U.S. Navy turns down Hormuz escort requests because of high risk (opens in new tab)

Ukraine sunk half of the Russian Black sea fleet, the other half is hiding in safe ports and still get hit occasionally. Remember when there were talks about grain corridors? There are no more such talks because Ukraine actually managed to deny Russia the control of the Black sea and the Bosphorus straits are held by the Turks anyway.

It's just a different world now. Large powerful ships aren't that useful anymore, USA and Israel destroyed some of the largest and the most advanced Iranian ships in the first day of the war they started and yet can't sail their own ships in the region either.

Here are two of the weapons mounted on U.S. ships that would fire upon small boats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf8RExzMdfg

There's at least missile, gun, laser and electromagnetic countermeasures for air threats. It has been a mainstream subject for long, for example against aircraft and missiles. But also lots of startups also in this space, especially against cheap drones or UAV:s.

> It seems like Iran has a lot of options for attacking ships.

I wonder if the recent USV shipping attacks came Iraqi militias. Maybe Iran set them up with some drone boats like how they send them missiles/drones to hit US bases with. Meanwhile the US was focused on surveilling the Iranian coast. I wouldn't be surprised if Iraq remains the hardest part of maintaining security in the region.

Are these speed boats manned ? Like with kamikaze pilots ?

> Not to mention pressure to weaken oil sanctions.

The Trump administration instantly folded under that pressure and has already removed some sanctions: https://xcancel.com/SecScottBessent/status/20297142537252622...

Maybe a short financial shot in the arm, but destroying their ability to get Shahed drones is substantial.

Alternative scenario:

Iran should be militarily defeated in a few weeks, so that's a brief shot in the arm.

If Iran gets a half decent government and sanctions on Iran are lifted, that would lower oil prices and hit the Russian economy.

> at a point they seemed to weaken strategically

They can hold out for many years. Oil prices going up just means a slightly gentler market for russians.

Russia's oil revenue was down but it was far from being game changing even with stricter sanctions. The oil sector hit has always been more of a big incentive to end the war then something than will impact it militarily on the ground.

The cover of war is a great use for targeting fossil fuel infrastructure Russia relies on for exports. Sufficiently inhibiting their ability to export will force them to shut in wells (as we're seeing with major Middle Eastern oil exporters as shore storage reaches capacity), which will potentially take years to restart.

From the American perspective it's a plus - If Russia is getting richer (when it desperately needs the cash) it has an incentive to not get involved in the Iran war (at least in the short-term). (Remember that just before the Iran invasion, US and some of its European allies were suddenly capturing Russian "shadow fleet" oil tankers and increasing pressure on India to cut down Russian oil, and its oil revenues dropped drastically). If Iran can be conquered, Americans gets richer, gain more influence in the middle-east and the Europe (to whom they'll sell the gas) while the Russians will lose much of their influence in the middle-east.

As for Ukraine, nobody in the west really cares for it - that proxy war has given all the dividends it can for the west (EU has cut off all economic ties with Russia, EU is now dependent again on the US for its energy thus making the US richer, EU's next generation have now been brainwashed to hate the Russians again, Finland and Sweden have been successfully pressurised to give up neutrality and join NATO, Finland and Sweden joining NATO means the Arctic Council is now dominated by NATO - Arctic is where the west will next try to cut off Russian influence, Ukraine - which had a large territory and the one of the largest military in Europe - has been cut down in size and is now totally economically and military dependent on the west in effect a vassal state) and the Ukraine war is a stalemate now, where Russians will make slow gains as their army grinds down and keeps losing soldiers - and that's a plus too. As Russia becomes weaker, another proxy war or even a direct attack against it can be waged later in the future (maybe after Putin?). American deep state always plans long term - Death by a 1000 cuts ...

KSA can get most of their oil to the Red Sea in 2-3 years (like 90%+). By the end of the year, they should be able to get >50% there.

UAE can get ~30% through Oman now, and probably ~75% in 3-4 years.

Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar are screwed without the straight. Qatar could probably work a deal with KSA to get all of their oil through its pipes to the Red Sea if need be in 2-3 years, but they'd pay a premium.

If I had to guess, I think this will structurally push KSA and UAE to move out of the straight, and for anyone in the straight to be tied to China and India.

I imagine Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran are all going to become Chinese and Indian client states.

North & South America now have a major oil & natural gas surplus. Their total usage is declining and production is increasing.

Meanwhile, the EU, Japan, SK, etc are moving towards renewables & nuclear as fast as they can.

China's probably reached peak fossil fuel imports already.

US Naval power has been drastically hollowed out - other than for strategic force projection for low intensity conflicts involving air strikes. Even for that, it's a shadow of what it once was.

This isn't the 1980's where we can surge 100 warships to an area of the world to deny the area or perform escort missions.

If we decided to 10x the Navy budget today and start building ships we'd be a couple decades out since we'd have to start from "train the ship building workforce" first principles to begin with.

Other than air power, the US has been operating off military (reputation) inertia for decades now.

It’s not fear, it’s cost-benefit, and it would take all the trucks in the middle east to move a tiny portion of the export that typically goes via ship. It would be easier and more aligned for Qatar, UAE, Saudis to pay mercs to keep the strait clear.

The problem is not the road.

It is prohibitely expensive to move things using trailers vs. freight.

Also because prior administrations were successful with diplomacy and/or nonviolent sabotage.

US was escorting tankers during the 1980s in the Persian Gulf:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war

There is a good chance they are trying to bait the US navy to enter the strait

So? USA and Israel had the same 40 years.

Let's see

No minetrawlers, the four US had were scheduled to be scrapped earlier this year. So if there's even a single mine you're playing russian roulette with hundreds of people on board

Probably heaps of various anti ship missiles that have been squirreled away with ranges reaching from few nautical miles to few hundred, just for this exact scenario, please keep in mind that you only need one missile to get through to cause dozens if not hundreds of fatalities.

Unmanned naval drones of various kind, not exactly ultra-high tech in this day and age.

And then there's the guerrilla speedboat attacks which means more missiles

Did I mention that one ship has possibly hundreds of people on board? The political system of the US probably cannot tolerate a military mass casualty event of that scale and spectacle. It's therefore just too risky to get anywhere nearby with a ship so all US navy can do is just lob missiles from as far away as possible, while hoping that this whole mess ends before US runs out of standoff weapons. And between Ukraine, Yemen and now this, the armament stocks aren't probably looking too good considering the meager production numbers.

This isn't a military decision but more a public opinion one. Should an American ship take a hit, have casualties, become disabled, etc it would put immense pressure on the administration to settle/end the war, even though on a military objective level it makes a lot of sense. This is a reality of the instant informational world we live in.

Imagine the optics of a single destroyer/cruiser being on fire. It would shatter the myth of American naval power (some are arguing that this war already did that, which I tend to agree with).

Armchair here:

Its like the issue with the Vietnam war. You need 100% perfect security, or its not worth it. If you are only 98% successful, you arent going to have oil tankers or any cargo ships even attempting it. A single failure every 2 months was a massive waste of resources.

While Iran still has fire control, these ships can be hit by shore-launched anti-shipping missiles, one way drones of even old fashioned shelling. Their "navy" was never even a factor.

Too risky, and doesn't make sense from a cost-benefit perspective. Iran uses cheap and disposable weapons that are also effective. If you think about how much a single US ship costs, and the political price of US service members dying, I think the picture becomes clear.

It would take far more ships (ideally destroyers and frigates ) than we can muster to the gulf.

Also, it exposes the ships to easy attack in a constrained body of water

Also, the ships would need to exit the gulf and travel a long distance to re-arm their defensive weapons, requiring even more ships.

Not wanting to lose USN ships as a de facto mercenary force is reason enough.

You could hit anything going through the straight with artillery and rockets from the shore. Escort won't do much.

What do you think happens when China starts increasing prices on goods sold worldwide, due to oil shortages?

Global supply chain impacts have global ramifications.

So once again, this operation seems to just benefit Russia, and no one else.

China still gets access to Iranian oil, though with high risk and a much slower pace.

India is getting access to Russian oil without sanctions now, but they're in a really tricky situation - one Iranian ship was torpedoed coming from an event promoted by India where there was safety requirements in place. This isn't good.

Many countries are tapping into reserves, and being severely affected by higher prices.

All while Russia gets sanctions removed and a oil price hike, when they were in a critical situation economically. Even the USA shrugging off of the reports of Intel shared with Iran is insane.

Pretty interesting paper/presentation:

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

At least there’s a major silver lining:

Higher oil prices and more volatility in the oil market makes renewables even better of an investment.

Climate change has somewhat faded from popular culture, but the problem still persists. The faster everyone gets off oil the better the less the world will suffer in the future for many different reasons.

> Realistically, it takes Russia to supply 10 high precision drones per day to keep up the fear with pinprick operations.

Considering Iran supplies Russia with a lot of its high precision drones, I don't think it even takes this. Iran can do it all on their own.

Europe's first mistake was abandoning nuclear energy, and their second mistake was not going all in on renewables.

The reporting is the Trump administration was told NOT to attack Iran by the military and intelligence agencies but they did it anyway.

Iran has no choice. They've been observing how US destroyed and / or co-opted all their neighbours, one by one, over the decades and have been preparing for their turn for a long time. The undeclared US-Israeli strategy against Iran, and Tehran’s counter-strategy - https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-undecla...

Sure, Iran (its regime) is bad.

Iran's neighbour, Israel currently has a genocidal regime (where Netanyahu is trying to become the Jewish Ayatollah by crippling its democracy with the help of his right-wing buddies) that has already massacred and injured more than 50,000 children ( https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unimaginable-horrors-m... ). (The Palestinian genocide is still ongoing). The start of the Iranian war with a massacre of 100+ children suggest that an Iranian genocide too is planned.

America is today run by a President who believes that the rise of India, China, Brazil, South Korea, EU etc, means that American might will be challenged soon, and thus America needs to drop its facade of respect for international law and order and use its full economic and military might to strengthen itself. The Attack on Venezuela and Iran has no politically moral goodwill behind it and is a pure resource grab - it's just a return of imperialism not even trying to pretend otherwise, which none of us in the Global South (former colonies) wish to experience again.

So, tell me again, how is Israel and US morally better than Iran?

I live in the US, and I have no idea what support you’re talking about. Is saying this attack on Iran was a massive fuck-up now considered support for the regime? Is pointing out that this chaotic, badly planned conflict looks terrible, and likely will not weaken the regime much at all, now considered support? If anything, it risks giving them exactly what they want: a younger Ayatollah, fresh grievances, and more national unity. Or is any criticism automatically support now?

Gaza was already a demonstration of what will be done to you and your people if you "unconditionally surrender" to Israel/US. Genocide is what you'll get. And please do keep in mind that Israel is no stranger to lying about it's neighbours as was seen with Saddam Hussein and the mythical weapons of mass destruction back in 2002-2003.