daftandbarmy
Army.ca Fossil
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Naval Lessons from Ukraine/Russia
- Thread starter Underway
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 11,881
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- 1,160
"You can build a case that the maritime commons are becoming more lawless. China hasn’t cared about the rules for years, neither has Russia or Iran. The Black Sea is an active war zone. The Red Sea is quiet, but ships continue to go around Africa to avoid it. The US is pushing the rules in the Caribbean and exceeding them in some cases."
The Telegraph
Tom Sharpe
Trump’s tanker seizure is a radically different approach. Is it the key to beating Putin?
Sanctions haven’t worked so cracking down on Russia’s dark fleet could be a way of drying up oil money funding Ukraine war
Tom Sharpe
Tom Sharpe
12 December 2025 5:54pm GMT
Trump's equivalent of the RN's old West Africa Squadron?
Abolition of slavers was a great excuse for boarding ships and controlling trade.
.....
"Caracas screamed piracy. They’re technically wrong on the definition, but the optics are undeniably wild.
"The Skipper wasn’t just some random tanker that got unlucky. She’s been sanctioned by the US since 2022 for running Iranian crude to fund the Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds Force – the overseas terrorism arm of the Tehran regime. Ownership traces through Marshall Islands shells to a Swiss-Ukrainian fixer. She had no valid flag (Panama stripped the registry years ago), no class certificate since May 2022, no protection and indemnity insurance, and she was flying a fake Guyanese flag. To stay under the radar, the crew engaged in aggressive Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder spoofing – transmitting bogus location data to make it look as though she was off Guyana while actually loading at Venezuela’s José terminal and then conducting a ship-to-ship transfer of more than a million barrels to the tanker Neptune 6, probably bound for Cuba.
"The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows warships to board a stateless vessel. Caracas has little grounds for complaint. This wasn’t piracy; it was a state executing a judicial warrant against a lawless hull. Of course this is maritime law, which is never simple. For me though, this boarding looks legitimate.
"As an aside, the difference between boarding a stateless vessel without loss of life and blowing up a suspected narco boat without so much as a demand to surrender are so stark that comparisons are largely irrelevant. Sure, both actions took place on the water, but that’s about it. It’s as pointless as comparing the narco strikes to drone strikes in, say, Afghanistan (or Iraq or Pakistan). Many are doing all of this, but largely because they want to score political points or because they don’t understand.
"There are already 30-plus sanctioned or dark tankers loitering off Venezuela right now. Several have switched off AIS altogether (illegally) or cancelled loadings since Wednesday. With US carrier-based air cover in the overhead and one third of the active US navy in the operating area, it’s safe to say that hiding will be nearly impossible. It also means there are plenty of assets in place if this is just the start."
....
As Trump Jr said, with his dad, it's hard to know.
Given the treatment meted out to a few unfortunate drug runners do anyone reckon that a vessel hailed by the USCG won't heave to?
The Telegraph
Tom Sharpe
Trump’s tanker seizure is a radically different approach. Is it the key to beating Putin?
Sanctions haven’t worked so cracking down on Russia’s dark fleet could be a way of drying up oil money funding Ukraine war
Tom Sharpe
Tom Sharpe
12 December 2025 5:54pm GMT
Trump's equivalent of the RN's old West Africa Squadron?
Abolition of slavers was a great excuse for boarding ships and controlling trade.
.....
"Caracas screamed piracy. They’re technically wrong on the definition, but the optics are undeniably wild.
"The Skipper wasn’t just some random tanker that got unlucky. She’s been sanctioned by the US since 2022 for running Iranian crude to fund the Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds Force – the overseas terrorism arm of the Tehran regime. Ownership traces through Marshall Islands shells to a Swiss-Ukrainian fixer. She had no valid flag (Panama stripped the registry years ago), no class certificate since May 2022, no protection and indemnity insurance, and she was flying a fake Guyanese flag. To stay under the radar, the crew engaged in aggressive Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder spoofing – transmitting bogus location data to make it look as though she was off Guyana while actually loading at Venezuela’s José terminal and then conducting a ship-to-ship transfer of more than a million barrels to the tanker Neptune 6, probably bound for Cuba.
"The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows warships to board a stateless vessel. Caracas has little grounds for complaint. This wasn’t piracy; it was a state executing a judicial warrant against a lawless hull. Of course this is maritime law, which is never simple. For me though, this boarding looks legitimate.
"As an aside, the difference between boarding a stateless vessel without loss of life and blowing up a suspected narco boat without so much as a demand to surrender are so stark that comparisons are largely irrelevant. Sure, both actions took place on the water, but that’s about it. It’s as pointless as comparing the narco strikes to drone strikes in, say, Afghanistan (or Iraq or Pakistan). Many are doing all of this, but largely because they want to score political points or because they don’t understand.
"There are already 30-plus sanctioned or dark tankers loitering off Venezuela right now. Several have switched off AIS altogether (illegally) or cancelled loadings since Wednesday. With US carrier-based air cover in the overhead and one third of the active US navy in the operating area, it’s safe to say that hiding will be nearly impossible. It also means there are plenty of assets in place if this is just the start."
....
As Trump Jr said, with his dad, it's hard to know.
Given the treatment meted out to a few unfortunate drug runners do anyone reckon that a vessel hailed by the USCG won't heave to?
- Reaction score
- 11,881
- Points
- 1,160
- Reaction score
- 11,881
- Points
- 1,160
At what point do we reconsider the niceties?
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