The Pentagon is considering a more robust naval presence in the Middle East to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as gas and oil prices continue to rise, but any operation won’t commence for at least a month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal, citing two U.S. officials, has said that the U.S. wants to reduce the threat from Iran before undertaking any escort operation, but that could take up to a month or more to accomplish, even as officials continue to downplay concerns over the strait and the impact its closure has had on global energy markets.
Operation Vibe War is going splendidly.
Just 2 things:
You don’t need a big ship to mine. A few fishing boats can drop a couple or three mines, which in such a small strait is enough to cause havoc. You don’t need a biggish minelayer to do that, and apparently Iran has a few thousand mines.
Also, I read an analysis by a naval officer explaining why a single ballistic missile with a dense kinetic warhead would be basically impossible to stop, and would decommission a carrier.
Gotta run that oil price up further first. Gotta make Putin happy.
Exxon isn’t mad either.
lol that brainworm still alive? oh my god
by that time, iran would have completely mined the strait with backups just in case they try to clear it.
30 days? Enough time to destroy all the GCC ports so that nothing can or has to be transported.
More nine dimensional chess from the guy who couldn’t make money on a casino.
But also somehow Putin’s pick since 40 years. Man I didn’t think my Saturday would be this funny already!
Nice planning you fucking morons.
Who is the more foolish the fool or the fool who follows it.
Or in this case, is Trump more foolish for being a fool, or are the people more foolish for knowing this, and allowing it to continue?
The people have taken little action so far. They are just spectators, complaining on social media.
Sending US soldiers to die for pedophiles and oil
Not even oil, just pedophiles
The oil markets were fine until he stuck his mushroom dick in the situation
I am afraid to ask what Donald Trump thinks are the services a good “escort” provides…
And Israel
Ahem, sailors, but yes.
Lmao wtf. They’re like: “ships should go through right now. We’ll escort you. Also, we have destroyed Iran’s fighting capabilities. Also, the escorts will start in a month.”
The trump administration got high on its own supply and believed their own bullshit about a war with Iran being a cakewalk. The US military is not the effective military it was with Hegseth and trump in command of it.
I get that. I’m just laughing at their messaging.
I’m agreeing with you.
Betcha Agent Orange is gonna want an extortion fee for vessels seeking escort.
God I hate that you’re right. The motherfucker will get, like, three ships through the strait and then go on a late night rant on his Mastodon server (sorry, “Truth Social”) about how “unfair” it is that the US is “doing all the work” and start demanding that other countries pay to have their shipping escorted.
Commenting to remind myself to come back here later
Gonna get into a bidding war with Iran over who offers the cheapest pass through the straight.
Trump focused for a month.…? not happening. By then, my local Denny’s could be his adversary.
I don’t see how we can escort ships without coming under fire. There are going to be hits on US naval ships. The straight is pretty narrow which means that Iran can fire missiles and drones from inland and still be in range. Short of carpet bombing the entire coastline up to like 20 miles inland, I don’t see how this can happen without a serious risk of a US naval vessel being sunk.
Even if there are not hits, there WILL be counter ordinance fire which uses up interceptors that we have a deindling and finite supply of… This whole thing was idiotic straight from the start. You don’t start an optional war with limited resources when a potential future conflict will require those resources. The rumors of China moving on Taiwan in 2027/2028 have been a thing for a while. Instead of having the reserve capacity for a peer or neer peer conflict, the US spooged them all out and gained nothing.
Modern warships carry a variety of anti-missile/drone systems. They’re obviously banking on being able to swat whatever Iran sends their way. Maybe they’re right. Maybe.
Hasn’t worked out for the seven dead and almost two hundred injured US soldiers in the AO so far though.
USA has no effective defenses against Unammed Surface Vehices (marine drones like the ones Iran is using in Hormuz)
reduce the threat from Iran before undertaking any escort operation
LOL Ukraine makes USVs in basements. I’m sure Iran is doing the same.
Shouldn’t have pissed off Ukraine, their real-world know-how is actually really, really useful right now and nobody else has it.
Actually, the saddest part is, in spite of how badly the US have been treating them, Ukraine still offered to train up the US on all their anti drone warfare techniques - techniques specifically developed to combat Iranian drones - and the US told them to fuck off.
And yes, trying to simply suppress Iran’s ability to launch munitions is never going to work. That didn’t even work on the Houthis.
Sad!
I saw a documentary talking about a Destroyers layered defenses but those layers become less effective when threats are closer and that straight is pretty darn narrow. Maybe they will be fine but wow is it a risk.
iran only needs to target the tankers, enough to maybe cause the companies to not sail any tankers into the strait.
What we’re seeing from the conflict right now is that it’s always a risk. No matter how good your defences are, reality stubbornly refuses to conform to what you mathed out in a simulator. And Iran has paid attention to the lessons of the Ukraine war; a mass of cheap munitions is the most effective way to overwhelm a very expensive air defence system. The US is still stuck in the mindset of expecting their enemies to use the biggest, baddest, most expensive weapon possible.
Iran is one of 4 drone superpowers (US insignificant 5th), and a missile peer to US. I doubt that 20 destroyers escorting one ship would survive, or at least not flee the escort mission.
There is zero chance of this in a month or in 6. US was unable to secure passage by Yemen’s coast for unfriendly ships. US ships not substantially different than Russian ships which are unable to approach Ukrainian coast. USS Abraham Lincoln keeps moving further away from Iran (3 times now). Navies are now useless.
Near term path to getting shipping through SoH without a negotiated ceasefire is to buy Iranian insurance/security. Assume the US doesn’t sink you.
They’re not useless, but the days when they could hang off the coast and continue to harass shore targets is gone. It’s a strike and move game now. Drones small enough to launch from the back of a civilian truck, can threaten anything on the water. And sure, you can knock them down, but it’s a numbers game. Every time you down a $20k drone with a half million in ordnance, you lose, regardless of actual damage. Plus stick around too long and you might run out of ammo, or strain your own supply lines and start crashing things like refueling planes.
The problem is that Iran is 3 times the problem of Iraq with 4 times the military. Sure, the US could roll in and lock it down. If we’re willing to get some of our own people killed, and we would, probably a few hundred, maybe a few thousand. And then we’re stuck in a hole bigger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. But hey, the oil would flow eventually. Not that it would save our economy, that ship already sank.
Navies are still useful for blockades and threatening areas without drone defense. But the days of winning Navy on navy battles followed by sieges and DDay landings are done.
$ traded really isnt the concern, real cost is material/manhours. money is bullshit, and arguably for the US more $ being wasted on the MIC is considered a good thing (by those that actually have power)
Budgets aren’t a problem right now, because the GoP has been plying the deficits don’t matter game for 40 years. The problem being, that world is now gone. The petro dollar is dying, and our trade supremacy is broken. There will be no growth out of this deficit, we sent it all to other countries. The US is in an open state of collapse right now on every international stage. Iran would love to take the credit for it, but really they’re just the ones who will happen to be standing there as it happens.
If Trump was a Russian asset there is literally nothing he could have done differently to do a better job to aid Russia and crush America.
trump did just lift sanctions on russia today.
And the escorts will mean more dead Americans in the name of a pedophile.
