Comment by int32_64
5 hours ago
There's no insurance scheme the IRGC can concoct that protects against the US navy hitting your rudder with a 20mm gun.
5 hours ago
There's no insurance scheme the IRGC can concoct that protects against the US navy hitting your rudder with a 20mm gun.
Military history is full of quotes like "war is too important to be left to the generals". When you put people who focus on technical matters in charge, they often make poor decisions, as they are not looking at the big picture.
The question is not about whether the US can blockade the Hormuz Strait but who gets blamed for the blockade. Iran is messaging that it is making serious attempts to reopen the strait, while China and Russia are probably reinforcing the message. When people around the world suffer from the consequences of the blockade, they are more likely to blame America for their troubles. Or at least that's what Iran is trying to achieve.
No government have accepted Iranian tolls so far, that is just not going to fly ever. If every country controlling a strait started taking out such tolls that would cause much worse issues than we are seeing currently, nobody will have that.
No government has accepted Iranian tolls so far, but some shippers sure have; ships have been passing through the strait. Those shipments go on to countries with governments. I don't think you can actually know that there wasn't government support for any of those payments so far.
And cryptocurrency should be even better for deniability. In reality it would be a really good idea for certain governments that rely heavily on Middle Eastern oil (e.g. Philippines) to pay fees in the short term. More than a month ago the Philippines was already claiming to have "safe and preferential access", if that involves money they'll pay it. (https://www.rappler.com/business/philippine-flagged-ships-sa...)
Just wait for CENTCOM bulletin with their USDC blockade insurance address
bc1qxy2kgdytzdonaldjlostiranwartrump
You mean that these mafia style insurances are a joke, but free (as in safe and not taxed) access to the seas is something many wars have been fought over. "Insurance" selling by navies was the norm until WW1 at least.
Hah, far more likely that it would be $TRUMP or $PATRIOT shitcoins. Gotta skim somehow.
A Iran drone then bombing UAE's oil infrastructure as payback?
They are already doing that so it wouldn't change anything.
No they are not right now, otherwise we would have full news every day of it. Defense rockets for stuff like Patriot ran out, those systems are trivial to overwhelm and deplete in the age of cheap drones and become useless quickly.
Same for the major airports, they keep working, people keep flying to the asia, albeit in less numbers.
4 replies →
A combination of enough insurance to make it worth the time of the owner + offer the workers a generous amount to their next of kin could make it worth it. Being turned into minced meat might be worth it for some people if it means their families become rich.
Exactly. The US just announces that they will take any vessel that pays for transit. So, what happens then? Any vessel that goes through and the IRGC doesn't shoot them, the US seizes. So, no one pays since they can't pay for successful transit. The fun game is that all the vessels just go at once. Any that the IRGC doesn't shoot the US takes. Any that it does shoot sink. So, no transit. Unless IRGC doesn't shoot at all, in which case everyone gets out of there with just one vessel paying the ransom. Ultimately this doesn't work for the IRGC as the US is far more capable of closing the strait than Iran is.
The US can also fuck with Iran by getting slight cooperation from ships in the Gulf of Oman by getting some small inflatable boats with remote control and AIS transmitters on them. Put the boat in the water next to a ship, turn of the ship's AIS, turn on the boats AIS, and send the boat through. Send hundreds of them. IRGC won't know what to shoot at or will expose their positions by firing at a rubber raft.
Or they'll use a pair of binoculars (or a drone with a camera) to ignore the decoys and shoot at the actual ship...
The horizon at sea level is about 3 miles. The strait of Hormuz is 35+ miles wide. Any mechanism used to get around this would be detectable and could be attacked with relatively inexpensive ordinance.
1 reply →
US Navy has shown particular strength in this conflict against Iran, sitting in the international waters many (many, many) miles away and chillin :)
I would have never realised that things would have taken such an Onion worthy scatological turn.
s/n/d/6
Whats weak about doing the smart thing?
American destroyers and aircraft carriers have been chased away from the Strait multiple times now.
Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
13 replies →
You realize that America "in theory" wants ships to transit the strait right? The US blockade is self-defeating.
You can't block the strait if we block the strait! lmao
I think this is incorrect. The point is to show that if Iran does this, then they will not be the only ones that can do it. The last thing that should happen is to reward Iran for rent seeking on the Strait. Others can also seek rent then, and the whole strait gets shut down..which encompassed around 90% of all Iranian oil exports, which in turn was about 90% of their economic exports.
There is truth to this but it's basically we'll hurt ourselves to hurt you more. This is a lose-lose strategy.
1 reply →
The US is blockading the Iranian coast, not the entirety of the Strait.
The reason the US is blockading is because Iran is only partially blockading it. If Iran wasn't blockading at all then America wouldn't either. But it's pretty clear that "only shops whose countries pay a lot of money to Iran" would help Iran.
Sure, but when it happens it's no longer Iran's problem - it's your problem. (And maybe America's problem, unless America gains anything from the global trade burning down.)