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Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

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Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#42
post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

If the goal was to extract more tax dollars and drop them into the laps of rich socialites and their bourgeoise friends, then it succeeded.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#43
post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

> Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy this function is outdated since u-boat appearance, and now cruise missiles and drones. More important modern function of navy is projecting power.

Submarines can be hunted (and are) and drones and cruise missiles can be shot down. These things are what navies are supposed to do nowadays. US Navy in particular has not read the memo for about 20 years.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#44

So, Trump claimed the closure and the attack "was a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire". However - that is not the case. The first and foremost item of the Iran-US MOU is the following: 1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon…

Iran never had the right to close the strait or attack neutral merchant ships exercising their right of innocent passage in the first place, regardless of anything that Israel or Lebanon does. The MOU doesn't change that.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#45
post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

This is fundamentally a failure of political leadership. You don't try to achieve a goal when you don't have the military means to achieve at a cost you are willing to bear. There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarras…

You’re making an orthogonal point. His point was that regardless of political decision making, the US Navy has demonstrated an incapacity of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, which is bad

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#46
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US will never recover from the reputation damage they sustained by voting in a mindbogglingly stupid buffoon. Twice.

Memories are short. Neither Andrew Jackson nor Nixon improved the reputation of the US.

In fact, their positive legacies are improving with time

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#47
post #37
post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

> But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective. The U.S. has been secretly moving ships for months. And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out. What is difficult to completely stop, short of glassing the entire country, is harassment by drones or other forms of "asymmetric warfare."

[flagged]

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#48
post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

Because it's not true. CENTCOM can reopen the strait whenever they want, but doing it is slow and expensive, so there is insufficient political will to do it. It's still a strategic defeat, but for different reasons than what you are saying. Recommend studying the public comments of General MacKenzie who was the previous CENTCOM commander, comments from Admiral Cooper before he was appointed to current CENTCOM comman…

> doing it is slow and expensive, so there is insufficient political will to do it

So the US Navy is unable to achieve the objective in a reasonable timeframe and cost. That's the same as failure.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#49
post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

Because it's not true. CENTCOM can reopen the strait whenever they want, but doing it is slow and expensive, so there is insufficient political will to do it. It's still a strategic defeat, but for different reasons than what you are saying. Recommend studying the public comments of General MacKenzie who was the previous CENTCOM commander, comments from Admiral Cooper before he was appointed to current CENTCOM comman…

Well sure, but everything short of committing the whole country to total war will always come down to “we could do it, it’s just too politically expensive”. Even in authoritarian countries, there is a limit to what you can get away with.

That “we could do it, we just don’t want to” argument will face its acid test later in the year when the midterms are closer, but certainly if I were in charge of Iran I’d be feeling pretty good about the current situation.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#50
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if they want to keep their jobs they have to comply. Worse still, many mariners are effectively prisoners and can become trapped if corporate decides to cut them loose without also providing passage off the vessel Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56842506 Stuck at sea for years, a sailor’s plight highlights a surge in shipowner abandonme…

What would have happened, in that first story, if he had left the ship and swam to a passing boat? Or swam to shore? He was apparently able to leave as later in his imprisonment, the boat drift closer to shore and he swam from there. Why not just leave?

Abandoned crew members often remain on the ship in the hope of eventually getting paid their overdue wages after the legal issues are sorted out. If they leave the vessel then that weakens their negotiating position.
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