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Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

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Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#331
post #222
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern US surface warships such as the DDG-52 Arleigh Burke class are pretty survivable. The Iranians (and their Houthi proxies) have made sustained attacks on them and don't seem to have hit anything. And a single hit would be highly unlikely to sink such as vessel: we're not talking about something like the Russian Moskva cruiser that was crewed by drunks and had inoperative defensive systems. The real problem is t…

Assisting the US with regard to Iran is phenomenally unpopular. The increase in energy prices isn't outweighing people's desire not to have their country assist.

Many countries have said they will help patrol the strait as long as the war stops. Iran wont be able to keep this after the war. Iran wont declare war against the entire world, so they wont shoot down their destroyers.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#332

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so) The b…

the US probably trains the best experts in military history & strategy. At their officer schools like WestPoint & other programs.

problem is when your Commander in Chief is a Idiot In Chief who wants to surround himself with "YES" men.

actual solid pragmatic advice won't be listened to - i.e that Iran is a millennial empire with asymmetrical advantages.

if you have no strategy to counter that asymmetrical strategy - then don't fight the war.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#333
post #222
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern US surface warships such as the DDG-52 Arleigh Burke class are pretty survivable. The Iranians (and their Houthi proxies) have made sustained attacks on them and don't seem to have hit anything. And a single hit would be highly unlikely to sink such as vessel: we're not talking about something like the Russian Moskva cruiser that was crewed by drunks and had inoperative defensive systems. The real problem is t…

Assisting the US with regard to Iran is phenomenally unpopular. The increase in energy prices isn't outweighing people's desire not to have their country assist.

The other thing is: even if a country like the UK committed billions of dollars to joining the fight in the gulf - there’s no reason to think it’d lower their energy prices, or earn them any favours from Trump.

Short of a nuclear strike (which isn’t on the cards thankfully) nothing short of a ceasefire can get shipping moving again. Sending more warships doesn’t help with that.

So it’s not just that helping Trump would be incredibly unpopular at home - there’s also no guarantee the huge expense would lower energy bills at all.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#334
post #231
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assisting the US with regard to Iran is phenomenally unpopular. The increase in energy prices isn't outweighing people's desire not to have their country assist.

And yet national leaders do phenomenally unpopular things all the time when they decide it's necessary. In this particular case it's mostly moot because none of the other impacted countries really has the capability to act regardless of popularity or lack thereof. Like the UK chose to spend all of their money on nationalized healthcare instead of the military. I don't mean that in a critical or negative way, on balan…

"Like the UK chose to spend all of their money on nationalized healthcare instead of the military"

I believe the equation is a bit more complex than that.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get th…

The US military is also just less powerful than it was at its peak at the end of the Cold War as well. Still the most powerful navy in the world, but spread increasingly thin (turns out "the whole world" is quite a big place). This is no longer Reagan's (almost) 600 ship navy, and projecting power halfway round the world is no mean feat when your opponent can lob missiles and drones at you from their back garden

I don't see how more more American war ships in the strait would change the calculus of the Iran war without. Even if they packed the strait with ships so that an admiral could walk from Oman to Iran without getting their shoes wet, Iran could still lob drones and missiles from inland.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get th…

The bigger issue is the tankers. The US Navy isn't going to be happy patrolling the strait sure, but even if they did they wouldn't be able to protect the tankers enough for it to make sense for tankers to take the risk. The last time this happened the US opened the strait by accidentally shooting down an Iranian passenger plane after sinking a large chunk of Iranian navy. The Iranians assumed the US shoot the passen…

> This is why decapitation strikes are generally not done. They remove options and they undermine deterrence and paint belligerents into a corner.

You don't think autocrats have a strong incentive to not die?

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That “moderate” narrative is nuts. Moderate Khamenei lol

That’s what the propaganda you’ve been fed since a child tells you. The real crazy savages are not it Tehran but in TelAviv and Washington. The Iranians are just defending themselves from monsters who still think civilized people nukes and napalms civilian population, finance Latin American and African dictatorships and torture, etc.

That’s cute, you spouting America bad gibberish while defending terrorists

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes were not a response to Pearl Harbor. The framing in general of “Japan only took military action and the US sank to attacking civilians” is wrong too. Take a look at what Japan did to the Chinese during that time period if you think they were only attacking military targets. Japan also invaded an Alaskan island. https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2010/06/07/the-japanese-...

Are you saying USA cared about the Chinese? Japan had already surrendered before US nuked them

No, Japan had not surrendered before the bombs. There is no evidence of that in Japanese or western history. Where are you getting that from?

> Are you saying USA cared about the Chinese?

I’m saying it was not beneath Japan to commit horrific atrocities on civilians. You can’t pretend they were some high moral actor that was only performing a military action to defend themselves.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s territorial waters belonging to Iran and Oman. The trick is that it's still an 'international strait', or a segment of water that forms the only connection between two areas of high seas -- in this case the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The principle of freedom of navigation establishes that innocent traffic (civilian traffic, and even warships in peacetime) have a right to use the strait to go from one b…

As the nation that was attacked first, They have an unimpeachable argument for wanting to defend the rest of their territorial waters. The ludicrously escalatory rhetoric from the US President has turned this into an existential conflict. I can't take finger-wagging against Iran seriously to be honest, the idea that western powers would scrupulously adhere to international mores if subjected to a full-on kinetic atta…

> They have an unimpeachable argument for wanting to defend the rest of their territorial waters

They are shooting down neutral tankers outside of their territorial water, so stop with the bullshit. If they only shot ships in their own waters traffic in Hormuz would already have returned to normal.

> the idea that western powers would scrupulously adhere to international mores if subjected to a full-on kinetic attack by another nation state is absurd on its face.

We know they are, we have Ukraine as an example they don't start attacking neutral nations civilian vessels just because Russia attacked them. Only evil regimes do that, you don't "defend yourself" by committing terrorism against innocent neutral country ships that aren't shipping anything related to the country you are fighting.

There is no reason at all for Iran to start shooting ad Indian ships just because USA attacked Iran, no western nation would defend themselves that way, many western nations has been attacked and conquered in history so we know how they act.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a reason the US Navy fled the Persian Gulf on Feb 26 and has not returned since. Two US Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers transited Hormuz a couple of weeks ago without damage and are still there last I heard. The Iranians were really upset, but couldn't do anything to stop it. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2-us-navy-destroyers-transit-st...

Do you have supporting evidence they are still there? I though they exited toward the Gulf of Oman around May 6/7 https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-V...

I had not heard about that transit, thanks for sharing! The ships mentioned in our two links match up, so it certainly sounds like they spent a some number days in the Persian Gulf and transited back. There was also a transit that occurred in April which mentioned other ships joining the operation in the future, not sure if that happened or not.
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