Iran

[Recc]

Originally Posted by ORAC

The Stillborn Blockade

China's defense minister, Admiral Dong Jun, issued a brief statement earlier today, coinciding with the previously announced start time of the US blockade of Iranian maritime trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We are committed to peace and stability in the world. We are monitoring the situation in the Middle East. Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honour them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us.”

The entire purpose of the blockade is to interdict Iranian oil shipments to China. The US cannot and will not risk a military conflict with China. The blockade is therefore stillborn.

I have seen that quote on social media, but nowhere with any reliable attribution and not reported in any Chinese publications. I suspect that the quote is fabricated. China is very unlikely to start off with such a public and confrontational stance. They have much larger strategic oil reserves than their Western counterparts and are very likely to let the supply problem get much worse before they try to exploit the situation for their own interests.

[Hangarless]

Originally Posted by Recc

I have seen that quote on social media, but nowhere with any reliable attribution and not reported in any Chinese publications. I suspect that the quote is fabricated. China is very unlikely to start off with such a public and confrontational stance. They have much larger strategic oil reserves than their Western counterparts and are very likely to let the supply problem get much worse before they try to exploit the situation for their own interests.

We will respect and honour them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us.”

This statement alone is unrealistic if indeed it is an official Chinese statement.

The US would most certainly take issue with it as would the Gulf States.

[ORAC]

I have seen that quote on social media, but nowhere with any reliable attribution

Lots of papers reporting it. There is one account I can find saying it is fake, but not an official Chinese site* and equally no firm rebuttal from Beijing.

A non-attribute warning?

https://www.msn.com/en-in/autos/phot...-3&uxmode=ruby

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/stor...652-2026-04-13

https://eadaily.com/en/news/2026/04/...airs-with-iran

* https://www.beijingchannelnewsletter...istrys-warning

[dogle]

Seems that CVN-77 group, tasked to join in the operations, is taking the longer route from the East Coast -
https://news.usni.org/2026/04/13/car...lockade-begins

Hmm, maybe those "pesky Houthis" are seen to have some teeth left, and perhaps they may be coming due for extraction.

[dead_pan]

if the Iranian terminals are offline, then that makes the blockade moot

Then we'll be back to square one, with the Iranians flattening the Gulf states' oil and gas infrastructure.

There will, inevitably, come a point quite soon when the USN will have to decide whether to board and possibly impound a Chinese or Indian vessel.

[dead_pan]

Originally Posted by dogle

Seems that CVN-77 group, tasked to join in the operations, is taking the longer route from the East Coast -
https://news.usni.org/2026/04/13/car...lockade-begins

Hmm, maybe those "pesky Houthis" are seen to have some teeth left, and perhaps they may be coming due for extraction.

Does make you wonder if there was more to the Ford's withdrawal than officially admitted. Red Sea getting a little too congested (and hot) for carrier group ops?

[soarbum]

Strait of Hormuz traffic barely affected on first day of US blockade, data shows

The first full day ​of a U.S. blockade on vessels calling at Iranian ports made little difference to Strait of Hormuz traffic on Tuesday, with at least eight ships including three Iran-linked tankers, crossing the waterway, shipping data showed.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the blockade on Sunday after weekend peace talks in Islamabad between the U.S. and Iran failed to reach a deal.
....

https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...ws-2026-04-14/

[Not_a_boffin]

Originally Posted by dogle

Seems that CVN-77 group, tasked to join in the operations, is taking the longer route from the East Coast -
https://news.usni.org/2026/04/13/car...lockade-begins

Hmm, maybe those "pesky Houthis" are seen to have some teeth left, and perhaps they may be coming due for extraction.

Or, alternatively not wanting to be transiting a narrow channel (Suez) where there is no manoeuvre room and the equivalent of dickers can be relaying sitreps to IRGC missile bases.......Suez is equivalent to a fixed location, very different to open sea (or even Red Sea for that matter)....

[BonnieLass]

Apparently the Iranians are looking to close Bab-el-Mandeb with the help of local Houthi. A couple of days ago a sailing ship experienced an attempted hijacking just north of there which was unsuccessful. The route from Strait of Hormuz to Bab-el-Mandeb is already subject to piracy within the Gulf Of Aden and all ships on the route carry LRAD and armed guards to prevent hostile boarding. If Bab-el-Mandab is closed as retribution for the US blockade of Iranian ports, that will damage trade immeasurably as it will cut off the Red Sea and Suez completely at the southern end. Bab-el-Mandeb is just 20 miles wide and has Yemen to one side and Eritrea and Djibouti on the other side.

There are reports via UKMTO of incidents within the Gulf of Oman area now too, one such involved a bulk carrier south of Rass Al Hadd, two unidentified projectiles hit the ship and caused a fire on April 7, 2026.

UKMTO record all shipping incidents worldwide, their list for the ME area is growing https://www.ukmto.org/recent-incidents

[ATNotts_2]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50

For those of you who are not maritime professionals, suggest you read up how Sir Julian Corbett and Alfred Thayer Mahan discuss blockades:
Close Blockades and Distant Blockades.

To be honest, I am not sure what the current aim is, since the rhetoric and the actions I see reported in the media do not match up.

With your experience would you say there were any concise aims in place at the beginning of this operation or indeed proper planning to achieve them, if there were any?

[Timmy Tomkins]

Given that there are now efforts to produce a negotiated settlement, maybe some concessoons on Iranian Nuclear ambitions is in order? Why is it so important that they don't have one? To stop Israel attacking whenever it wants to perhaps but given the principle of MAD would they ever dare use it? The difficulties facing a nuclear power neatly demonstrated here.

You Tube

[CharlieMike]

Originally Posted by Timmy Tomkins

Given that there are now efforts to produce a negotiated settlement, maybe some concessoons on Iranian Nuclear ambitions is in order? Why is it so important that they don't have one? To stop Israel attacking whenever it wants to perhaps but given the principle of MAD would they ever dare use it? The difficulties facing a nuclear power neatly demonstrated here.

You're gambling on the fact that the regime don't actually believe the religious stuff they peddle. They currently stand out as the one nation that is actively pursuing nuclear weapon capability that might not care about MAD...."bring on the apocalypse" type stuff.

[AR1]

Originally Posted by dead_pan

Does make you wonder if there was more to the Ford's withdrawal than officially admitted. Red Sea getting a little too congested (and hot) for carrier group ops?

Its been at Sea for nearly 300 days, been to Venezuala, then just when it thought it was coming home got diverted to support Epic ***up. Caught fire, and chances are it ( And its crew) are long overdue relief.

[Lonewolf_50]

AR1 makes a good point. Typical CVN deployments are 6-7 months, with the occasional extensions beyond that when heavy ops crop up. Op Tempo and all that. We got extended in Sixth Fleet a couple of months back in 86...the "six month deployment" ended up being a few days short of eight months when all was said and done. Ford was due to come home. (If nothing else, to fix the heads. )

As to this thought:

Why is it so important that they don't have one?

Best to ask that question of the Israelis.
But also ask, within the region, the Saudis. As we've discussed before on the Mil Av forum, there is a valid concern that if the Iranians reach their goal, the Saudis will have one rather soon...balance of power stuff, if nothing else, and I harbor a suspicion that Pakistan will be who provides it to them.

My opinion on the Iranian nuclear capability remains what it's always been: they'll find a way to get it, and then they get to add themselves to the list of places on our (the US) target list.
Be careful of what you wish for.

[Lonewolf_50]

Originally Posted by ATNotts_2

With your experience would you say there were any concise aims in place at the beginning of this operation or indeed proper planning to achieve them, if there were any?

My experience is a few decades old, and the Maritime Embargos that I saw or had a link to (in the Adriatic and in the Persian Gulf) were coalition operations, and were not called out as blockades. Mostly a "pull them over inspect" regime. The decision to impose a blockade is a fairly serious one, and like the problems we ran into with Former Yugoslavia, there is an extensive land border behind the coasts being monitored or shut down. In Iran's case, there has been an active arms trade between them and Russia for some years. Be it a close or distant blockade, it takes time for such measures to have an effect, and there are always efforts made to evade them or counter them.

If the objective is to squeeze the oil revenues, I look back to the UN sponsored embargo / sanctions on Iraq in the 1990's, and note that even then a 'shadow fleet' was alive and well. (Also: there were some humanitarian exceptions in that embargo under the various UNSCRs which I don't see as any part of what the current move has).

What the folks in Washington are doing is covering some new ground. Previous efforts in the Gulf were still (in the background) focused on the generally free movement of oil/energy in and out of the Gulf for the benefit of all global customers. What I am seeing at the political level is a version of Iran's "if you bleed, I bleed" approach (as they attacked various Gulf States).
The operating mind set seems to be this:
"OK, you shut down their oil, we'll shut down your oil, and the customers have to deal with that on a case by case basis."
That strikes me as fundamentally different than the previous embargos in the Persian Gulf, in terms of tone and intent.

I am out of the loop (and my contacts in DC have been drying up over the past few years as people retire or quit), so I am not sure how close to the mark my analysis lands.

Originally Posted by BonnieLass

Out of curiosity, how would the US respond to this idea?

Who knows? Each morning brings a new point of view. Seems like a good idea to me, but nobody is answering my calls.

As to what lars mentions: I recall the foreign workers in the Mid East when I was there (has it really been over 20 years?) who sent home remittances. From memory, the most common labor imports were from the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia. (But I may have crossed a few wires in memory). They did hard jobs in the hot sun, and were treated like dirt.

[larssnowpharter]

I concur with LW's assessment that Iran will find a way to get hold of nuclear weapons. If anything current nastiness will be an added motivation. They see their lack of a nuclear deterrent as an existential threat and would love to be in the same position as N Korea.
In some ways, the Saudis already have nukes. They are believed to have financed the Pakistani programme and the quid pro you had culminated in the Saudi/Pakistan defence pact with its NATO Article 5 equivalent.

[Lonewolf_50]

Originally Posted by larssnowpharter

They are believed to have financed the Pakistani programme and the quid pro you had culminated in the Saudi/Pakistan defence pact with its NATO Article 5 equivalent.

lars, was that something a while back, or the more recent deal (September 2025) that I read about in FP?

Originally Posted by FP

September 23, 2025, 4:51 PM
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a defense pact last week that provides mutual security guarantees. The agreement is likely to have ramifications for South Asia, as it comes at a particularly fraught moment in the region. It follows the short but intense India-Pakistan conflict in May, after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which New Delhi says was sponsored by Islamabad.

Iran's leadership may see that as a bit of "we are getting surrounded" although I took it as Pakistan shoring up its position vis a vis India.

[albatross]

A whole bunch of empty tankers headed for the US looking for fuel.

One wonders if this was part of the “Brilliant Plan”

You Tube

[larssnowpharter]

The mutual defence pact is the recent one but the Saudi funding, as far as I know, has never been proven. Money circulation - in the Middle East especially - being a bit on the murky side.
As to being surrounded, Pakistan might be a tad anxious about Iran having nuclear weapons this leaving it with a nuclear armed neighbour on two borders.

[dead_pan]

One wonders if this was part of the “Brilliant Plan”

That suggests that there was considerable forethought and strategising. I think it more likely this was more an unplanned windfall for the US.