Two ships have apparently been taken in what sounds like acts of piracy. Iran is apparently the responsible party. This is going to have to be stopped, but by whom? Will anyone trust the US as an ally with Trump in office? Can Europeans step into the role of ‘policeman’ without effective or reliable US support? Is this a chance for China to prove itself as ablue water power? For Russia to further confuse the issue? Someone could resolve the issue with great benefit to their international standing. Who will step up?
Perhaps the countries whose borders are on and around the Strait could take on the challenge?
All these questions and many others will be answered on the next episode of Soap.
Let’s be honest. It “sounds like acts of piracy” because Iran did it. Did it sound like an act of piracy when the UK siezed a Iranian ship last week? Of course not.
Should anyone trust the US as an ally with Trump in office?
Let’s see. Can anyone trust the US as an ally, despite Trump being in charge? Yeah, I think as an ally, countries can trust the US no matter who is in charge. The question really is…can anyone trust the US, regardless of who is president, if they don’t have a signed treaty ratified by Congress? Answer…not really. A change in administration can obviously have a large impact on whether we continue from one administration to another, especially if the issue signed by the president is contentious between political parties.
Next up, can the Europeans step in with the role of ‘policeman’. 
That would be a no. Not happening. At this point, I think Europe is firmly on the fence and not going to take sides. Even if they wanted too, they simply don’t have the force to project in the region to do much of anything useful.
China? They actually have more of a fleet, but still don’t have the ability (or really desire) to project power into the region either. Russia? They are already stretched, plus they have no desire. You didn’t mention India, but I think they COULD project power in the region…not sure they want too though. The US, sadly (or happily I guess depending on your perspective) is really the only country that can project real power across the globe and especially into that region. We are also the only power who really wants too, though honestly we don’t need to anymore. That’s really the rub…we don’t rely as much on the region as we once did, so our motivation isn’t what it once was.
The answer is, no one is going to step up to police the region except the US…and we might or might not going forward. I actually think the US is on a slow isolationist withdrawal from the world stage at this point. Assuming (as I do) that Trump is ousted in the next election, I seriously doubt whoever the Dems bring up is going to be that keen either on sustaining US power projection in the region. Simply put, it’s not really as much our problem anymore to keep the oil flowing, at least from a purely isolationist ‘what’s good for the US’ perspective (at least when you boil it down for Diplomacy for Idiots, as Trump et al have done). What will this mean with respect to Iran? Gods know. My WAG is that we are on a collision course for some sort of shooting event in the near future. We have an idiot at the helm, and they have some evil mother fuckers at their own helm, and both sides seem to actually WANT to shoot something (at least, factions on both sides do), so I think that’s what will happen. After that, depending on what transpires, I think we’ll see the US either bomb the crap out of Iran because they sunk our battleship, or the US fire some stuff, Iranian’s die, and the US then withdraw from the region over the next decade, especially after Trump is out.
There are efforts underway to build an international coalition to protect freedom of navigation through the Strait. A problem is that a lot of the gulf states prioritize ground and air forces heavily over naval forces. I’ve seen the joke that between their armies, air forces, and navies the navy gets fourth priority. Getting workable contributions assembled is probably going to take some effort. It probably won’t be just them.
The UK has an ongoing navy presence there already. They announced sending an additional frigate and support ship earlier this week.
The efforts include getting Asian navies involved. They are the major users of middle east oil. Shipping through the strait is very important to their economies.
Japan is even looking at sending naval forces under their revised interpretation of self defense from a couple years ago. Two of the ships attacked last month were bound for Japan and one was Japanese flagged. One option I’ve seen floated is that they might increase their contribution to anti-piracy operations allowing the US (or presumably another contributor) to withdraw ships to beef up forces in the Strait.
India is a major user of gulf state oil. They already have two warships there to escort their tankers.
It looks like as of last week the US hasn’t made a formal request for support from South Korea. They said they’d look at sending troops if asked. That’s not yes. It’s also not no. Once we get into the fall, North Korea’s military typically assists with the harvest and then rolls into their winter training cycle. There might be some delay to not pull South Korean assets during their traditional busy season. That’s strictly my own speculation.
I haven’t seen anything about Singapore contributing or already operating on their own their. They are a major user of gulf oil. China is a big user of gulf oil…and complicated since they tend to align more with Iran but need shipping through the strait.
Nations are already making efforts to secure their own shipping. Talks trying to create a coalition are underway. Direct US naval forces involvement might be troublesome for some but a more hands mostly off ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and logistics support model might work. The US used a similar model in Libya; we weren’t formally part of or in charge of the NATO mission. That mission involved a big US led effort to suppress Libyan air defenses first because NATO without the US just didn’t have the capability without the US. A more hands off approach like the NATO piece of that mission can probably calm some nerves. Strong use of national restrictions placed on force contributions can address a lot of the other concerns about Trump’s unpredictability.
The problem is the President is going to administer any agreements. And Trump has shown he can’t be counted on to stand by agreements - even when he made them. Something new will pop into his head and he’ll change his mind. So no policy can be made based on the premise that American support will be there when it’s needed.
So people looking for a policy they can rely on have to look elsewhere. I don’t think there’s any power in the region that’s strong enough to push Iran around. Places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are strong enough to fight Iran but they’re not strong enough to overwhelm Iran. Iran’s not going to back down to a threat that’s only backed up by regional military power. If regional powers have to address this issue, it’s going to be a prolonged and bloody war.
With all due respect to Europe, India, and Japan I don’t think they have the strength to make Iran back down either. The only countries (besides us) that I think are powerful enough to force Iran to the negotiating table are China and Russia. And neither of them have the forces in the region. If the world community wants China or Russia to broker a deal, it’s going to mean conceding local bases to one of them and letting them establish a military presence in the region. And that will be a huge diplomatic shift whose effects we’ll dealing with for years - maybe decades.
Good short article summarizing what happened behind the scenes, leading up to this:
Gulf crisis: story began with UK’s seizure of Iranian-flagged ship in Gibraltar
And here is the money paragraph in that Guardian article:
As I pointed out on one of the other threads, it would be one thing if the US were simply trying to use its own power to sanction Iran directly. Certainly urging other countries like the UK and other EU states to participate in sanctions is fair game, but what the US has done is to threaten other countries’ economies if they don’t join the US in applying and enforcing a policy of maximum-pressure sanctions - sanctions which aren’t merely intended to limit Iran’s economic growth but are instead so extreme that the could sow the seeds of internal instability and unrest.
No country is going to simply sit by and let that happen if they have the means to apply their own form of pressure in response, and threatening ships that pass through Hormuz, effectively threatening to shut the strait entirely and all of the global trade passing through it, is the one card in the deck that Iran has to play, and they’re going to play it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s “fair,” or whether it is “provocative” or whether it is an “escalation” – none of that matters. This is what Iran believes it can do to protect its vital national interests, and it’s now up to the US and her allies to decide how far they want to go down this road in trying to change Iran’s behavior, and it’s up to them to ask whether this is really worth the trouble, or if perhaps there’s another way out of this mess.
Reactivate the “New Jersey” and the “Iowa”? Now there’s some gunboat diplomacy for you. Nothing like a bunch of 16" guns to get somebody’s attention!
Maybe John Kerry and Obama would care to explain this.
Treason? Only if we end up at war with Iran.
Not sure if serious, but this would require tremendous manpower; one reason those battleships were decommissioned.
When he says “we”, I don’t think he’s being sincere.
Did you mean “human effort”?
ROFLMAO No, MAN-Power. There are no gendered spaces on board those ancient ships and womyn don’t have the upper body strength to throw 90 lb. bags of powder for the big guns. Nor, can 90% of womyn, handle the recoil of the BoFors Anti-aircraft guns. Those ships required brawn mostly with, some brains in certain positions. Nice try to ‘gender norm’ though. How many womyn drafted in WWII ? LOL
BTW, quit trying to make the past change to suit your preference. Liberals attempt to redefine words and, worse yet; History to suit themselves.
Whoosh!
I for one am shocked to discover that the Secretary of State was meeting with representatives of foreign governments.
I hope you’re sitting down for this one: Kerry is no longer Secretary of State.
My bad. The link is to a website with a pay wall. So I was only able to read the headline and see the picture. The reference to Obama made me think the story dated from when he was President.
So was Kerry wrong to hold meetings with Iranian officials as a private citizen? That could well be. I’ll let the government figure out if any laws were broken. But now that I know that we’re talking about something Kerry did as a private citizen in 2019, I have to ask what this has to do with Obama?