Mike Black

world events have now given me two reasons to have Yanbu Port rattling around in my synapses, and that is two more reasons than it should have

really looking forward to the CCTV feature on the blatantly illegal Taiwanese rebels' criminal missile strike on the peaceful civilian shipping RoRos that were transiting from Quanzhou to the Port of Taipei for 100% legitimate reasons, no need to worry about what was on board, LOAC violation

if you're wondering why people like me care so much about getting the specifics right on this stuff, it's because nefarious actors in places like Moscow and Beijing have absolutely already weaponized this shit in support of their asshole aims

you can say this US-ISR war of aggression fucking sucks ass and is blatantly illegal at a UN Charter level without just inventing nonexistent LOAC out of whole cloth

"multiple simultaneous or near simultaneous strikes" are literally the complete opposite of a "'double tap' (we were deliberately aiming to kill first responders so we hit once and then waited 30-45 minutes for the second hit)"

but have you considered The Content

yeah yeah we can eventually probably attrit their ability to do other stuff given a long enough bombing campaign, but yes it's basically "they have upwards of a dozen possible attack vectors, only a couple of those are depleted by blasting the Gulf States and Israel, and no one wants to be unlucky"

missiles (ballistic) and OWAs (mostly but not entirely point/coordinate seeking) are far from the only things they have to fuck with the Strait, and because the range in question is like "10 miles" instead of "somewhere between 100 and 1000 miles" that is a much more complex discussion

biggest issue is a lot of the production facilities are under enough dirt you aren't getting at them from the air (without a MOP, which we aren't gonna use to go after Shahed Factory 42069, or a nuke 🙃)

the latter of which is unfortunately pertinent thanks to pete so 🙃

to the extent LOAC grapples with this (which is not a lot), it's basically to say "decisions to go to war are the problem of leaders, if you get an order to do a hostile act and that act comports with LOAC in terms of the specifics, the war as a whole has no bearing on your criminal exposure"

broadly speaking orders that are illegal for a leader to give (because UN Charter/US law/whatever) do not automatically mean those orders are illegal to follow, if they otherwise comport with LOAC/IHL

we didn't attempt to try every single Wehrmacht member at Nuremberg

oh sure, "you need to turn around and be interned" was always the correct moral and logical play

that crew is gonna show up back in port with a broom (hopefully not a jolly roger because god help the discourse here) and it's gonna be a terrible look

Houthis on steroids, whomst could have seen this coming

- it almost certainly wasn't unarmed (but even if it was, doesn't matter)
- a submarine departing the scene not doing any rescue anything after conducting a strike that otherwise comports with LOAC has been explicitly legal since at least 1946, Karl Dönitz thanks one Chester Nimitz

I wouldn't say it's the 'only' card, but yeah it's probably their singular big one

nearest MEU is 2 weeks sail time away because pete is a strategic genius lol

I can't remember who offered up "orders that are illegal to give but not to follow" point recently, but that's basically it as far as this whole stupid war goes

an illegal war "strategically" does not have direct bearing on whether a specific tactical action violated LOAC

orders that are illegal for a President to give (because they violate the UN Charter/US law) are not illegal for the military to follow as far as LOAC goes, assuming they otherwise comport with LOAC

whether troopies should refuse those orders is a can of worms this place is not equipped to discuss

- they can credibly threaten the Strait as far as insurers are concerned without a whole lot the US can do to convince the insurers otherwise

- the US has no plan and has no strategic guidance besides grandpa's cottage cheese brain

- bibi does not give a fuuuuuck about oil prices

fwiw since I made a weekend prognostication a couple days ago, the WAR war (Iran credibly chucking shit in volume at MRBM and OWA range as well as SRBM range) is almost still certainly going to wind down over the next 72 hours, but that's separate from the Strait discussion

oh no, I mean anything with the word "improvised explosive" in the name already implies a certain "relaxed" approach to LOAC, but yeah versions of the same phenomenon are absolutely a thing terrorist groups do (kind of is central to their whole raison d'etre)

One Weird Trick to not get legally sunk

this is not Nam

I think I now have 2 things I need to rewicker for my Palmer's Folly scenario

radioing for help falls into the same bucket...you can't explicitly say NOT to do it, but there's no obligation to do so (especially so for subs)

you can't explicitly order any subordinates (sub commanders or otherwise) to not follow LOAC, but you can absolutely (as was made explicitly legal at Nuremberg) default to military necessity rendering picking up survivors while doing unrestricted submarine warfare as impractical, and leave it there

there's a de facto state of hostilities between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and regardless of the specifics of that state of hostilities' legal status re: the UN Charter, it exists for LOAC

subs de jure haven't had a responsibility to pick up survivors since Nuremberg

expensive shit getting blasted is a probable cost of doing business for a war, which is one of several reasons why you shouldn't do a war of choice for funsies even if it was legal (which this one isn't)

the semi-spicy take on this (that I promise isn't cope) is "whaddya think the PLARF is gonna do to blue IADS?"

if your adversary is thinking (and at least one is) they are gonna aim to degrade your missile defense with their fancy stuff first; Iran is marginally thinking and capable in this respect