Posted on 12/03/2019 10:54:02 AM PST by Retain Mike
The Navy pays a steep price keeping an aircraft carrier with escorts on station to deter attacks on oil tanker traffic operating in and around the Persian Gulf as part of the United States maximum pressure campaign against Iran, according to a new report. The ongoing carrier operations in the region are not only pricey for the U.S. Navy but also creates the potential to disrupt energy markets if a confrontation escalates.
Operation Sentinel, the U.S.-led effort to maintain maritime security through the strait, involves deploying more aircraft to the region and sending more U.S. troops to support air defense systems sent to Persian Gulf states at the expense of other parts of the world, says the Center for New American Security report, In Dire Straits Implications of U.S.-Iran Tensions for the Global Oil Market.
Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, now has resources to protect shipping traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, but by doing so, cuts a lot of what you can do in the Pacific and Europe, Ilan Goldenberg one of the reports authors told USNI News in an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
.... In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
They could be training closer to home. They aren’t there alone and the ships along with them could burn less fuel training in home waters.
Why not borrow more to protect oil flow from the Gulf to China & Japan & SE Asia & South Asia? After all China & Japan are eager to lend us more! /Facetious
With airfields all around and everything within shooting distance, there is no reason for a CBG to be there. Maybe cruise into the Arabian sea occasionally for ops, but certainly not the Gulf. Especially the Strait of Hormuz.
Of course it’s an effective triple-dog-dare, spectacular even.
The entire gulf can be protected with shore based air power, 2 diesel boats, 6 corvettes and 4 frigates.
And if every tanker cannot be protected every hour, it’s adequate deterrent.
That’s what I think our Navy should be doing these days. Simply protecting US-flagged commercial and merchant vessels. If other countries and companies want our protection, a nominal fee would suffice.
We just spend too damn much.
We need to build a Strategic Gasoline Reserve and boost refining capacity across the country to lessen the real everyday short-term impacts of oil price fluctuations due to instability in Gulf.
Its really an absurd place to put a CVN, whose natural home is open ocean.
[Evidently, we have achieved energy independence]
At the moment it appears that containment is worth the cost, but that will not always be true given the rapidly changing political environment in the Middle East and Europe, and to a lesser degree Asia and the U.S. The U.S. is not energy independent yet, although we could be if we are willing to incur the considerable cost, but we are an oil exporting nation now, hence insulated from oil price volatility to a great degree. That changes Iran's strategic alignment, because a spike in oil prices now benefits the Great Satan as well as Iran. That wasn't true before, and it constitutes the loss of their principal strategic weapon that their nuclear weapons programs promise to replace, should those be allowed to come to fruition. Lots of chips on the table here.
The Europeans could break this deadlock, and so could the Iranians, but neither will, at least at present. Either one could change very rapidly.
Iran/Russia need to constantly checked.
that sounds fine to me. I would suggest that Trump could ask the European NATO countries to start pulling their weight by sending their warships to the gulf. The kids would love it and it would be great training.
Yep. It’s great training and the kids love it. They need to get into the Atlantic once and a while, so the pilots can land and take off in real seas.
Doesnt seem to be much chance there. The only alternative energy source is nuclear fission. All the rest is nuclear fusion sourced in the sun. In this political climate I doubt we would get any even though there is now technology light years ahead of the time civilian power plants were based on ship power plants with each dimension multiplied times 20.
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