James (26:56)
So another thing we should consider here is the historical parallels. Right? And the obvious historical parallel would be to look to 1987 and what's generally referred to as the Tanker War, Right. What the United States attempted to do was to open up a channel. The strait to Formuz is very narrow, as I said, its narrowest point is just 21 miles. There are two channels, because obviously not the entire 21 miles is deep enough ships to go through. There are two channels that are each about two miles wide. I think they're three kilometers wide. Still not very great at that conversion. So the United States attempted to open one channel and then run a convoy system. Right. Think about when you have roadworks and, you know, the cars go one way and then the cars go the other way, and someone goes in front of you and they have, like, a flashing light tell you to follow them or what have you. And the United States attempted to escort convoys of mostly reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Right. The very first escort mission involved a Kuwaiti oil tanker that had been reflagged as an American tanker to become the Bridgerton. And it was the Bridgerton that struck an underwater mine on that very first mission. It didn't cause any casualties. It did cause damage to the ship. During that same operation, a United States ship also struck a mine. It was called the United States Samuel Roberts. Samuel B. Roberts. I believe it struck a mine while transiting international waters. It just goes to show that when there are mines in this area, in any area, it's very hard to know when they've all been removed. And it's very hard to know where they all are right now. During that same operation, a United States warship mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian flight, killing all 290 people on board. This goes to show how crowded the space is around the Strait of Hormuz. And it goes to show how, I mean, even in a relatively modern war, the possibility for mistakes is very high. And that's before you even consider the fact that the Trump administration is willing to accept, even among administrations in the United States, they are willing to accept a very high number of innocent deaths. I also want to talk about, because this is such a small strait, such a crowded strait, the possibility of attack is not just limited to naval attack. Right. To boats. We know the US Destroyed most of Iran's navy, and we're going to speak about how the IRGC Navy is not the same as Iran's regular flag Navy Navy, Right. When we talk about the Iranian Navy, big gray boats, yes. The US has destroyed many of those with the irgc, we're looking at much smaller, fast attack vessels, Right? Sometimes civilian vessels with a machine gun mounted to them. Those have not all been destroyed. It will be very hard for the United States to destroy those all from the air as it will be for the United States to destroy the ground attack capability that Iran has. Right. They have Hormuz missiles, they have Shahid drones. They can use regular unguided rockets. A Shaheed drone from anywhere in the country of Iran, given its range, could hit a boat in the Strait of Hormuz. These Hormuz class missiles, they're called Hormuz missiles. They're launched from vehicles, right? It looks like a lorry and it comes out and it pops up its back, lifts up the missile and launches it. These are very easy to hide, Right? Lots of entities in this region use tunnels and caves to hide things. I'm sure the Iranian state does too. But you could hide one of these missile launches anywhere, in a city, in a cave, in a tunnel. It only needs to pop out, deliver its missile, and then it can be abandoned. Right. Or it can go back into its cave, whatever it wants. But the Iranians don't need to destroy every ship that transits the Strait of Hormuz to close the Strait of Hormuz. First of all, there are only two, three kilometer channels, right? If there is a wrecked ship in one of those channels, the channel gets smaller and smaller and therefore your chance of hitting the mines that are there gets higher and higher. Right. Because there's less way to go around them. The Iranians only have to make transiting the Strait of Hormuz uninsurable to succeed. Right? So what has happened with private maritime security contractors so far is that their presence has made transiting high risk areas, areas at high risk for piracy, an insurable effort. Because frequently you will hear that a ship with armed security has never been taken by pirates. That's really hard for us to confirm, Right. Like there's no independent data on that, but certainly it likely reduces the chance of them being taken by pirates, and that has made them insurable. The Iranians knocking out one or two tankers will make the Strait of Hormuz an uninsurable passage, or it will make that insurance so costly that commercial entities will not be willing to undertake that journey. Right. Now, Donald Trump has said the United States will act as the insurer I know, man. It will be a lot of tankers for us to buy if the Iranians keep, you know, they've knocked out two large vessels overnight. It seems unlikely. Donald Trump has said a lot of things, right? Not all of them are true. Very even in the last few weeks, Donald Trump said a lot of things about the Strait of Hormuz that were not true. So we will see. But I wanted to explain some of those threats. Let's have a talk about the specific naval threat. Now that IRGC Navy.
