The strait of Hormuz blockade will strangle US defense industry

pjc50

> "knock-on effect of this war is that it may cost double or more than double to replace all these weapons because all the mineral demand is going to go way up It's a lazy assumption that the motivation for war is profit, but in this case ...

DivingForGold

Don't know how much sulfur the DOD and industry needs, but I have personally seen the "sulfur pits" pretty full at the Valero refinery in Corpus Christi . . .

jmstfv

the closure of the strait (i.e. a toll booth by Iran) will cause massive inflation, destroy the GCC, and eventually lead to a global recession and the end of a petrodollar, which is how Iran is retaliating. And if the US attempts a ground invasion to keep the strait open, it will be a complete disaster for the US.

redwood

Everyone's an expert 19 days into a conflict that was absolutely foreseen in comprehensive United States military planning. People need to have some patience. What's clear is it the way this is being executed is a complete reboot of how prior Middle East conflicts were executed which suggests major ownership of prior problems and learnings applied

kvuj

> “We don’t know who their vendors are,” he said, adding that beyond a few steps in long chains of subcontractors, “nobody actually knows who’s providing these metals, these minerals, the parts. And it just becomes a maze.” So how can you predict the impact on the US defense industry? How can you predict it will be strangled? What the hell is this shitty article that doesn't use a single hard number? No graphs, no prediction based on previous wars, no investigative dig into the supply chains...

yabones

It's kind of funny how the US military, the largest single consumer of fossil fuels on the planet, didn't consider that disrupting the largest source of fossil fuels would impact them.

jameskilton

> only 6% of US defense contractors have fully transparent supply chains The Industrial-Military complex and the constant fight against Right-to-Repair is finally biting us in the ass. It remains to be seen if we will learn anything from this disaster.

shin_lao

You will always find a report that goes in the way of the narrative you want to push. The goal of these reports is to poke holes and build scenarios. It doesn't mean it's going to happen. This article elevates a niche bottleneck into a headline risk. - Sulfur matters but we have many substitutes, stockpiles, and alternative supply chains. - 20% of global oil passes through it, but the US doesn't depend on it, will hurt China disproportionally more. While oil is globally priced, it has different benchmarks. - The "6% traceability" stat likely reflects formal mapping, not actual operational ignorance.