President Trump launched off on this war with basically no international support and took a swaggering and cocky attitude to the need for any support or assistance as recently as a week ago. Now he’s doing something between demanding and begging other powers to get involved in our behalf, as David Kurtz noted in today’s Morning Memo. There’s additional context to this that is important. Only a tiny number of powers can do anything about the situation in the strait. They are almost all either European powers that Trump has spent years shitting on, or they are adversary powers like China or perhaps Russia. The whole situation is crashingly absurd.
The idea that there’s going to be some multinational escort force probably isn’t something that anyone is serious about. It’s a ploy to calm oil futures markets until the White House can figure out what it’s doing, figure out a way to “win,” or extricate itself from what increasingly looks like a perfect storm of open-ended military involvement and economic cataclysm.
It is ALMOST enough to make one feel sorry for all his fucking enablers and sycophants. The idea that they have to actually try to come up with some way out of this mess, and then persuade the toddler to agree.
Not the messagers/bullshitters. Their job is easy. Just ignore reality ad lie your ass off. But the people who actually have to figure out what to do when armed forces start dying, billions (trillions?) of $ just disappear with no clear purpose/benefit, those pricey munitions need to be replenished, somehow you have to shore up the fictional accounting that did not provide for this…
Classic Trump, though. Counting on that “you’re going to have no choice in the end but to work with me on my terms, or you’ll be the one who suffers”.
His style all along has been “I’ll state something needs to be done and SOMEONE will either do it to ingratiate himself, or just feel they can’t afford to leave it undone.” Always an expectation or demand that some other party will do what makes him look good.
Some nere-do-well suggested that the US navy should be escorting oil tankers through the Strait to keep the oil pipeline flowing and US gas prices affordable.
The US Navy has been expressing grave reservations of this strategy, the Strait being narrow, the shipping lane more so and those dammed Iranians still have some capability to cause damage. Certainly, a US destroyer sunk in the middle of the outbound lane would be rather obstructive and a PR disaster.
I am reminded of that old adage:
A ship securely moored in port is safe … but that’s not what ships were built for.
Apparently moving US military assets into an area of danger is now not what they are built for. It’s about winning by the expression of force majeure. Without any opposition. A sorta glass jaw bully attitude, if you were to ask me. Which shows you how, albeit profoundly outgunned and more substantially battered, that a dissident nation can, without a winning hand, claim even achieve some sort of victory.
It’s virtually certain that a US warship moving through the Strait of Hormuz will attract every drone and missile that can reach it. If they coordinate them so they all reach the ship at about the same time, some will certainly get through the defences. Sinking or even badly damaging a US Navy ship would be a major win for the Iranians.
I don’t know if they can coordinate them that well, though.
The Iranians have already damaged (I don’t think any have been sunk) several non-Navy ships. Doing that is no where near as big a coup as doing it to a US Navy ship.
Of course Wikipedia has a list of ships attacked during the war:
But which would be the more achievable and greater blow to credibility?
A US warship struck and damaged whilst escorting a tanker through the Strait or a tanker being struck & damaged whilst under the protection of a US warship?
If it’s the former, and probably is, why would any tankers owners and insurers risk running the gauntlet?
Not being a naval expert, my opinion: carrier groups are groups for a similar reason. The carrier itself is a very high value target, albeit one with its own armnament in the form of fighter jets.
The rest of the group protects the carrier.
Escorting an oil tanker must not be too dissimilar, although I imagine tankers are quite slow.
Planes can deal with missiles, and can kill the people launching them. Mines need to be cleared once, and then planes can prevent new ones from being placed. I don’t know whether Iran has any active submarines, but if so, they can be dealt with using U.S. submarines and maritime patrol aircraft.
I just think that maintaining a dozen fighters as a standing combat air patrol over the Straits of Hormuz can do most of what a surface ship can, with little of the risk.
If this is true, then the US must have decided against protecting tankers, because it is not happening the way you descibe. Why has the US not done what you propose?
No apology necessary. I was trying to help you answer your question. My point was, if defending tankers is so straightforward, why isn’t it being done? Perhaps it is not due to unseen motives. Perhaps it is because it is not as easy as you described.
It’s really hard to defend ships in the Strait. There’s so many ways to threaten them. Small boats, mines, drones, missiles, etc. And the maneuvering is so tight that with multiple ships you risk collision as well.
Reason number a million why this war was so stupid.
This is all highly speculative because I doubt these tankers would rely on Trump’s promise of protection and free insurance. But to speculate:
A sunk destroyer is bigger day one news, but then the world moves on. The drama of the leaking tanker oil goes on and on. Other seniors here must remember the Exxon Valdez – I sure do.
The big story would be if the US gave assurances to any civilian ships that they could be protected, they went into the strait for that reason and then they were hit. Commercial ships rely on the US navy for protection in all sorts of waters around the world. If they US can’t tell them with confidence where they can and can’t go safely it breaks all of that.