Red Sea Antics

[j.sabourn]

These tactics are probably all well known and advocated in naval strategy by Naval and other intelligence services including Special Forces.But the usual bug bear will be their Lords and Masters the politicians always with a lien to their next challenge at the ballot box. But well done to the author of the article to come out and state the plain truth obvious to those who spend their life’s work defending their country in a true and recognisable manner to most. JS
Personally I think it was another gaffe on the part of the Australian PM not to add to the fleet of warships assembled in the area. He is showing not the colours of the majority of the people want to see. He can’t talk his way out of this one as has no idea as how the world commerce works apart of what he is told or read in some comic. JS

[James Curry]

I am sure it will not be too long before the Oil Majors start jacking up the price of petrol etc!! They never miss a chance to screw joe public over.

[Dennis Billaney]

another recent article related to the topic:


Beijing shrugs at U.S. call for help protecting Red Sea shipping


China’s disinterest in Red Sea policing role underscores Beijing’s reluctance to back its rhetoric on Middle East peace with substantive action.

The Chinese government appears to be brushing off Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for Beijing to assist an international coalition in protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militias.

Beijing signaled that it has no interest in joining the Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian , a multinational force including Canada, the United Kingdom and Bahrain, in providing security for cargo ships under threat of Houthi attack.

“We believe relevant parties, especially major countries with influence, need to play a constructive and responsible role in keeping the shipping lanes safe in the Red Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday in an indirect reference to U.S. military and diplomatic heft in the region.

Wang’s reference to “major countries with influence” reflects Beijing’s recognition that the U.S. and its allies and partners can muster, at speed, far greater naval power necessary for a seaborne shipping protection campaign than Beijing currently can . Wang didn’t address whether Beijing would use its close relationship with Iran , which provides arms and funding to the Houthis, to seek an end to those attacks.

The Houthi attacks will continue “whether a naval alliance is established or not,” Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said on Tuesday, per Reuters . Up to 15 percent of global trade traverses the Red Sea and the Houthi attacks have prompted cargo vessel rerouting “adding weeks to the delivery of key goods and materials, including oil and gas,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Tuesday.

Blinken raised U.S. concerns about the attacks’ “unacceptable threat to maritime security and international law” in a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi earlier this month. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller re-upped the administration’s interest in Chinese assistance in policing the areas of the Red Sea where the Houthis have attacked cargo vessels in a press briefing on Tuesday. Houthi attacks on international shipping “Harm China… so yes, we would welcome China playing a constructive role in trying to prevent those attacks from taking place,” Miller told reporters on Tuesday.

The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Wang’s statement reflects Beijing’s wider passivity in addressing the crises that have engulfed the Middle East since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war which has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Following the Oct. 7 attack Beijing dispatched its special envoy to the Middle East, Zhai Jun, for a multi-country swing through the region aimed to “cool down the situation,” Chinese state media reported in October . Zhai led Beijing’s efforts in brokering a hostility-reduction agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March.

But Zhai’s diplomatic mission excluded outreach to both Israel and the Palestine Authority and consisted mainly of vague expressions of support for “political settlement” of long standing grievances underpinning the current violence.

David Satterfield, President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, said in October that that gap between rhetoric and action reflects Beijing’s sensitivity “to being compelled on any international issue to take a stand which could indicate, even obliquely, that China is supportive of ‘international interventions’ or applications of international law.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/1...pping-00132861

[Des Taff Jenkins]

That is the most hypocritical post I have read in over twenty years on site. They are asking China to provide warships to aid in the Red sea, protection fleet when America has had a huge fleet including two big aircraft carriers in the South Pacific standing by to have a go at China for the last 15 years at least.
Equally Australia hasn't the ships they can send willy nilly at the behest of the Americans. We have had naval ships up there previously at a heavy cost to the budget, but as there are only 26million people here in Aus with an unemployment total of around three million, and at this time hundreds of thousands are struggling to put food on the table for their kids, we don't have money to throw around.
Des

[Les Woodard]

I see on the news that the shipping companies are not missing a chance to up the costs of going around the cape. I wonder if they deduct the cost that they save for not going through the Suez canal which I believe is very costly since they dredged it. I am glad that for once our PM has not followed the LNP and danced to the tune of the Yanks. Can you imagine Dutton (our opposition leader of the noallition party) here in Oz if sending a ship there weakened the northern area and the boats started arriving with refugees on board.

[happy daze john in oz]

Petrol price went up this morning between 15 and 28 cents per liter depending where you shop.
Shell was the biggest increase, always is.

China not concerned, they are still buying from Russia so why join in with the west?

[j.sabourn]

#14 nearly as hypocritical as the statement in the late 1990s as the navy stopping the illegal boats entering Australia with their human cargoes. I was shifting a rig up off the Ashmore Reef area and we were under instructions to report suspicious craft to Canberra and hence Coast Watch . I personally made the phone call from the bridge or Control Room of the rig and got an answering machine informing me the office was closed for the weekend and to call back Monday morning at 0900 hrs. They the pollies must think people are mad and they can get away with their apparent lies and schemes anytime they choose. JS

[John Arton]

There is an American led naval group protecting vessels from attacks from rebels in Yemen whilst transitioning the straits of bar el mandeb but in typical french ideology they have withdrawn from the coalition saying they would only protect french flagged vessels.
Rgds
J.A

[j.sabourn]

This may be a bit off course but regarding that part of the world and making for the Canal from say oz, as second mate my biggest problem was making for Cape Guardafui near the Horn of Africa was if one could not get sights for a few days , then one going on DR positions could find themselves a couple of hundred miles out no bother as the African coastal currents were unpredictical at times. Today no problem with satellite navigation. The other slight problem according to the pilot books of 1960 was the warning to mariners was never land on the Island of Socatra in the same area whether from lifeboat or ship as the inhabitants were head hunters and you were likely to find yourself in the big pot being cooked rare or well done to others requirements. JS.

[John Pruden]

my son has his work cut out he looks after all trade to china he's got to re do a lot of work for maersk?jp