I'm reading some interesting things but one that leapt out at me was that Israel was in serious danger of sparking a war with Hezbollah. When you think about it, that is simply the acceptance by the West that the State of Lebanon is no more. That is pretty much true but nobody has been willing to openly say that for decades. That was exactly what the PLO tried to do in Jordan until they screwed up and tried to assassinate the King and got themselves violently expelled. Same thing happened in Kuwait when the Palestinians celebrated Saddam's triumph over Kuwait. Within days of kicking out the Iraqis, every single Palestinian was expelled from Kuwait.
I look with awe as the so-called Houthi rebels have practiced Sea Denial without even a shred of a Navy and now shipping lines and companies galore are simply avoiding the Suez Canal and the Red Sea and instead just opting to sail their ships around Africa. That's a big deal to some folks you'd least expect. I liked this quote from The European Institute for the Mediterranean.
"Impact on the gross domestic product and national income: Suez Canal revenues are considered the third source of Egypt's national income behind overseas labour remittances and the tourism sector. It represents almost 5% of the GNP and 10% of GDP and is one of Egypt's most important sources of hard currency."
The Canal revenue represents a minimum of 10% of Egypt's GDP. The increase in prices of oil and other imports from the Persian Gulf is going to most negatively impact Europe (again) and will have just about zero consequences for the United States since we import very little from the Middle East and of course, it goes without saying, we export almost nothing through the Suez Canal to either the Middle East or India.
Our moron-in-chief and his sycophants are trembling at the notion of simply doing anything except ignoring the ongoing developments and so far their attempts to restore the international shipping lane appears to amount to nothing. It's really kind of pathetic seeing the US defeated at sea again by a country that doesn't even have a navy.
It is however another splendid opportunity for the countries that are being negatively impacted by a bunch of rebel islamic-rage-fueled haters to step up to the plate and take a few swings of their own in order to settle their grievances without much of the way of support militarily or financially from the United States of America.
On the other hand, the Suez Canal has been closed many times since its grand opening so this is by no means unique. I don't think people care anymore about it this time then they did the last time. I suspect 90% of people aged 18-35 don't even know where it is.
I see further, that the media is angsty about Israel withdrawing 7000 troops from Gaza and the usual sources are all kicking in about how this is in response to US pressure to reduce the footprint in Gaza but I think the real reason might be that the IDF has finally kicked its moribund intel services into action and they are feeding them reports about Hezbollah getting ready to rain down fire on all of Israel. We'll see.
5 comments:
The US Navy isn't being defeated by the Houthi savages. It's being done in by the criminals in power in Mordor On The Potomac. If Trump was in office the camel humpers would be behaving.
You ever wonder what those poor bastards on the Panay thought of the mission? It seems like that all over the world now. Given the 1000 mile+ range of modern anti-ship missiles, satellite targeting and no possible way to reload empty missile tubes it really doesn't look pretty.
The Navy truly needs effective directed energy weapons and rail gun technology on ships to deal with the growing threats of missiles and drones. We simply can't mount enough defensive missiles on a ship to protect it from ground based threats which have no space limitations.
First, the Suez Canal is not closed. There are restrictions on shipping to and from Israel and shipping firms affiliated with Israel or Israeli owners. MSC is an example of Israeli owned that is not allowed passage. The Chinese and Russians are shipping through right now. All a shipping company need do is disassociate themselves from Israel
As for someone stepping up to the Houthi's, it is to laugh. They had a teeny tiny demonstration in support of their leaders stance on protecting the vulnerable , you should look for photos before you sign up. Also note that these people took everything the Saudi's could throw at them, with every last bit of support and training and arms supply America could deliver - and forced the Saud to stop. Nine years of Starvation, Pestilence and Disease and they never bowed down.
The reason the US Navy left the region is the emperor was about to be found without his clothes. Shooting down $100,000 drones with $2 million plus rockets or with naval aviation is the definition of unsustainable. Both short term, "hey we are empty, got to take a week off to reload" and long term "What do you mean there are NO more missiles?"
There are two things going here. If we stay, we run out of missiles and have nothing left to "intimidate" the Chinese and they can just take Taiwan. If we abandon the Red Sea we can pretend that we are able to defend Taiwan, which keeps the money and grift flowing - for now.
China is not intimidated by our Navy, but you can see how they might prefer that Americans find out the the US Navy is as useful as a rubber ducky rather than be forced to sink our ships.
I was writing in regards to https://gcaptain.com/number-container-ships-avoiding-red-sea/ and you can see that Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd were both avoiding the Canal. Things are fluid enough there that the situation will change every day.
Concur that messing with the Houthis is a lost cause but that doesn't mean that pirates attacking ships cannot be targeted even ashore. I don't think they're up to Sea Denial but on the gripping hand, I don't see any reason for the US to step up and play the heavy. We derive almost no benefits whatsoever from trade through the Red Sea south of Yanbu. I couldn't care less about the rest of the world's issues with increased costs and shipping delays.
The truly frightening thing is that the National Arsenal isn't replacing anything right now. The expenditures in support of killing Russians and supporting Israel are simply draining away all of the War Stocks of our ammunition and there is no plan or capability to go to wartime production to replace it.
Post a Comment