Tag Archives: pirates

Prosperity guardian; whose prosperity are we guarding?

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The Houtis, a Shia Islamic group, have been attacking ships in the Red Sea, hitting European ships, mostly carrying goods going between China and Europe. They use ballistic missiles plus cheap drones with great effect, targeted by an Iranian spotter ship in the Red Sea narrows, the Bab el Mandab. The US response is “Prosperity Guardian.” We’ve sent four missile destroyers. and the British one. These are arrayed along the entire coastline, too much coast for 5 ships to protect, and we try to shoot down drones and missiles. We manage to shoot down most of the missiles and and drones, but some always get through, and they mostly hit US and British targets. Recently the Maersk Detroit, a US flagged ship and 3 days ago, the British tanker, Marlin Luanda, shown below. It was carrying Russian naphtha headed for China. Some months ago, The Houtis kidnapped a British ship (Jewish owned) and took it to Yemen, as described previously.

British oil tanker, Marlin Luanda, on fire in the Gulf of Aden after being hit by an Iranian missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis. The tanker is hauling Russian naphtha, headed for China.

Iran supplies the missiles, and helps choose targets. According to Kissinger the aim of their attacks, and of the attacks on Israel, is to delegitimize Sunni Moslem countries like Egypt and Turkey that have made peace with Israel and the west. Whatever the motivation, Chinese and Russian ships are not targeted, but our ships are. We don’t attack the Iranian spotter for fear of starting a war. Instead we bomb Yemen, and protect ships carrying Chinese good and Russian oil. Currently 80% of the oil tanker transits of the Suez carry Russian oil (see below).

Most of the oil trade in the Suez is Russian — yellow line. Everyone else is shown in blue-black. It’s down to 0.5 ships per day, on average.

I don’t mind helping European countries get cheap Chinese goods, but I think the the main folks to pay should be the Europeans. We’re firing expensive anti-missiles and we’re showing the strengths and vulnerabilities to the Iranians, Chinese and Russians. Currently it’s our sailors who are at risk. The US trades with China too, but our China trade is not benefitted by ‘Prosperity guardian. Mostly our China trade avoids the Suez Canal, and comes around Africa to Savana or NY, or it comes across the Pacific, directly to Los Angeles. Our India trade most goes the same way. Some used to go through the Suez before the Houtis started attacking.

France and Japan have not joined prosperity guardian. Instead they have chosen to convoy their own flagged ships, even allowing the occasional stringer to tag along. Doing this, they use fewer ships, and it seems to work better than our approach. The picture at left shows a French courvair-escort escorting two French container ships. Note how much bigger the container ships are than the French warship. Should the Houtis’s missiles get too close to a French ship, I suspect that the French would retaliate hard. I think we should switch to following the French model and convoy-protect our shipping, plus whoever wants to tag along.

Map of Yemen and the Red Sea narrows.

Shipping, insurance rates have risen to about 1% of the cargo value. It’s now so expensive that no US cargo carrier will transit the area except when needed to supply our troops. At this point it’s worth asking, “Whose property are we guarding?” Also, is this really worth the lives of US sailors? If it is, why not hit the source of the problem — The Iranian spotter. The behavior of the French and Japanese makes sense to me. Biden’s behavior here does not.

Robert Buxbaum, February 6, 2024. Iran also funds and arms Hezbollah, a group that killed 3 US soldiers two months ago, and who killed several Kurdish allied troops in Syria just yesterday, and have shelled Israel intensely for months. IMHO, you want a few, well defended bases, not in harms way in Syria, but close enough to come back fast, in force.

Modern piracy and the gate of tears.

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Piracy is illegal throughout the world, but has become increasingly popular. Over the last 3 weeks, perhaps 15 ships have been attacked by pirates (or privateers) in the narrow entrance to the Red Sea between Yemen, Somalia, and Djibouti, the “Bab el Mandab,” In Arabic, this means “the gate of tears”. Most of the ships attacked are large commercial vessels operating between Europe and Asia. The US destroyer, Carney has been attacked as well. Three of the attacked ships have been boarded, and two have been successfully hijacked, the car-carrier Galaxy Leader was taken to South Yemen, while the MV Ruen a Bulgarian owned dry bulk (grain) ship was brought to Somalia. The last of the hijacked ships, the Strinda, was recaptured by the US and Japanese navy. The other ships were attacked, at a distance, by Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, all fired from Yemen. All of these acts are defined as piracy under the UN Charter, Law of the Sea, UNCLOS. The punishment is 10+ years in prison, assuming you catch the pirate.

Bab al Mandab = Gate of tears, where the pirates operate.

All of these ships are European except for the Carney and a Chinese container ship flagged in, Hong Kong. You’d think that the European navies would protect their own ships here, but they do not. Neither did the Chinese navy, though they are stationed in Djibouti. It’s clear that Iran is organizing the attacks, and that they are using a spotter ship to help direct the missiles. My guess is that the European countries don’t want to annoy Iran here, nor do they like to use their $1 million missiles.

In theory, these attacks are in response to the Israel – Gaza war. The hijacked Galaxy Leader was registered in the UK, but owned by an Israeli Jew (see a video of the attack). Another ship that was attacked, the Strinda, was not directly associated with Israel, but was going to go to Israel at some point in the future. While it’s possible that the other attacked ships had Jewish or Israel connection, a simpler explanation is that this is economic terror. Israel-based Zim shipping has elected to avoid the straight and redirect around Africa instead, a much longer route that is sure to damage the shipper and Israel’s economy. I suppose that was an intent, but the damage is spreading.

Commercial vessel attacks in Bab al Mandab, chart from “What the Ship” video blog.

The European shippers have demanded that the US protect their ships, and perhaps Biden will agree. My sense is that Trump would have said no, or at least demand something in return. Personally, I see no reason to defend trade that doesn’t involve us, with no obvious payback. Yesterday, British Petroleum BP announced that it would avoid the Bab. Four major European container freight firms, MSC (Swiss), Maersk (Danish), Hapag-Lloyd (German) and CMA CGM (Italian, French). Currently Maersk supplies our troops, but has threatened to stop unless we defend their whole fleet. I consider this an offensive, a breech of contract. They European press seems to think it’s clever. We used to have a US company that supplied our troops, Landsea intermodal, but Maersk bought them out. Personally, I think it’s time to look for a company that doesn’t play these games.

As of two days ago, the economic damage has been minimal, except to Israel. Only 55 ships had diverted around Africa, or begun to. This is a small fraction of the 2,128 ships that have gone through the Bab since November 15. In the last day or so, European oil prices have started to rise, while ours fell. The thought is that Saudi oil will now flow to the US, not Europe. I think this is the beginning of a serious problem for Europe and that they should defend their own shipping. A few, million dollar missiles are a lot cheaper than the billions of loss to their economies that rerouting will cause. At present, Europe expects us to save them while they do little or nothing. I think we should say no. They think Biden will cave.

Robert Buxbaum, December 19, 2023. I’d like to call out my admiration for the “What the Ship” video blog, and Marine Link.

The worst president was John Adams

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Every now and again a magazine cites a group of historians to pick the best and worst presidents. And there, at the bottom of the scale, I typically find James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson; Warren Harding, and/or Ulysses Grant, none of whom deserve the dishonor, in my opinion. For Pierce and Buchanan, their high crime was to not solve the slavery /succession problem — as if this was a problem that any PhD historian would have been able to solve in a weekend. It was not so simple; the slavery question bedeviled the founding fathers, tormented Daniel Webster and Henry Clay; George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wrestled with it. None could solve it, and all served when the country had relative levels of good feeling. Now, in the 1850s, Pierce and Buchanan inherit this monster, and we blame them for not resolving the slave issue when the nation was at the boiling point and Kansas was burning. They did the best they could in impossible circumstance, buying us time (Pierce also bought us southern Arizona).

Similarly, with Johnson: our historians’ complaint is that he didn’t manage reconstruction well — as if any one of them could have done better. You can’t blame a person for failing in a hopeless situation. Be happy they filled their terms, avoided war with our neighbors, and left the country richer and more populous than they found it.

Moving on to Grant and Harding, their crime was to be president at a time of scandal. But the very essence of this condemnation is that it presents the scandal, a non-issue in the large sweep of America, as if it were the only issue. Both Harding and Grant drank in the white house, and played cards while members of their cabinets stole money. These are major scandals to blue noses, but not so relevant to normal people. Both presidencies were periods of prosperity, employment, and growth. Both presidents paid down the national debt. Harding paid down $2,000,000 of debt, a good chunk of the debt incurred in WWI. Grant paid down a similarly large chunk of the debts of the civil war. Both oversaw times of peace and both signed peace treaties: Harding from WWI, Grant from the civil war and the Indian wars. Both left office with the nation far more prosperous than when they came in. No, these are not bad presidents except in the eyes of puritans who require purity in everyone else, and care little for the needs of the average American.

The worst president, in my opinion, was John Adams, and I would say he set a standard for bad that’s not likely to be beat. How bad was Adams? He oversaw the worst single law ever in American history, the Sedition act. This act, a partner to the Alien act (almost as bad), was pushed though by Adams a mere 8 years after passage of the bill of rights. The act made it illegal to criticize the government in any way. In this, it made a mockery of free expression. Adams put someone in jail for calling him “his rotundancy” — that is, for calling him fat. The supreme court had to step in and undo this unbelievably horrible law, but this was only one of several horrible acts of president Adams.

Another horrible act of president Adams is his decision to pick a war with France, our ally from the revolution. Adams himself had signed the treaty of Paris guaranteeing that we would never go to war with France. So why did Adams do it? He was a puritan, literally. He didn’t like French immorality and hated French Catholicism. He was insulted that French officials had overthrown their king (not that we had done otherwise) that they wore fancy clothes, and that they wanted bribes. He leaked their request for bribes to the press (the XYZ affair) and presented this as the reason for war. So Adams, pure Adams, got us to war with our oldest ally, a war we could not win, and didn’t.

But Adams didn’t stop there. Having decided to go to war, he also decided to stop paying on US debt to the French. He was too pure to pay debt to a nation that overthrew its king and set up a more-egalitarian state than we had. One where slavery was abolished.

Adams, of course, did nothing to address slavery, though he berated others about it. And it’s not like Adams didn’t pay out bribes, just not to the despised Catholics. At the beginning of Adams’s single term a group of Moslems, the Barbary pirates, captured some American ships. Adams agreed to pay bribe after bribe to the Barbary Pirates for return of these US ships. But the more we paid, the more ships the Barbary pirates captured. So Adams, the idiot, just bribed them more. By the end of Adams’s term, 1/4 of the US budget went to pay these pirates. When Jefferson became president, he ended the war with France by the simple solution of buying Louisiana and he sent the US Marines to deal with the pirates of North Africa. Adams could have done these things but didn’t; Jefferson did, and is ranked barely above Adams as a result. So why is it that no historian calls out Addams as an awful president?.I think it’s because Adams wrote beautifully about all the right sentiments, especially to his wife. Historians like writers of high sentiment. According to 170 scholars, the top ten presidents, not counting those on Mount Rushmore are FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan, Obama, and LBJ.

The bottom ten presidents. And there's Trump at the very bottom, with the usual suspects. Harrison was only president for a month.

The bottom ten presidents. And there’s Trump at the very bottom, with the usual suspects. Harrison was only president for a month.

And that brings us to the new poll. It includes William Henry Harrison among the worst. Harrison took office, became sick almost immediately, and died of Typhoid 31 days after taking office. The white house water supply was just down river from the sewage outlet, something you find in Detroit as well. He did nothing to deserve the dishonor except drinking the water after running a great presidential campaign. His campaign song, Tippecanoe and Tyler too is wonderful listening, even today.

And that brings us to the historian’s worst of the worst. The current president, Donald J. Trump. This is remarkable since it’s only a year into Trumps term, and since he’s done a variety of potentially good things: He ended a few trade deals and regulations that most people agree were bad. The result is that the stock market is up, employment is up, people are back at work, and historians are unhappy. What they want is another FDR, someone who’ll tell us: “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” whatever that means. By historian polls FDR is the second or third best president ever.

Robert Buxbaum. April 25, 2018. Semi-irrelevant: here’s a humorous song about Harrison. 

Major blunders of the American Revolution

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As nice as it is to discuss the brilliant men and great battles that allowed the American colonials to win the American Revolution, there is another way to see things –perhaps less enjoyable, but just as legitimate: looking at the great dunderheads and mistakes that allowed the greatest military power on earth to be defeated by a small group of undisciplined rabble. Here follows brief essays on my three top dunderheads: two British, one French. No one realized they were dunces until much later.

Pride of place goes, I think, to King Louis 16th of France. He helped us to win the war, and lost his own empire in the process. King Louis had nothing to gain by funding the American cause. And he had quite a lot to lose in men and money. He lost his ships and men in Rhode Island, lost colonies in India and the Seychelles, and spent millions he’d need when the famine of 1789 came. Worse, by supporting America, Louis put the bug of Liberty in the French ear. Far better (for Louis) would have been if he had waited, non-committally for another 3-5 years as the Dutch and Spanish did. He could have continued to host and honor Franklin, could have continued to sell weapons (to both sides) and could have even encouraged hot-head volunteers like Lafayette to go over and fight. We might still have won (see below) but at a greater cost to us and a fraction of the cost to the French monarchy. Let us thank God for fools. Here are my thoughts on when to get involved in a foreign war.

The basic issue of big-scale blunders is not seeing the disaster that hides behind a small-scale victory. And that tends to be funny.

The basic of every great dunderhead is not seeing the disaster that hides behind a small-scale victory. And that tends to be funny.

British admiral George Rodney is my second, honored dunce. He had many victories, especially after the war was lost, but his major war achievement was not-relieving Cornwallis at Yorktown, and thus losing the war. In early 1781, Rodney was defending Jamaica and other British “Sugar Islands” in the Caribbean while waiting for orders to either fight the French fleet or relieve Cornwallis. As it was, he did neither but instead attacked a Dutch-held, Caribbean island, St. Eustatius. Rodney noticed that British freighters were being hijacked by pirates and that the island was a major trading port to the American colonists. By going after these pirates, he gained booty, but left the rest of the empire under-gunned. This allowed French Admiral, de Grasse Tilly to defeat Admiral Hood in the Caribbean; allowed him to take Tobago for the French. And then, while Rodney was still protecting his St Eustatius booty, de Grasse circled back to Virginia in time to bottle up Cornwallis. British Admiral Graves tried twice to dislodge de Grasse, but without Rodney he hadn’t the firepower. Cornwallis surrounded the day Graves gave up his second, failed attempt.

Rodney’s choice was one of greed, self-interest, and glory-seeking at the expense of British national interest. It isn’t unique in the Revolution or in British military history. Clinton’s move to attack Philadelphia when he was supposed to aid Burgoyne caused the loss of Burgoyne’s army and got the French in on our side, but I judge Rodney’s screw-up bigger if only because Cornwallis’s defeat ended the war and lost America.

Finally, I give the third-place dunce cap to General Banastre Tarleton, otherwise known as “Bloody Ban,” the most hated man in America. Tarleton was the son of a noted slave trader and mayor of Liverpool. He tended to win battles, but as fictionalized in the movie, The Patriot, he rarely differentiated rebel from loyalist, burning farms and churches of both. He also became known for “Tarleton’s quarter”, killing his enemies after they had surrendered. In the long run, this sort of thing turns your friends in to your enemies, and so it did here.

The view, common in Tarlton’s regiment, was that this was at least partially a religious war. If a congregation wasn’t Anglican — a church with the king as its head — it was a “sedition shop” and needed to be eliminated. He wasn’t totally wrong, but it rarely goes down well; for example the Sunni vs Shiite, Hamas vs ISIS wars. He certainly undermined Benedict Arnold’s claims that King George was serious in granting religious freedom.

A religious dissertation on why resistance to the king is obedience to God.

A religious dissertation: resistance to a tyrant is obedience to God.

When Tarleton was given the job of capturing Marion Francis, the Swamp Fox, his approach, with Major James Wemyss and Captain Christian Hock (or Hook), was to burn the farms, churches, and plantations of anyone in the area. In one of Wemyss memoranda, he writes he had “burnt and laid waste about 50 houses and Plantations, mostly belonging to People who have either broke their Paroles or Oaths of Allegiance, and are now in Arms against us.” Note the word, “mostly.” These methods did succeed in drawing out the Swamp Fox, but it also drew out most everyone else in the south, even those who’d given up on the revolution. The now-farmless farmers enlisted and produced enthusiastic counter-attacks at Gibson’s Meeting House, Hill’s Iron Works, Fishdam Ford (Wemyss capture), Williamson’s Plantation (Huck’s Defeat), Blackstock’s farm and Cowpens. By the end, the colonials had even figured out how to use Tarleton’s enthusiasm against him.The right way to deal with your enemy is with focus and mercy, as Grant treated Lee at Appomattox. Tarleton’s methods would have made the Revolution a centuries-long, religious war IMHO, if the French had not gotten involved on our side.

Robert Buxbaum. July 16, 2015. If you have other classics of stupidity, please tell me. I’d like to recommend two books by A. J. O’Shaughnessy: “An Empire Divided,” and “The men who lost America.” As a final note: after the war Tarleton retired to Parliament where he served until 1833 as a fierce advocate for British slavery. Britain ended their use of slave workers in the Caribbean and south Africa in 1833, but didn’t stop their use in Ceylon and areas of East India company until 1843. Most Slaves who came to the new world did so in British ships.

Sealand, the big Chinese copy, and WWIII

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Perhaps the smallest country in the world is the Republic of Sealand, a man-made island in the English Channel. Originally called Roughs Tower, Sealand is only 1/4 acre, 0.0004 mi2 in area, but expands to 1.5 square miles if you include the 0.7 mile sea-claim. The country was built, in international waters, by the British during WWII, and given semi-legitimate nation status through two diplomatic accidents over the next 20 years. This nation status would be a joke except that the precedent it establishes could start WW III.

Greetings from The King and Queen of the Republic of Sealand.

The Republic of Sealand. King Roy and Queen Joan wave their greetings. Note, gun, flag, and helipad.

The British constructed Fort Roughs to serve as a bulwark against German U-Boats that were sinking supply ships. The tower-fort is topped with a deck and a helipad platform. There is one gun still working, see photo, a remnant of WWII service. Hollow concrete tubes extend to the Rough Sands sand bar; these provide storage and housing for as many as 300 troops. After the war, Rough Tower went unused and was officially abandoned in 1956. It was occupied (salvaged, conquered) in December, 1966 by radio-pirates trying to break the BBC monopoly. One of the radio-pirates, a former British Major, Paddy Roy Bates, declared the fort-island a monarchy with Roy as King and his wife Joan as Queen. Sealand, declared itself an independent nation September 2, 1967. Aristocratic titles are for sale at a price.

The first of the diplomatic accidents underlying Sealand’s semi-legitimate claim to nation status is that, when the responsible British officials were asked whether they intended to remove the radio squatters, the official response was that England abandoned ownership and responsibility. If England abandoned ownership, so the argument goes, then anyone who took over would take possession “res derelicta and terra nullius”. From a legal point of view, it constituted extra-national territory and they could declare island-nation status plus (some) sea rights. Needless to say, the British navy didn’t see it that way, and as soon as independence was declared, they attacked the island-tower-nation. Bates returned warning shots and the navy brought a case against him in Crown court, Essex. The result: The Bates’s won effective recognition as the fort sat in international waters. This claim stood until 1978 when Sealand was successfully “invaded” by German pirates. The Bates family managed to “liberate” (take back) Sealand with the help of a Bond-movie helicopter stunt pilot, capturing a German pirate in the process. The king negotiated with the German government for the pirate’s release, and thus claim de-facto German recognition. Sealand participates in some international games (ultimate frisbee, mostly), and issues passports, stamps, and currency that is not accepted anywhere. Still, the British deliver mail as if it were a country, and no nation has formally contested Sealand’s statehood since. island-reclamation-sc-sea spotlight_81412

Man made Chinese Islands in the South Pacific

Man made Chinese Islands in the South Pacific

Sealand was something of a joke until 18 months ago when China began to create a string of much-larger copies in the South China Sea. Like Sealand they are in international waters, in this case among the uninhabited, Spratly and Parasel chains of coral reefs between Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. The Chinese built retainer walls around several of the reefs and have been filling the interior with sand and coral from the sea-bed. They’ve since added military housing, desalination plants, docks, and an airstrip.

 

If these islands are accepted as new nations, or (more likely) as extensions of China, and we accept China’s claim to 200 mile sea rights, this project would give China exclusive control over vast oil, mineral, and fishery wealth, as well as control over the South China sea shipping and air lanes, extending into existing sea rights of Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines — about 2,000,000 km2. The governments of Vietnam and The Philippines have complained, but China has ignored them and warned the US to stay out.

The new islands would seem to violate several international laws, but as the incursion doesn’t direct affect us, it seems we should avoid getting involved in a neighbor’s dispute. I’ve written previously on what makes a country, and have argued that it’s a combination of (1) having a defined land and population and (2) having enough of a government and military to maintain and defend itself as a nation. And (3) not doing anything so offensive to attract the complete disdain of other nations. So far there is no civilian population, but there is a military one, and as soon as the Chinese stop building, the islands will meet all of the above criteria, except perhaps #3.

Sealand is a recurring character in the Japanese manga, Hitalia -- dedicated to the more bizarre quirks of history, each country is represented by a character.

Sealand is a recurring character in the Japanese manga, Hitalia. Sealand is the smallest character, but has a dream of ruling the world one day.

Still, it’s in our interest to avoid WW III, and as the islands multiply, so does the chance of the sort of accident that started the Spanish-American War. All it would take is a ship taken or sunk near the islands, or a plane shot down under suspicious circumstances, and the war that started will not be a small or quick. I therefore have a modest suggestion based on Sealand: allow the islands conditional nation status, but as an aristocracy and require the sale of titles of nobility like Sealand does, or the sale of senate seats (like the Illinois Governor tried to do). With enough power in private hands a war could be averted. Peace is possible.

Robert E. Buxbaum, June 21, 2015. Sealand has actually tried selling the whole country in 2007. If you want to buy a title: lord, lady, baron, etc. Go to: sealandgov.org.

Grammar on the high seas, pirate joke

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Grammar Pirate by Scott Clark, 2013.

Grammar Pirate by Scott Clark, 2013.

Pirate grammar has a special place in American English. The father of our country’s navy was likely John Paul Jones, a pirate; he redesigned our ships, captured some 16 British merchant vessels in the Revolution, and helped supply Washington’s army with guns and powder. Jean Lafitte, pirate hero of the war of 1812, may have been Jewish! The state of Michigan officially celebrates “Talk LIke a Pirate Day” September 19, the day before national pickle day.

No other country states in their constitution that a purpose of the government is to give out letters of marque — that is to mint pirates. Piracy is a great way to fight a war –severely underestimated. ISIS does it quite well. By taking supplies from the other side you weaken them while strengthening yourself. Assuming you need the stuff, you avoid the cost of manufacture, shipping, and logistics, and even if you don’t need some of it, you can usually trade these items you for items you need. It’s a great way to make foreign friends and allies. Ben Franklin sold our pirates’  captured stuff for them during the American Revolution making himself and us better liked — we had no direct need for red uniforms, for example. Pirates should not kill captured merchant seamen, I think, but ransom them , or put them to service in the cause. The Somali pirates do this; not everyone is impressed. Pirate beards may encourage bravery by showing commitment to a revolution. Here’s a song relating beards to piracy: mannen met baarden (men with beards). Bet your aaars, it’s in Dutch.

Pirate grammar is a dialect, not a sign of poor education or lack of success. I suspect that pirate grammar is more useful than standard for referring to people on the fringes of society. For example, how would you introduce a patent lawyer who’s a some-time cross-dresser? It’s simple in pirate-speak: ‘Ms Smith, pleased to meet Johnson, arrrgh patent lawyer.’ Pirate speak can also avoid the uncomfortable he/she by use of the pirate “e”: ‘E’s a scurvy sea dog, e is.’

Robert Buxbaum, July 2, 2014. I think I’ll be havin’ a rum now, and toast to Arrrgh country.