Arctic Sea Disappearance

In an age when we worry about rogue groups or states using a merchant ship to launch a short-range missile tipped with nukes or even just smuggling in a WMD in a container into a port, a ship gone missing is nothing to treat lightly:

The mystery surrounding a missing merchant ship deepened Thursday with the vessel's operator suggesting piracy and maritime experts suspecting foul play or even a secret cargo.

The Kremlin ordered Russian warships to join the hunt for the 4,000-tonne, 98-meter bulk carrier Arctic Sea, whose fate has baffled maritime authorities across Europe and North Africa.

We need to find the Arctic Sea. And quickly. It doesn't even matter if the ship is completely harmless at this point.

Failure to find it and take possession fast will be an important lesson for terrorists or terrorist regimes about what they can achieve with a merchant ship.

UPDATE: The ship never actually "disappeared" but nobody admitted it to avoid tipping off the hijackers. This significantly lowers my worry about a ship being used to fire missiles.