Elizabeth Clarke, an intelligence officer, sits in a dark room deep in the heart of the US Navy warship Mahan, studying a computer screen.

On it, she is watching a dry bulk ship a few miles away in the Gulf of Aden, the stretch of sea between Somalia and Yemen where most of the last year’s attacks by Somali pirates have taken place. Wanting to see the name of the ship, she zooms in and can easily read the name “Pine Trader” and the port of registry, “Panama”, on the vessel’s stern. The picture is so clear that individual seafarers are clearly visible, wheeling oil barrels along the Pine Trader’s deck or attending to the fire hoses that spout water over the sides to deter attack.