I didn’t think I was deflecting. You said it’s the same crowd complaining about this tweet as was complaining about the pandemic preparedness. Since you brought it up the pandemic, I felt it was a fair analogy to point out that much like that, where the president said many things that were boisterous and without backing, here too he is doing something similar.
I have no desire to further discuss the pandemic points on this thread, as we have a better place for that. We know where we each stand on that one. But whether or not you agree/disagree on that, it should be no point of dispute with regards to the headline topic of this thread, there was no meaningful action on behalf of the government, despite the tweet. That was my point.
Respectfully, I feel like you’d be the first to say we should base our opinions on the facts and information we have, not on what may or may not happen.
But sure, it will be interesting to see if anything actually changes from this. It would certainly not be bad if Iran stopped being a wildcard provocateur.
Reminds me of the convo between the American and Soviet officials in The Hunt for Red October:
“It would be well for your government to consider that having your ships and ours, your aircraft and ours, in such proximity… is inherently dangerous. Wars have begun that way, Mr. Ambassador.”
If you take a job on something painted haze grey surely you knew you might come into harms way.
Thank you. I am enjoying my retirement. Never sailed into harms way but walked into it many years ago. Got shot at a lot for much less money than you are making. It sucked but it’s all part of life’s adventure. Good thing about your job is you can always quit if you feel the money isn’t worth the risk.
Which Germany are you referring to. the German Federation of 1850 , the Wiemar Republic, or the united Germany of 1991?
Also, which French Republic? We are now on the 5th, I believe?
Yes, the UK has pretty much been continuously at war somewhere since WWII. The last few decades mainly because they followed the US lead. (Except the Falkland war, where they were alone. The US was more attuned to the Argentine point of view in that one)
You say things like this with such certainty. Like you are completely aware of all the variables and circumstances of the situation. What is implied in your statement is the CO of that vessel was knowingly putting his ship at significant risk allowing them to enter a zone he could not protect. I will prefer to assume the CO of the naval vessel is a competent professional, and at all all times would not allow that vessel to enter an area he could not defend without taking action.
At the core of most of this is your belief, fueled by a tweet, that the US Navy has been knowingly operating in the Arabian gulf with inadequate and/or insufficient ROE. And all this time the command structure has either been complacent or ignorant of that fact.
Can you please explain how you can say the former and believe the latter.
How can you believe the CO allowed the vessels to get to a point where you say it was too late to do anything, and also believe he was not knowingly not putting his ship at risk.
Is it the IRGC’s MO to do suicide bombs? I have searched and not found an instance when the IRGC has done that. I don’t see how your quote above about the policies not being just fine is true. You can play the “what if” game about literally everything. “What if the russians decided to bomb New York?” Yeah that is technically possible, but that’s not in the intelligence or part of the Russian MO. So based on the past 30 or so years of transiting the strait and no suicide attacks it does appear that the policy is just fine.
I think there are far more qualified people with better intel than anyone on this page making the policy regarding how to handle IRGC. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to include POTUS.
I believe the COs are following the procedures that are currently in place (as I have no reason to believe otherwise). I have no issue with the actions of COs regarding this topic. My issue is with the procedures that allow for armed fast craft of a hostile nation to come that close to our Naval vessels.
It is in all of our adversaries’ MO to identify weaknesses and exploit them. The fact that these craft have been allowed to come as close as we’ve seen is absolutely a weakness that should be eliminated.
Right and after the Cole that was eliminated. It’s not like in open sea or alongside a pier/at anchor we’re allowing a 50 yard CPA. This is a very specific area controlled by a very specific group. We know who’s there, it’s constantly under surveillance as evident by the intel we get every time we transit.
I reiterate what I said, there’s better qualified people with better intel than you and I making these policies.
Also, how are you going to justify blowing up these boats in their own territorial waters? “Well the boats were behaving the same way they have been since we overthrew their government 40 years ago but we just decided now that we don’t like it.” Like I pointed out above, it’s their waters, near their land. We’d act the same way if they came towards our boarders. The Brits follow the Russians when they come through the English Channel.
We (The US Navy and its allies) are interfering in conflicts that immediately affect their part of the world. Don’t want gun boats coming near your ship? Don’t transit the strait and head to Bahrain to offload weapons destined to blow up people/places/things that directly affect their economy/well being, don’t prop up other shitty regimes with human rights abuses, don’t make a deal about Nukes just to back out a year or two later.