When will this stop?
The pirates have nearly 700 hostages, some held on the order of a year. Surely their bases can be identified by satellites observing their captured boats in their docks. Either world governments are too short handed to do anything, or they are too scared for the current hostages (and are thus willing to let more be captured), or there is something nefarious going on. This seems like a solvable problem -- perhaps if we had any leadership at all they would make a priority to address it to the end. Maybe this is the result of democracies electing people based on marketing-led popularity contests instead of ability and intellect. It is ridiculous that we don't declare war and have operatives and escorts for all commercial and private shipping until this is resolved. What does it take?
I think the answer may be represent the limits of naval surveillance even by out current super powers. The sheer size of that part of ocean may prove to large to patrol in any effective manner for example we have trouble monitoring activity on our southern border how could we manage the arabian sea half a world away. Could be wrong but makes sense to me just no logistical possible with current budgets.