U.S. Navy turns down Hormuz escort requests because of high risk

gnfargbl

What are the factors influencing the US Navy's position here? Not enough small/cheap ships for this work? Too hard to defend against guerilla speedboat attacks?

comrade1234

It seems like Iran has a lot of options for attacking ships. So far theyve used speedboats to attack tankers in Iraqi waters and they used "unknown projectiles" to attack ships in the strait. The ships are on fire and crew have died with the remaining rescued by Oman's and Iraq's navies. I don't know what a us navy ship is going to do as an escort other than be a sponge for incoming projectiles.

0xR1CK

At least they're thinking cautiously about it in some ways and not completely forgetting lessons learned w/ Gen Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge (2002). Worth a read. The sim had the USA lose even with superior weapons.

1970-01-01

Fear keeping our naval power in check is ironic given the "peace through strength" mantra. Turns out Iran has always held the long tactical advantage. How long does it take to build a desert road to the other side of the ocean? I think we're going to find out.

ethagknight

My thoughts. The escorts serve little benefit to the US given the risk. US doesn’t “need” the Persian gulf exports as much as other countries (who could run their own minesweeping operations). Iran mining Hormuz is a feature not a bug for US effort in a “proxy war” against Iran (hint: it’s all about China)

softwaredoug

What I worry about is the shot in the arm Russian finances are about to get due to oil revenue at a point they seemed to weaken strategically. Not to mention pressure to weaken oil sanctions.

shadowgovt

This seems in-line with modern US military doctrine. The US generally only wages wars of aggression against a nation as well-organized and well-armed as Iran when it can do them at arm's length with remote weapons and air superiority. Since the US has a volunteer army, actual risk to soldiers for something not perceived by the public as an existential threat jeopardizes future fighting efficacy. The US public will tolerate missiles launched in its name; it is far less likely to tolerate video of entire Navy ships going down or sailors (not) coming home in body bags by the shipload for a cause that the administration didn't even try to sell them on as necessary.

roughly

There’s a reason no prior administration did this - Iran’s had 40 years to plan for this war.

fallkp

They do not seem to have a plan for Hormuz at all. Realistically, it takes Russia to supply 10 high precision drones per day to keep up the fear with pinprick operations. This can go on forever. The winners are Russia and Trump's LNG fracking friends. The losers are the EU, who had their pipeline blown up and now had their Qatari suppliers blown up. But EU politicians sit still and leave it all to Trump and Putin.

drgo

Apparently, Trump was told that the Iran war is 10 to 1 (politically) winning for him. What do you think are the real odds now?

morpheuskafka

Don't you need an escort from a neutral country? Being escorted by a party to the conflict is just putting your non-military, non-target really close to a military, legitimate target?

CommanderData

Now the world suffers because of intel and pressure from Israel. It's like we never learnt from Iraq, Syria, Libya.

PowerElectronix

Yeah, they didn't expect iran to fuck everything up and now the dudes that sell oil in dollars because of security guarantees and their ships are being bombarded and running out of air defenses.

ukblewis

I’m honestly shocked by the support for the Islamic regime of Iran (I refuse to call it Iran since it and the IRGC and the Basij does not represent the Iranian people who showed us this January in their millions that they don’t support it) on this platform. Honestly, any sick human being who supports them, well they are either deeply ignorant or deeply evil and inhumane. I am awaiting the response comments from tens of Iranian bots and hundreds of idiots who ignored the Iranians demanding help in this January

burnt-resistor

The modern US Navy lacks the number of ships it once had. And the destroyers it has in the area are already doing too many other jobs like defending carriers from unmanned drone vessels, firing million dollar missiles at 50k drones, and shooting Tomahawks to blow up little girls at school.