Tag Archives: foreign policy

A Thought on Oil

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The surviving governing mullahs in Iran have moved to close the Strait of Hormuz, impacting global oil flows and prices. The US has moved to continue destroying Iran’s military capability (along with Israel’s moves against Iran’s government and military officials), but shorter range drones and mines can functionally close the Strait for some time to come.

The US has asked its allies, especially those of Europe, for help in reopening the Strait and holding it open. Europe’s navies, after all, have more, and more experienced, anti-mine capabilities than ours does.

They refused initially, and are foot dragging presently.

That brings up my thought on oil flows in the Arabian Gulf and through the Strait. Iran’s oil exports are continuing apace, on Iranian oil tankers, and it already has some 50 days’ worth of oil on tankers in the seas around Singapore and quite a bit more in transit or on floating storage vessels. Iran also has just two oil exporting ports available to it: Kharg Island, in the northern reaches of the Gulf, from which 90% of Iran’s oil and natural gas exports are shipped, and at Bandar-e-Jask, just outside the Strait, from which the rest of Iran’s oil and natural gas are shipped.

One US move would be to stop Iranian oil exports altogether. Destroy the oil jetty on Kharg so oil and natural as present on the island can’t be moved offshore, and destroy the port at Bandar-e-Jask so oil and natural gas can’t be exported from there, either. In anticipation of a more peaceable government in future, it likely would be sufficient to destroy the pipelines entering and leaving those facilities. With Iran at war with us for the last 50-ish years and with us, alongside Israel, against whom Iran has been warring for just long, finally shooting back, Iranian ships and storage facilities are legitimate targets. We should seize and sequester Iran’s tankers at sea, with the possible exception of those tankers actually within Singapore’s territorial waters, along with its floating storage sites, sell the oil to other customers, and sell the seized ships and floating storage sites or send them to the breakers.

One more move: the US Navy could begin escorting convoys of oil tankers and other cargo ships through the Strait, except for the tankers and cargo shipping bound for Europe. Those nations continue to insist on freeloading off US blood and treasure while doing nothing for themselves. Let them pay the price of their freeloading or pick up their responsibility for escorting those vessels.

Mistaken Responsibility

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A letter writer in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal Letters section wrote of the need for cooperation in the American-Israeli war against Iran. He was right that the war would benefit from the cooperation of serious players. He had this, though, on that war:

Making the case to other nations helps legitimize the mission and its necessity.

This is the letter-writer’s misapprehension. The legitimacy of the mission and its necessity is inherent in that mission: Iran is the world’s moneybags for terrorists and terrorist activities, the most significant of which are Iran’s satraps, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis. Iran is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, which it would promptly use to erase Israel and to peddle to terrorists for use outside the Middle East. Iran is bent on building ICBMs with which to shoot its nuclear bombs at us.

The mission is the elimination of Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons, the elimination of Iran’s ability to build missiles of any reach, the elimination of Iran’s ability to fund or otherwise support other terrorists anywhere. Those efforts have been badly damaged by the actions of last summer and, so far, the current mission.

This war has cooperation between the serious players: the US and Israel. Natterers, including the British PM and the German Chancellor, though, are not at all serious players.

The responsibility for cooperating with the US and Israel and joining the mission lies solely with those “other nations.” Their decisions to remain absent, to shirk their responsibility to Europe for the restoration of oil and natural gas flows through the Strait of Hormuz, says volumes about their alleged reliability in any crisis.

So far, Japan has signed on to assist with reopening the Strait of Hormuz amid the war with Iran. So, lately, have France, Germany, Italy, and Netherlands after their initial reluctance. The five nations’ joint statement can be read here. The TL;DR is this:

We condemn in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf, attacks on civilian infrastructure including oil and gas installations, and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces.
…
We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait. We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning.

Whatever “appropriate effort” means. “Preparatory planning” is just a weasel-word phrase meaning “but we’re in no hurry to do anything more than shake our fingers in the strongest terms.”

Japan’s assistance likely will be concrete; the units they send would gain valuable experience when the People’s Republic of China attacks the Republic of China and Japan needs to respond in answer of its commitment to RoC and to protect its South and East China Seas holdings. Those European nations? They’ll be busy hiding behind their definition of “appropriate effort” while they endlessly plan.

A Pause that Refreshes?

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Or that refits? Or that gives new and newly placed generals time to fit into their roles?

The People’s Republic of China has reduced its airborne threats and exercises against the Republic of China to nearly zero since just before the beginning of the US-Israeli war against Iran, even while keeping its naval operations relatively steady. This is causing some confusion among RoC and US military leadership.

I have some thoughts on the matter, admittedly with a measure of conspiracy theory involvement.

One thought: the pause—if that’s all it is—is a time for rest, refitting, and rearming the aircraft, this time with live munitions, preparatory for an assault on Taiwan, on which sits the RoC. This is inconsistent, though, with PLAN Taiwan-related activities continuing at their recently usual pace.

Another thought, related, is that in that aftermath of PRC President Xi Jinping’s purge of top level generals and top level leadership of his [sic] Communist Party of China, their replacements need time not just to learn their new duties, but to become utterly facile with them and capable of quick actions.

On the other hand, Ben Lewis, PLATracker Founder, has a different view. He suggested the lull could serve as an olive branch signaling a desire for stability ahead of Xi’s meeting with Trump.

Maybe. Xi has been toughening is stance vis-à-vis the US over the last year, or so. With US combat shipping and anti-missile units transferred away from the Western Pacific to support operations against Iran, Xi has little reason to soften up.

One last thought, more remotely possible, is that the PRC’s struggling economy needs more time to fund the PLAAF’s activities. If that’s the case, look for the pause to last a while longer. If Lewis is right, look for the pause to end with the end of Xi’s meeting with Trump, or not, depending on what concessions Trump yields to Xi.

“Homilies Won’t Liberate Iran”

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That’s the headline of William McGurn’s Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed, and he’s right. His laid out his case early on.

This may sound harsh, but it’s necessary to say. The Catholic Church and its last few popes have understood only the destructive force of war. They appear to have given little thought to the terrible consequences for innocent people when soft words are offered as a substitute for tough but necessary action.

Pope Leo earlier this month, proving McGurn’s point in advance:

I am following with deep concern what is happening in the Middle East and in Iran during this tumultuous time. Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue.

Dialogue with whom, exactly? With terrorists who have no concern about the lives of innocents beyond their propaganda value as dead bodies? With terrorists whose agreements and commitments with others are routinely and at convenience violated? The only thing the Iranian government’s terrorists are sincere about is their desire for the destruction of the Great and Little Satans—the US and Israel. The only dialogue they’re interested in being responsible for is negotiations as stall and distraction tactic.

McGurn’s response [emphasis his]:

Stability and peace are achieved only through dialogue? Is that what history tells us? It seems more accurate to say that the kind of rightly ordered world the pope desires can’t be built by armies alone—but can almost never be built without armies and without the threat of force. Most often it is force or the threat of it that makes dialogue possible.

I branch off from that, slightly. In the end, the Pope’s teaching, the Catholic Church’s teaching, the teachings of most any Christian or Jewish faith are important to maintaining the virtuous and religious populations that a republican democratic nation (or popular democratic nation, come to that) needs in order to survive. But, morals don’t win—can’t win—wars for survival, however critical they are to maintaining the backbone and endurance necessary to persevere and win those wars.

Winning wars comes down to physical, kinetic activities of one side being better and stronger and more lethal than those of the other side. And, yes, assuredly yes, some wars are just wars, even are wars that are required by morality to be fought.

As a man asked some time ago, then, how many divisions does the Pope have? Better if, instead of generalized moralizing, he offered concrete solutions and concrete mechanisms for achieving them along with his explanations of the morality underpinning them.

Keeping a Close Watch

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Matthew Hennessey had a heads-up in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal Free Expression section. His warning is summarized in his subheadline and again early on in the piece.

China is getting a good look at the precision and professionalism of the American war machine.

And

With the possible exception of Donald Trump and the Iranians themselves, no one is following the progress of the latest Middle East war more closely than China’s Xi Jinping. Not so much for the outcome, but for the scouting opportunity. Mr Xi is interested in US tactics and weaponry because he’s preparing for a war of his own.

Of course Xi is. Whatever else he (and his rump general staff, come to that) might be, they’re not stupid men.

Which brings me to my concern. Hennessey liked his football analogy throughout his piece, so I’ll expand it. The…game…between the US and Iran is like unto a start-of-the-season game between a highly ranked college team and a third or fourth tier college team, a game whose value for the ranked team is little more than another scrimmage, this time with plays and outcomes on the line.

Or, a more apt analogy: the campaign the US is executing against Iran (Hennessey ignored Israel’s role in the campaign because Xi isn’t concerned with the Israeli machine’s precision and professionalism) is little more than a live fire exercise.

Live fire exercises are tightly constrained in their activities; even when state-of-the-art systems are used, those are used under artificial constraints and only employed a very few times, as proofs of technique. I strongly hope we’re not putting our best systems, tactics, and doctrine to use against this third or fourth tier opponent, or at least limiting their use. There’s no need, in order to crush the mullahs easily, to broadly expose those for Xi’s edification.

“Better is the enemy of good enough” applies here, too.

On the other hand, there’s this bit of Hennessey misapprehension:

One thing to remember: it’s been 47 years since the PLA was involved in anything close to a real firefight—a monthlong spitting contest that it fought to a draw with Vietnam in 1979. The US military has been trading blows with real bad guys in hard places more or less constantly since 2001.

That’s true enough, and our military’s hard experience is invaluable. But would it be enough? It’s been 75 years since our military was involved in a fight with a peer or near peer enemy. And that was against the PLA in the Korean War, and absent the use of nuclear weapons, we escaped with a draw.