The U.S. should attack the pirate bases in Somalia.

All these suggestions are made with the assumption that the "instigator" wants to merely combat piracy, or deter it. If the US were to attack the pirate bases, I would like it to occur with the intention of eliminating Somalian piracy. It's true: strong and well-equipped naval detachments can effectively escort merchant ships and ward off pirate attacks, but in order to truly eliminate piracy, the U.S. needs to attack it at a grass roots level. Response to Part 1: Like I said before, you're entirely correct in judging the effectiveness of these various pirate-deterring onboard capabilities, but I disagree with your last sentence: "maybe even eliminate piracy in the Gulf of Aden." Your inclusion of the word "maybe" shows that you're also doubtful about this prospect. These methods will certainly save some individual ships from a pirate takeover, but they won't end piracy just by making some ships hijack-resistant. If the U.S. were to launch a series of decisive strikes with JDAMs and Tomahawk missiles, as done in the past, these could eliminate some of the on-the-ground pirate leadership. If these methods don't immediately succeed in crippling the pirates' command structure, a ground invasion of the coast and occupation of the coastal cities would eliminate and intimidate the poorly armed and poorly trained pirates who are dominating these cities. I don't suggest "bombing them to the stone age," but a series of air and naval strikes would definitely lead to the elimination of the roots of Somalian piracy. For Part 2 and 3, multinational naval patrols are very successful in terms of militarily defeating pirates in individual battles, but that's not at all tackling the issue of piracy as a whole. Not only are the naval patrols too thinly spread, but they are also not assigned to specific boats but to whole areas, and are often slow to respond to distress calls due to their physical separation by distance. And even when U.S. and European destroyers defeat and rout a band of pirates, they often just pursue them, disarm them, and release them back into Somalia due to the lack of international legal procedure for dealing with piracy. This ineffectiveness can only be solved by putting combat troops into Somalia to successfully kill or arrest these pirates while acting under US martial law. Part 4 is an interesting idea, but aside from its obvious logistical difficulties (as you outlined), it also would not completely eradicate piracy in Somalia, and this poorly equipped and probably poorly paid coast guard would only present a new target for these seaborne terrorists. Part 5 is still compatible with my idea for a complete ground invasion and/or airstrike campaign, although it would not effectively disarm the young Somalians on the coast and would not do away with the incentives for piracy. On the other hand, a sustained occupation or bombing campaign (not a saturation slaughterfest, just an aerial precision strike campaign) would stop the pirates in their tracks and help establish law and order in the region, allowing for more legal economic methods to be pursued. In closing, I'd like to say: Get some! Just kidding; I hope you don't judge the validity of my arguments based on my personal unprofessionalism.