Pirates seize South Korean tanker

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/04/05/somalia.tanker.hijacked/index.html

This article deals with a pirate attack on a South Korean tanker. The hijacking occurred Sunday about 690 miles from the Somalian coast, an area where piracy is unusual. The tanker was revealed to be heading from Iraq to the United States carrying about 2 million barrels of oil, worth about $170 million. Combined Maritime Forces released a statement praising the successful reduction of piracy in resent times, in areas near Somalia. However, they warn that pirates are going further from their strongholds in search of "easier commercial targets", as they make most of their money from ransoms. The South Korean government however, has already stated it will not negotiate with the pirates, and this was up to Sahmo Shipping (the company with ownership of the tanker).

This article could be used as a critique of realist theory. Realism argues that states ought to only concern themselves with the actions of other great powers as they are the only ones that have an impact on international relations. Furthermore, realist theory argues that the individuals are unimportant in the grand scheme of international relations. When applied to this article one may see that realism is flawed as the Somalian pirates are not a not a nation or a great power, thus according to realist theory they ought to not have any effect on international relations. However, in this situation this is not the case as the European Union has entered into the conflict by cooperating with the Combined Maritime Forces in an attempt to stop the occurrence of piracy. Furthermore, realism does not account for the occurrence of multi-lateral agencies such as the Combined Maritime Forces, as realism is based on the ideology that there is a limited amount of power in the world and states are interested in the retention of as much of it as possible. In this situation however the involvement of the multi-lateral agency "Combined Maritime Forces", which is concerned with the safety of various country's maritime travel. Thus, this organization has some amounts of power which may not be explained by realism. As a result realism is unable to explain the reason the pirates has an effect on the international community, as well as why several countries have an organization which assures all of their travel by sea.