’s expanding security-energy footprint in Somali waters—seismic work and hydrocarbon deals accompanied by naval protection. In such a context, a Pakistan-Somalia defence channel risks becoming a support act for larger strategic agendas, not a neutral safety service for Somali fishers or WFP convoys. Multilateral patrols answer to many flags and shared rules, while bilateral pacts can drift toward serving the patron’s interests first.
What Somalia should insist on
If Mogadishu wants safety, predictability, and legitimacy, double down on multilateral, transparent models and make any bilateral support plug into that system. Minimum safeguards should include integration with EU NAVFOR tasking where relevant, public metrics which include escorts completed, incidents deterred, detainees transferred and clear deconfliction with energy and security operations. In addition, also external auditing of training and rules of engagement. Without these, the MoU invites a shift from collective protection to selective protection—good for patrons, risky for Somalis.
The world already trusts the open, collective frameworks that keep Somali waters safe. Somalia’s interests and reputation are best served by strengthening those proven patrols, not by gambling on a bilateral arrangement whose benefits are vague and whose incentives may run seaward toward someone else’s priorities.
Multilateral security also unlocks benefits that a one-off pact can’t deliver. Insurers and shippers price risk based on predictable rules and broad participation. When patrols follow common standards and publish incident data, war-risk premiums and freight surcharges tend to fall, money that can flow back into Somali ports and fisheries. Coalitions are better at interoperability too–shared communications, search-and-rescue drills, and clear handoffs reduce fatal delays at sea.
They usually formalise jurisdiction and chain-of-custody so detainees, evidence, and rescued crews move through lawful, documented channels, which are key for avoiding diplomatic spats that stall operations. Critically, collective frameworks can pair security with coastal livelihood programmes such as observer schemes, bycatch limits and cold-chain aid so local communities see gains, not just more patrol boats. Multilateral tasking makes it easier to enforce deconfliction with seismic surveys, private guards, and foreign research vessels, lowering the chance of incidents around sensitive offshore blocks.
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