OPEN Echoes - EP005 - Dr. Stavros Karamperidis
OPEN ECHOES Episode #5
An interview with Dr. Stavros Karamperidis
OPEN Echoes reflects the original thoughts, analyses, and viewpoints shared by academics, thought leaders and non-military experts — spreading ideas, perspectives, and insights across the globe.
It’s our hope that the insights shared in these episodes will help to impact and influence thinking and conversations long after you take off your headphones.
OPEN Echoes alternates episodes between compelling interviews with non-NATO subject matter experts, and readings from OPEN's wide range of publications. In this episode, we interview Dr. Stavros Karamperidis .
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Dr. Stavros Karamperidis is a lecturer in Maritime Economics at the University of Plymouth and serves as the Head of the Maritime Transport Research Group. With over 15 years of experience in academia and strong industry involvement, he has established himself as an expert in maritime security, including piracy, decarbonization, and digitalization. His research is driven by a commitment to understanding and addressing the challenges facing the maritime industry. Dr. Karamperidis is particularly passionate about shedding light on the hidden heroes of global trade—the seafarers—and highlighting their critical role in maintaining the global supply chain. His work on piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, which has cost the blue economy an estimated 1.9 billion USD annually, underscores his dedication to uncovering the root causes of piracy and advocating for comprehensive solutions. Dr. Karamperidis' research contributes not only to enhancing our understanding of maritime security issues but also to finding practical ways to mitigate their impact on both the industry and the broader economy.
This OPEN Echoes interview explores:
- Recognition of the vital role of seafarers in global trade, the impact of COVID-19 on maritime industry and realization of its significance.
- Exploration of piracy's economic impact and root causes, including the annual 1.9 billion USD cost of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
- Examination of historical piracy incidents and patterns, including Somalia's piracy spike.
- Interaction of piracy with geopolitical factors, the influence of political conflicts on piracy activities, and the connection between oil prices and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
- Strategies for addressing piracy, including the importance of land-based issues and root causes; coordinating efforts among local authorities, NGOs, and naval forces; and optimizing resource allocation in the face of limited naval assets.
Summary and conclusion:
- The need for a comprehensive, coordinated approach to tackling piracy.
Dr. Karamperidis' article (in partnership with Dr. Fotios Moustakis) "The Gulf of Guinea (GoG) and Maritime Security," is available on here.
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Welcome to OPEN Echoes. OPEN stands for “Other Perspectives Exchange Network.” Our mission is to explore diverse, insightful and sometimes disruptive viewpoints on matters crucial to NATO.
The lightly-edited transcript of this episode’s interview with Dr. Karamperidis follows:
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Dave Summers: Stavros, so nice to meet you.
Dr. Stavros Karamperidis: Likewise, Dave. It's a great pleasure to be here.
Dave: Let's just jump in. If you don't mind, I typically have our guests introduce themselves. So, if you don't mind, just give us a short introduction as to who you are and how you got to this point in your life.
Dr. Karamperidis: OK. So, my name is Stavros. I'm a lecturer in Maritime Economics at the University of Plymouth and Head of the Maritime Transport Research Group. And I've been working in the academia in the last 15 years, but I'm also having great involvement with the industry and that's why if you see my CV, you will see that I have a good interaction with a lot of research that I'm doing.
And one part of that is the article that you're discussing from NATO where part of my research I'm having three main pillars. The first one is on decarbonization. The second is on digitalization. The third most important, the security and security is in two sub pillars. One is the physical security and the other is the digital security. So you will see a lot of publications coming from me on cyber security, physical security about piracy and the one that we're going to discuss later on. But also how parts can be secure, what kind of actions they can take and all that kind of stuff.
Dave: I'm wondering Stavros, who or what inspired or influenced you to write about this particular issue?
Dr. Karamperidis: What really inspired me to write about this specific issue was that there are a lot of seafarers that are suffering at the moment and they are the hidden heroes.
Recently, I've done another podcast about the welfare of the people living on board and working on the various vessels and working in various ports and in general, working in the maritime transport sector.
And what we have found out is that they're usually hidden, you can recall what has happened to Los Angeles a couple of months ago when we had the COVID issue with the big container vessels piling up for a long period of time outside the Los Angeles port. And then suddenly everybody realized that oh my God, shipping is so important for our economy.
Just to remind you that nearly 80 to 85% of the goods that we're consuming. And I'm not talking about only our laptops, the mobile phones, whatever we're doing the headset we're wearing. Now, in order to the podcast are coming on containers. Also, the energy that we're having is coming through tankers or L NZ carriers, depending if it's gas or diesel. the food that we're consuming is coming with dry bulk, usually come from Brazil or other places like Ukraine. For example, you've seen what happened with the fight over there between Russia and Ukraine and the problem that we had in order to export a lot of grains.
And that was the real motivation that because we have pirates nowadays, believe it or not, you know, it's a very, very famous pirate Jack Sparrow and you know, the, the Pirates of the Caribbean and all that kind of stuff. And everybody will start, you know, familiarizing themselves with the movie and all that kind of stuff, I think. Yes, in a matter of movie of Hollywood, it is nice to see someone doing that kind of stuff.
But in real life when you have 20 to 25 people on board a vessel and some nasty pirates getting on board with real arms, try to, dictate the vessel, dictate their lives and all that kind of stuff. It's very scary and to be frank, you know, being a sailor, it's a very, a difficult job by definition because you're remote from your family, from your friends, everybody, you're in some cases you are isolated from the web because satellite is not providing good coverage and all that kind of stuff. You know, you don't really need to have on top of that piracy, which is another layer of risk and uncomfort.
So that was the overall motivation of doing that because I thought by bringing a bit of more understanding about the issue, we could probably try to solve it easier.
Dave: I'm wondering how did you approach the whole process that's involved in analysis and presentation of this rather complex information?
Dr. Karamperidis: So I started by providing a general overview of what has happened in the last couple of years for me. I really want to understand what had happened in the past. And as I'm saying, in the report, there are various regions around the globe that some of them, they're increasing in terms of piracy and some of those they're decreasing in terms of piracy.
So for instance, if we go back to another movie, Captain Phillips, which was a hostage of the captain of Maersk Alabama with Tom Hanks. of course, acting as Captain Phillips, it was demonstrated about the coast of Somalia. Back then, pirates were dominating the region. A lot of vessels have been under attack and Maersk Alabama was one of them.
And the peculiarity of Maersk Alabama was a vessel with an American flag. And of course, the US Navy went over there and thankfully managed to solve the situation. But back then 2009 until 2014-15, if I'm not mistaken, sorry, time is not helping now to find the actual date. But it was a couple of years that we had a huge spike in piracy.
And thankfully NATO with the, the overall operation, ocean sealed, they went over there and they managed to tackle piracy. Of course, why in that specific area? Because Somalia as you may know is a state that didn't really have a government or actually doesn't really have a government so far. And that was a very fertile land for pirates because they knew that there was no laws. If they were doing something bad, nobody is going to go after them.
And Somalia if you check, it is actually at the exit of the Suez Canal. And from going back again in the news, nearly two years ago when the Ever Given was stuck in Suez Canal, we suddenly realized that 9.5 billion of trade per day are passing through that corridor.
So actually Somalia is at the exit of the Suez Canal. So for them, it's, it's like fishing at the end of the lake. You know, it's easy, it was easy for them to go and catch those vessels and attack those vessels that they were having valuable cargo and of course valuable crew on board because they can ask for ransoms and so forth and so on and of course, asking ransoms for the vessel.
But as I said, you know, the operation NATO operation has managed to help to tackle that issue. But of course, the operation took on in that specific area, but not in others. And unfortunately, we seen spike in terrorism, not in terrorism, sorry, in piracy in other attacks like the Gulf of Guinea.
And that was the reason why I've said, ok, let's try to get a bit of more understanding of what is happening in the Gulf of Guinea and how probably we can tackle that problem as piracy by having better knowledge, better understanding of what's going on.
Dave: I'm wondering when do you anticipate seeing, tangible changes or results or progress in relation to this specific issue?
Dr. Karamperidis: Actually, if we check the latest data that has been released like a month ago. So the data for 2022 we've seen some changes, so we've seen a drop in the pirate attacks because of the coordination of the virus forces with the naval operations down there.
Nigeria has taken a lot of actions in terms of piracy and all the coordination that is taking place with the US, the European Union and other member states. They have managed to help the reduction of the overall piracy attacks.
Of course, I'm not quite sure if that's only due to the fact that we had that kind of coordination and the overall naval forces operating there. Because as you may know, a lot of naval forces since the invasion in Ukraine has been redeployed in the North Sea and in other regions. So they can keep an eye on what is happening for the conflict that we have between Russia and Ukraine.
But what we have found in our report, was that piracy was linked with oil in the region. And because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as you know, oil price has dropped in the last couple of months. And because we anticipate that because the oil has dropped, then the interest of the pirates has dropped as well because they are not seeing the same economic benefits they used to have in the past.
So I think it's a core combination of a lot of good things that they led to the outcome of seeing a drop in piracy. And of course, that's tailor made to the specific region because if we see other regions in the globe, like for example, the Singapore Straits, we're seeing a constant and decrease in terms of the piracy attacks here and here.
So, that's why we wanted, I wanted to focus on a specific region to find out what is happening in the Gulf of Guinea. And I hope that my report has helped people to take actions and those actions at least, they seem to work at the moment.
Dave: And that's great. And that leads into my next question, which ishow, do you believe that this publication, your article has contributed to a broader conversation and better understanding of this issue?
Dr. Karamperidis: To be honest, I haven't really been following up what happened after the publication. But my gut feeling says from the feedback I've got from various people reading the report, it was that that was a useful piece of work that was very enlightening. And because of as you know, knowledge is the key, it's like if you want to do something, you have to have intelligence, you have to have knowledge.
And that report I think had helped people operating in the region to understand what was the root of the problem. I think the main key area and the root of the problem was oil. And by the time they managed to tackle the oil and, and to give you a fact for, for Nigeria, 6% of the oil being produced in Nigeria is going to the black market.
So instantly we have a huge black market that the oil can be distributed. And of course, that was the problem with piracy because there was a big black market in the region. The moment they were able to tackle to get a tanker, they were able to sell the product in the black market and make a lot of money. And of course, at the same time as for ransoms for the crew and the vessel, and I think providing that kind of information that protect that kind of infrastructure, try to tackle first what is happening in the land in order to tackle what is happening in the sea.
I think that has helped a lot because at the end of the day, as I mentioned, also for, for Somalia, if you have good law laws into the land, into the land elements, then pirates will be determined to attack vessels because they will know for example that if they're going to be caught, they're going to end up in a court. They were not going to find easy access to the black market to sell the goods. They're not going to be able to hide easily then victims of the pirate attack. Because as you can imagine if the vessel stays with the crew into the sea for a long period of time, naval forces will come along and they will try to rescue the people as what happened with the Maersk Alabama case, as we mentioned before.
So what is happening with the pirates is they putting the crew into small digi boats and they send them to into the forest or in places that they are not going to be easily be tracked from the authorities. And that's why I'm saying it's like if the authorities were able to tackle that kind of illicit activities in the land, then there is no room for the pirates to hide themselves.
Same story with going back to the story of Jack Sparrow, Jack Sparrow had to hidden the gems somewhere into the land because you cannot hide things into the sea. So having that kind of, even that we're looking forward into the sea for, for tackling the problem. Actually, we have to look back and to see how the overall operation is taking place in the land and tackle some of the roots of the problem.
Dave: This is interesting because I mean, there's the historical perspective of piracy and you've talked about that here and then there's the real world today, issues and challenges that are associated with it.
I mean, when did you realize the importance of addressing this specific issue, was there a specific kind of tipping point for you? Was it a triggering event? Or was it just kind of like: “Enough, I'm gonna write about this.”?
Dr. Karamperidis: Yeah, I think the triggering point it was. And if I remember on top of my head correctly, it was I read the report because I'm working a lot with the blue economy. And as I said, I'm economist. So I like to see what is happening over there in terms of operation and the economic impact.
And what I have found out is that the piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is costing per year 1.9 billion in terms of the blue economy. And when I'm talking about blue economy is about fisherman, not having the ability to go out and fish. And you know, not having the ability, for example, cruises, cruise vessels to come and have some tourist activities there or even to more complicated stuff, creating green energy, for example, not been having the ability to have any wind powered electric mills over there that they are able to generate electricity. And of course, that is a burden to the local economy.
And you know, we're talking about Nigeria, for example, is the prominent economy in the Gulf of Guinea and the forecasts for the economy in Nigeria. We're talking if I'm not mistaken again, but the population is going to triple by 2050. We're talking from 80 million to go up to 200 million people and things like that.
So as you can imagine an economy that's growing rapidly as the economy of Nigeria with a huge population that is expanding having the right economic opportunities for the local people. I think that will help them to prosper because prosperity, I think that should be the thing that we should care about everybody.
And that helps human beings. I like to see prosperity and I like to see happy people because the more money you have, the more happy you will be.
Dave: I cannot argue with that.
Just as a wrap up question here and this is the question that pretty much all my guests dread, but I have to ask it anyhow: What is the single key point or maybe one or two points that youwould recommend to either the NATO organization or the greater audience for this program that they should take away from this topic?
Dr. Karamperidis: Oh, that's a big $1 million question as we give to say.
Dave: Go for it.
Dr. Karamperidis: OK. The one recommendation to NATO. Oops. OK, let me think for a sec. I think the, the key message that we came out from the report is as I said, if, if you really want to tackle something like piracy, don't look for the obvious, don't look in the sea, see the roots of the problem. It's like a tree, you know, you see a tree blossoming and all that kind of stuff. But if the tree doesn't have solid roots, then you're not expecting for that tree to blossom for a long period of time.
So I think even though we're talking about piracy. And the problem is that over the years, pirates have become more and more sophisticated and from a range of 30 nautical miles of operation now, they managed to expand to 200 nautical miles of operation, which is a massive area when we're talking about the Gulf of Guinea and it's mission impossible for NATO or anybody else to patrol in such a big area.
I think the best thing to do is try to tackle what is happening on land and try to create coordinations, try to coordinate with the local authorities, try to bring NGOs into the game, try to bring naval that they want to contribute naval forces that they want to contribute in the region for whatever reason they want to contribute over them, try to bring everything together in the same table and try to coordinate the resources because as we know, resources are not fast, you know, naval forces, they've seen a decline because of the cost of maintaining all that they can be everywhere because at the moment, unfortunately, we have a lot of issues because of geopolitical tensions, you know, mentioned earlier on Russia, Ukraine War, the tensions in the Pacific Ocean.
So it's like we can't have as many vessels as we need in any region. So in terms of prioritizing, try to be clever in terms of how you redeploy your assets there and that will save energy resources which are key and paramount for the today's military I think.
Dave: That’s brilliant. We've been speaking to Dr. Stavros Karamperidis. Stavros, this has been enlightening , even with all the Johnny Depp, Captain Jack Sparrow stuff brought up there. This has been fascinating and, obviously piracy is something we should all be paying very close attention to.
Thank you for your time today.
Dr. Karamperidis: You're welcome. Thank you very much, Dave.
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A reminder that Dr. Karamperidis’ article can be found on the OPEN Publications website, and you’ll find a link for that at the top of these show notes. OPEN Publications are produced by Allied Command Transformation Strategic Plans and Policy. However, OPEN Publications are not formal NATO documents and do not represent the official opinions or positions of NATO or individual nations.
OPEN is an information and knowledge management network focused on improving the understanding of complex issues, facilitating information sharing, and enhancing situational awareness. OPEN products are based upon links to open source information from a wide variety of organizations, research centers, and media sources. However, OPEN does not endorse and cannot guarantee the accuracy or objectivity of these sources. The intellectual property rights reside with NATO and absent specific permission, OPEN publications cannot be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. Neither NATO or any NATO command organization or agency, nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made on the information can contained therein.
OPEN Echoes is a free thinking, open discussion program that aims to stimulate dialogue, broaden understanding, and foster relationships that can help prepare NATO for future challenges.
OPEN Echoes is a production of the OPEN editorial board. Producer Dan Chichester, engineer Dave Summers.