Piracy in the Horn of Africa and its effects on the global supply chain Alexa K. Sullivan Received: 12 May 2010 / Accepted: 27 August 2010 / Published online: 14 September 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 Abstract This article explores how maritime piracy impacts international business and disrupts the global supply chain. Piracy has increased exponentially near the Horn of Africa and this article examines the vessels attacked, methods of attack, and the types of weapons used by the Somali pirates. Evaluated are current anti-piracy measures that are used by commercial vessels to prevent and defend against pirate attacks. There is a symbiotic relationship between globalization and technology and if the increase in piracy continues, it will adversely disrupt this dependency. Keywords Supply chain management . Maritime piracy . Shipping industry . Countermeasures . Logistics . Globalization Introduction Maritime piracy has become an increasingly prominent issue throughout the world. The number of pirate attacks has increased steadily since the early 1980s, tripling during the 1990s then tripling again during the first few years of the new millennium (Bumstead 2009). As shown in Figure 1, global pirate attacks increased modestly from 2005 through 2008 and then dramatically from 2008 to 2009, going from 293 to 406 total attacks (IMB 2010). Piracy is not only a major issue to the shipping industry, but also to any companies that manufacture goods and transport them internationally. Pirate attacks are not random and do not happen by chance. Pirates use the latest technology to target highly valuable ships in highly trafficked waters. The waters surrounding the Suez Canal and the Horn of Africa are traveled by many ships and are frequently attacked by the Somali pirates. In the majority of these attacks, the pirates hold J Transp Secur (2010) 3:231–243 DOI 10.1007/s12198-010-0049-9 A. K. Sullivan (*) The Department of Marketing at The College of Business Administration, The University of Akron, 259 South Broadway Street, Akron, OH 44325, USA e-mail: aks33@zips.uakron.edu