Iran's Escalating Shadow Wars

Weapons seized at sea 15 July. (Photo Credit - Gulf Daily News Online)

Beyond a hint of teargas in the air around Juffair and some additional off-limits areas for Sailors, the February 2011 Pearl Roundabout uprisings weren't terribly disruptive to the U.S. Navy's FIFTH Fleet, headquartered in Manama, Bahrain. However, recent indications that Iran has increased support to Bahraini Shia resistance elements show potential to put U.S. and U.K naval presence in the Kingdom at risk. Last week, a bombing outside a girls school near the predominantly Shia village of Sitra killed two policemen and wounded six other people.

Prior to this bombing, several likely related weapons seizures occurred:

• 28 December 2024 - A shipment containing 38 blocks of C4 explosives and grenades was interdicted at sea. Additional material was found in a warehouse Al Qurayyah the next day. 
• 15 March 2024 - Two Bahraini men were detained by Saudi Arabia for smuggling high explosives across the Gulf causeway from Bahrain, ostensibly for employment in the KSA. 
• 6 June 2024 - IED components including C4, commercial detonators, advanced circuitry, chemicals, and mobile phones were seized from a warehouse near Manama. 
• 15 July 2024 - Bahrain's coast guard seized an inbound vessel that had just linked up with another vessel outside of territorial waters containing 44 kg of C4, eight Kalashnikov assault rifles, 32 Kalashnikov magazines, ammunition, and detonators. One of the two suspects detained onboard admitted to receiving firearms and IED manufacturing training in Iran in August 2013 at an Iranian Revolutionary Guards' camp.

Up until recently, insurgent explosive devices in Bahrain consisted of smallish homemade black powder pipe bombs sometimes augmented with gas cylinders or gasoline containers.  The introduction of C4 high explosives and numerous recent smuggling actions represent an escalation in Iranian lethal aid to Shia resistance elements. Bahrain's interior ministry reported that there were similarities between the explosives and components seized in the Gulf with those used by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian surrogate paramilitary group active in Iraq (which by the way, was responsible for the deaths of a number of American servicemembers during the height of the Iraq War).

Proxy warfare is Iran's favored method of expanding its influence across the Middle East. Shia militias in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria have benefited from lethal and non-lethal support generally smuggled in by the IRGC via air or ocean transport. Iran's primary unconventional warfare arm is the IRGC-Quds Force, very roughly equivalent to U.S. Army Special Forces.

As I discussed  here in 2013 and as evidenced in some of the seizures above, Iran continues to support its armed surrogates via the sea. As sanctions against Treasury Department designated terrorist entities are lifted, the nuclear deal with Iran will inevitably increase this nefarious activity. Even the National Security Advisor has admitted as much: “We should expect that some portion of that money would go to the Iranian military and could potentially be used for the kinds of bad behavior that we’ve seen in the region up until now,” Susan Rice said during a recent CNN interview of the up to $150 billion that will flow into regime coffers.

Specifically, the Vienna agreement lifts sanctions on a number of suspect organizations including Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and South Shipping Line Iran, along with dozens of other global transportation entities, many of which are probably front companies for IRGC smuggling activities.  Regardless of any details contained in the agreement, it is very unlikely that the IRGC-QF will change its bellicose behavior unless the Ayatollah's regime itself changes.

Make no mistake, many of the human rights grievances expressed by Bahrain's Shia population leading up to the "14 February Revolution" of 2011 were legitimate, and deserve attention by Bahrain's Sunni rulers. But Iran's meddling in the conflict is troublesome, and increases the likelihood of sectarian violence spilling over to the American footprint in Bahrain. Given these developments, it would be wise if the US enhanced counter-UW efforts in the region. Intelligence sharing and interagency cooperation are key to disrupting the flow of lethal aid on the sea, air, and land.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

If It's Not "War," It Sounds Like Checkers

In his book On War, General Carl von Clausewitz explains that war "is controlled by its political object," which "will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort which is required, and makes its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail." Over the last two days, John Kerry has insisted that "President Obama is not asking America to go to war." He even goes so far as to suggest that he, General Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel "know the difference between going to war and what President Obama is requesting now."

Over the last two days John Kerry has made a terrible case for war against Syria to Congress. While seeking action by Congress under the War Powers act, John Kerry has argued forcefully that all definitions of war by experts of warfare throughout history are wrong, and his definition is right. Ryan Evans at War on the Rocks captured the moment when Kerry jumped the shark.

Later, a frustrated Kerry revealed the real logic behind his position: public opinion. He noted that no Americans wanted to go to war with Syria and insisted the White House was of the same mind. “We don’t want to go to war in Syria either!” he exclaimed.  “It’s not what we’re here to ask. The President is not asking you to go to war…He’s simply saying we need to take an action that can degrade the capacity of a man who has been willing to kill his own people by breaking a nearly hundred year-old prohibition [against chemical weapons].”

Then, turning to Dempsey, Kerry asked, “General, do you want to speak to that?”

Dempsey responded, “No, not really, Secretary, thank you for offering.” Why? Because General Dempsey knew that was nonsense.

Words matter, and when they are not allowed to matter in policy, we are not being honest with ourselves. Over the last two days John Kerry described the political object with Syria as "to deter, disrupt, prevent, and degrade the potential for, future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction" by the Assad regime in Syria. The Obama administration has apparently convinced itself that a Desert Fox Part II action in Syria will produce the desired result, apparently ignoring that Desert Fox was in part what led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I do not know any serious expert who believes the Obama administrations military approach to Syria will achieve a positive political object for the US.

The Obama administrations national security leadership, in Congressional testimony, is promoting a delusion regarding the act of war, and is incapable of admitting they are about to start a war. Most troubling, they are intentionally dismissing consequences and the gravity of such action under the assumption that military superiority translates to strategic success. The United States does not have a strategy that political leaders can articulate publicly on Syria, nor is the Obama administrations national security leadership publicly seeking meaningful military objectives of consequence to conditions in Syria. The United States does not have a coalition of support to provide legitimacy for military action, a coalition that protects the US from escalation or retaliation. John Kerry, in front of Congress, described those who believe it unwise for the US to inject our nation into another nations civil war uninvited, as armchair isolationists. No one knew for certain the intelligence cited by Colin Powell was wrong in 2003. Every human being educated on the definition of war knows John Kerry is wrong in 2013, and no one credible on the topic of war will ever be able to argue otherwise.

The arrogance of the Obama administration's national security team is a parade of red flags right through the halls of Congress. Secretary Kerry actually argues that if Assad is "arrogant" enough to defend himself that the US and our allies have ways to make him regret that decision, apparently without going to war. The arrogance of John Kerry implies the question to Congress, what could possibly go wrong? With no political policy or strategy that can be articulated publicly, no military objective of consequence, no coalition of consequence or authority, and by taking action that injects our nation into another nations civil war uninvited - my question is, how does this possibly end well?

The Obama administration is taking greater risk with Syria than their calculations suggest, and I truly believe the potential for a significant strategic defeat like nothing seen in at least a century is greater than the potential for success. The entire gambit by the Obama administration rests upon the starting assumption that Syria will do nothing and give the Obama administration exactly what they want. The other starting assumption is that Iran won't get involved or their involvement will be inconsequencial to our political objective. The problem with the first assumption is that John Kerry all but admitted in testimony over two days that while military strikes are not intended to achieve regime change, US policy is to build a working relationship over time with rebels for the intent of regime change. The problem with the second assumption is that Iran historically gets involved, and the chaos they created for Israel in 2006 and the chaos Iran created in Iraq and Afghanistan last decade was extremely effective in countering US political objectives. The starting assumption should be Assad will resist, because he should be well aware long term US policy is regime change, and that Iran will not only get involved but has a history of doing so successfully.


If the Obama administration takes authorization from Congress and moves directly towards military action against Syria, the lack of a coalition is a significant condition that increases the strategic risk to the United States. Iran and Syria will recognize that this may be the only opportunity they will ever have to take on the United States without a broader coalition of support, and as such see this as their best opportunity to strike. In stepping through Red Team's calculations, consider how exposed the US truly is.

1) The United States has no coalition, so a targeted, direct strike against the United States in "self defense" significantly limits the degree to which the international community will respond in support of the US. The UK vote highlights that politically, the rest of the world does not stand with a belligerent United States in a unilateral military action.

2) The United States is strategically and politically exposed and military forces throughout the region are spread thin. There are no troops in Iraq. Sequestration has significantly degraded the capacity of the US military across the entire Department of Defense towards fielding an effective reserve. Political cover by Russia and China will be available to Syria after the the US attacks.

3) Military objectives by Blue Team are not well defined, while military objectives by Red Team are well defined. All evidence suggests the leadership of the United States does not take seriously the threat of counterstrike. Russia has openly stated they will provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to help Syria, and that presumably would also be for support of military action in counterstrike.

4) Successful counterstrike against the United States will be celebrated regionally, resulting in significant restrictions of movement within the region by US military forces and a collapse of US political credibility broadly. Local pressure can be exploited by red team on regional military installations to restrict movement of US assets in the region.

When I take the red team perspective of action unfolding in the Middle East, if I am Iran and Syria supported by Russia, my calculation is that I may never have a better opportunity to change the regional security conditions and balance of power in the Middle East than the opportunity being presented in this situation unfolding. By throwing every military asset possible in attack of the surface action group of 4 destroyers in the Mederterranian Sea, and throwing the entire armed forces of Iran against the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group off the coast of Pakistan, the entire US policy for the Middle East would be dead in the water if Iran and Syrian attacks were to be successful. As red team, I would attack these targets specifically because they are sovereign US targets and don't inherently escalate tensions by giving any other nation a reason to join in.

Oh, you honestly believe - like John Kerry does - that the US would muster the military and muster allies around the world, and would start World War III in response to a tactical defeat at sea? Think again. The simple fact is the world would immediately stand in shock, and there is no evidence anywhere suggesting the Obama administration handles pressure well. The Middle East would explode in celebration of a public US tactical defeat, leaving the Nimitz Strike Group south of the Suez unable to cross north to help. Hu Jinping would shit a Great Wall when facing the possibility of a major war across the sea lines of communication throughout the Middle East, and would be with Russia in the UNSC within 24 hours shouting for a cease fire. Iran would immediately make clear that with the first sign of a US counterattack against Iran, Iran would unload their ballistic missiles into US bases across Afghanistan and potentially leverage other resources to broaden the conflict regionally.

Is Europe going to seriously come to the aid of a belligerent US who got smacked for attacking another nation without a coalition, any legitimate alliance, or a UNSC resolution? The NATO alliance clause doesn't protect the US under the scenario unfolding in Syria. Remember, gas prices across the world will triple - or more, in the first 24 hours on the threat of escalation, so the gravity of the situation will hit the wallet of an happy American population as well.  Where is the support for the US coming from? If you think the US has a reserve force ready to deploy in the US, you don't understand the impact of sequestration on the US military at all. It would take the US weeks, and in some cases months, to mobilize military forces in response to a major escalation. Does anyone honestly believe Asian nations are going to rise up and help the US after our military adventurism that went wrong? If the US Navy takes attrition across the Middle East and the Med, how does one think France - our only real coalition partner right now - will react? When bad ideas lead to things going badly, people don't take great risk in support of the foolish losers.

This isn't some impossible scenario, Syria does have the military capability to defeat 1 surface action group of 4 destroyers if committed to that tactical action, and Iran does have the capability to destroy a single Carrier Strike Group in a surprise attack less than 300 miles off the coast of Iran.

A successful counterstrike leaves the US with no one to turn to except Israel, whose assistance could send the entire region into chaos.

So if I am red team, if Obama goes from Congress directly to war, I attack. The Obama administration is playing a game of checkers, and it is impossible to suggest the absence of policy, strategy, objective, and coalition by the Obama administration is akin to a game of chess. If the enemy plays chess in response, we're screwed. At that point it would come down to US military forces winning tactical battles despite bad strategy to avoid humiliating strategic defeat, which honestly somewhat describes US policy for the last decade across the Middle East.

The Obama administration needs to go from Congress directly to the United Nations Security Council, and not directly to war. The Obama administration needs to build an international coalition to protect the United States from blowback, because without a coalition the US is strategically exposed giving a rare opportunity to Iran to take advantage of our isolation. With the worlds attention focused on Syria regarding chemical weapons, Syria is effectively deterred from using chemical weapons right now while the diplomatic process unfolds. The United States is effectively implementing the political object as laid out by John Kerry before Congress as long as the world's attention on Syria chemical weapons remains evident, so nothing is lost by the US committing to the long road of diplomacy as long as it is public and actively engaged.

Iran vs. the World

It's been an interestingly under-reported week for the shadow war between Iran and well, pretty much every Western nation.  First, Bulgaria is set to place the blame on Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah for last year's bus bombing against Israeli tourists.  Of more interest to maritime-inclined audiences, 
on 23 January, Yemen (with a little help from 5th FLEET) intercepted and boarded an Iranian dhow which according to SECDEF was smuggling a treasure trove of weapons - including modern manpads - likely to northern Yemen's Houthi rebels.  The Huthis are Shia co-religionists who have waged at various times a hot and cold insurgency against Yemen's Sunni government. The Houthis are a small island of Shia on the mostly-Sunni Arabian Peninsula so unsurprisingly, the Saudis intervened in 2009 when the conflict began to get out of hand.

The video above shows some of the weapons from the interdicted vessel, which according to Yemeni authorities include:
"1) 199 explosive packages used for IEDs, in addition to electronic circuits, wires, transmitters and 12,495 12.7mm bullets for DSHK heavy machine gun.
2) Automatic rifle suppressors "silencers" effective for ranges less than 150 meters and 2,660 Kilograms of RDX explosives.
3) G9 artillery range finder and optics for land-sea targets with a 40 KM range and 7x military binoculars.
4) 122-mm Grad-type Katyusha rockets and Strela 1\2, Misagh-2 surface to air missile (SAM) and RBG 7 rockets.
5) 2,786 C4 packages (16,606 strips of explosives) and remote "bomb triggers" devices and 124,080 bullets 7.62mm.
6) PN-14K Night vision optic sights and laser range finders and other Iranian made goggles."

Iran uses pretty much whatever methods it can to smuggle arms to surrogates to fight its proxy wars, but the sea has historically been a favorite path.  Despite the ongoing international counter-piracy presence in the Indian Ocean, the maritime rat lines between Iran and the Red Sea/Med are largely intact, and successful interceptions like the above operation require a concerted, multi-lateral effort. 

With Syria falling apart, Iran's ruling Mullahs have very few remaining friends in the world.  Other than the usual third party suppliers (China, Russia, DPRK) that will hawk their advanced weapons systems willy nilly to whomever is willing to pay - including Iran's surrogates - there is little support for this increasingly desperate regime.  It is only a matter of time (admittedly, it could be a long time) until the Iranian people are able to undo the raw deal they've had from their leadership since 1979.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

IMCMEX12

U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (Aug. 29, 2012)The mine countermeasures ships USS Pioneer (MCM 9), left, USS Devastator (MCM 6), USS Sentry (MCM 3) and USS Dexrous (MCM 13) approach for an astern replenishment at sea with Afloat Forward Staging Base (Interim) USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15). Ponce, formerly designated as an amphibious transport dock ship, was converted and reclassified in April to fulfill a long-standing U.S. Central Command request for an AFSB to be located in its area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Toni Burton/Released)

I think this is a big deal.

Navies from six continents and more than 30 nations kick off the most widely attended international exercise ever held in the region, Sept. 16.

International Mine Countermeasures Exercise (IMCMEX) 12 is the first of what is intended to be a recurring partnership event.

"This exercise is about mines and the international effort to clear them," said Vice Admiral John W. Miller, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. "Represented here are the best of our individual countries' efforts dedicated to securing the global maritime commons and I look forward to  seeing how this exceptional team of professionals moves forward."

The wholly defensive exercise consists of two distinct phases, the first is a symposium where senior leaders from participating countries will exchange ideas and view the latest mine hunting, sweeping and neutralization technologies provided by a panel of industry representatives and presenters.

In the second phase, ships, crews and observers get underway to train together to prepare for tactical execution. Ships will conduct at-sea maneuvers in three separate geographic areas, which will include mine  hunting operations; helicopter mine countermeasure operations; international explosive ordnance disposal mine hunting and diving operations and small  boat operations focused toward underwater improvised explosive devices.

"Everyone here at IMCMEX 12 understands that countering the threat posed by mines is a critical mission to ensure security in the maritime domain," said  Rear Adm. Kenneth Perry, commander, Task Force 522 and exercise director. "The work we will do here will strengthen relationships and enhance mine countermeasures interoperability among participating navies."

The exercise will finish with leaders, liaison officers and observers gathering to discuss lessons learned during the three phases to further foster interoperability among participants.

I think we all recognize this is one of the constructive way the region is responding to Iranian threats, so there is no need to discuss the geopolitical angles here. Several other thoughts come to mind.

First, 2012 has been a busy year for the US Navy, but in my opinion the most impressive thing the US Navy has done is rapidly forward deploy 5 ships for mine warfare to the CENTCOM area of responsibility on a simi-permenant basis. Starting with the four MCMs from San Diego, for the Navy to basically pick up and completely relocate the infrastructure for 4 Mine Countermeasures ships, including the ships and crews, and move them from San Diego to Bahrain - and insure the vessels are mission functional all within about a 6-8 month time period is truly remarkable. When one starts to think through all the various people with responsibility and touch to this activity it truly is incredible what the Navy has done. It was almost certainly a huge mess, but nothing hard work couldn't accomplish - and did accomplish. Throw in the refit and forward deployment of the USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15) and in my opinion this activity has been to date in 2012 the single most impressive activity by the US Navy.

Second, the participation of over 30 nations for a mine warfare exercise in that part of the world is a big deal. I spoke with Rear Admiral Kenneth Perry on Friday afternoon and he mentioned this is the largest mine warfare exercise in that regions history in terms of scope and size. Getting the international community together for this kind of exercise - specifically in that part of the world - is incredibly important because it sets up exactly the kind of real work cooperation and experience necessary in practice should the activity ever be necessary in a real world emergency. Exercises like this help sailors from various parts of the world come together and understand not only what each others capabilities are, but how they can work together more productively. It is important, because mine warfare is time consuming art towards detection and neutralization as much as it is a science of the same activity, and through cooperation naval forces can reduce the time necessary in conducting the hard, ugly business of removing mines.

Third, everyone knows that mines have done more damage to US Naval forces than any other weapon system since WWII, but that still didn't stop the Navy from spending less money and providing sufficient resources for mine warfare for the last several decades. If you have ever heard an insult of US Navy mine warfare (MIW) capabilities relative to other nations - particularly NATO nations, it was almost certainly a well earned insult. Things are changing though. Over the last few years investment in US Navy MIW is up, considerably, and as a warfare area it is no longer seen as something the US Navy could ignore as critical to the way we fight. The reuse of USS Ponce for purposes of an Afloat Staging Base and modernization of the MCMs to use the Expendable Mine Neutralization System (EMNS) and SeaFox UUV are only a few examples of technology capabilities being upgraded, but just as important (I think) over the long haul are the software and data systems on the back end that will help sailors get better at their warfare specialty by being able to accumulate and use mine warfare data - both ours and the data of our partners - in ways not previously available. Whether it is art or science, having better, more accessible data improves the quality of work being done and can have huge payoffs over time - and I believe that is the impact we will see. ICMCEX 2012 is testing new software and data management systems, and while it is a very small part of the exercise, it is a part I believe matters a lot.

Fourth, I asked Rear Admiral Perry about CONOPs for the USS Ponce and he felt they were all in place, that the Navy is ready to go with a Mine Warfare Command Ship. USS Ponce is not a tender, but the ship does have a logistical support capability for the MCMs in addition to the aviation, manned and unmanned deployable, and C2 capabilities one would expect from a mine warfare command ship converted from an LPD. Mine Warfare is more than just sensor and neutralization technologies - indeed it can quickly become manpower intensive work requiring small boats, divers, and all kinds of other specialists depending upon environment and conditions. The addition of a capability like USS Ponce is a huge upgrade for US Navy mine warfare capabilities, because it doesn't steal from the already over tasked Marine Corps an amphibious ship to conduct US Navy specific operations.

CDR Chris Rawley has more on IMCMEX12 and MIW on his blog Naval Drones - worth checking out.

Five Points

The National Security Discussion has entered a political phase as the election approaches, and both parties are attempting to make political points about National Security in the context of a policy discussion that appeals to their respective voter bases. The lack of detail distorts these discussions almost as much as the absence of context, and very few politicians know how to educate voters with their public speech talking points - particularly in the context of national security. Below are 5 7points of thought I believe are important to keep in mind while observing the political rhetoric related to National Security for the duration of the election season.

1) A bigger Army is not necessarily a better Army. The same theory of overwhelming force used in the 1991 Gulf War was remarkably effective the last decade of the 20th century, but the United States had evolved beyond that theory of warfare by 2001 when it took ~1/1000 the number of troops to overwhelm Afghanistan and 1/5 as many troops just 12 years later to defeat the entire organized Iraqi military in 2003. Over the last two decades the Joint Force of the US military has rediscovered that it takes fewer military personnel to be lethal and effectively destroy an enemy in war, but it takes significantly more resources to stabilize territory towards peace. This isn't some new theory of war, but the disparity gap between the resources necessary to kill and destroy with conventional military power and to stabilize the territory of a defeated enemy after using such power has expanded considerably over historical norms, and this gap has yet to be rationally demonstrated in a US Army force structure policy plan. The bottom line is this - to defeat enemies of the United States, a larger Army is not needed - indeed the US Army could afford to shrink in terms of manpower quite a bit and actually become a far more lethal military service. With that said, if the US Army will be called upon to occupy territory outside the United States after fighting the next war, a larger US Army is indeed needed. The future is hard to predict, but circumstances that will require occupational Armies can be predicted, and it is time to start discussing those circumstances in theory to forward a legitimate discussion for the Army regarding what we - as a superpower - want the US Army to be capable of doing, thus be.

2) The Pivot to Asia is not about shifting military power to Asia as many falsely describe it, rather the Pivot to Asia is actually about the modernization of military infrastructure capabilities in the vast Pacific region. Despite what very vocal critics like Thomas Barnett claim in various articles, there is no evidence at all of any significant military shift outside the CONUS to the Pacific region, unless those critics are now somehow suggesting that the replacement of minesweepers and old frigates with the Littoral Combat Ship is a major military power shift, or replacing existing older aircraft with new aircraft is a surge. The strategic pivot can be described as a move away from concentration of force towards geographical distribution of force, but the increases to the Pacific region represent little more than an expansion of infrastructure, not an increase in total force. I tend to think the Pivot to Asia is one of the most hollow, hyped political Foreign Policy slogans we have seen since the cold war, because there simply isn't anything specific one can point to from the DoD that suggests a significant increase in capabilities - as every migration of military force to the region is simply a replacement for a retiring infrastructure or system. To quote another slogan, where is the beef? The lack of specific details regarding the Pivot to Asia is intentional, because the power in the policy is only truly increased via political diplomatic rhetoric - not substance represented in force. In many ways, because the policy is rhetoric and not substance, the Pivot to Asia is evidence of effective Strategic Communications - which makes the Pivot to Asia more about diplomatic shifts rather than military shifts. It surprises me folks like Thomas Barnett have failed to recognize the distinction between rhetoric and reality when it comes to this over hyped political policy, but at some point during this election my sense is folks will reset Pivot to Asia in a more diplomatic context.

3) The Pivot towards Persia in 2012 is the most under reported major military buildups in modern media history, which is ironic considering the amount of hype in the media regarding Iran every day. The media has gone out of their way not to cover with any real attention the significant US and European military forces operating in the Persian Gulf region. The US Navy is now forward operating between 50-66% of all deployed aircraft carriers in the Gulf region. The US Navy is currently operating 66% of all US Navy minesweepers in the Persian Gulf. The US Air Force is now continuously rotating several of the most advanced aircraft squadrons in their inventory, including the F-22, to the Persian Gulf region. Nearly the entire training, workup, and deployment routine of every single East Coast Aircraft Carrier, Cruiser, Destroyer, Submarine, and Amphibious Ship is specifically tailored towards operating around the Middle East. Nearly all of the major defense budget adjustment increases for FY12 to date for the Air Force, Navy and SOCOM involve increasing capabilities or sustaining infrastructure in the USCENTCOM AOR. At the same time, the Europeans are reducing deployments to the Pacific and Western Hemisphere to focus naval forces for deployment to the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East regions. Despite the rhetoric that suggests there are numerous National Security issues facing the United States, there is only one national security question facing voters in 2012, and it is who they want their President to be during the hot and likely costly, bloody war between Israel and Iran that every measurable indicator one can use observing military force movements by European countries and the United States suggests is coming very soon.

And because predictions sure to go wrong can be entertaining thought exercises for bloggers, I'd wager a high quality Belgium wheat beer pint that if Israel attacks Iran before the election, with a 2 day margin of error I would say the date is October 13th.

4) The single most important element of United States national power related to National Security in need of increasing in both size and capability lies not in the Department of Defense, nor in the Department of State, but in the US Coast Guard. China is fighting a cold war in the South China Sea using their civilian agency maritime security forces backed by the implied support of military power. Unless the US intends to get asymmetrical in dealing with these tough diplomatic issues - which is sure to create unnecessary tension in the region; the appropriate symmetrical response would be to increase the presence of the US Coast Guard around the world to engage and assist towards the quality improvement of the regional maritime security forces. Whether one looks at Africa, South America (including the US coast), or Asia - the national security solution to most state diplomatic challenges and nearly all non-state security challenges facing the global economy lies at sea, but these are not solely a naval centric challenge. If we really believe the 21st century is going to be a maritime century - and I believe this 100% - the first step is to increase the size of the Coast Guard, and that starts with doubling the size of the large, deployable National Security Cutter fleet that can be sent forward to engage with civilian agencies globally and help improve the capabilities of our partners in Africa, Asia, and South America. I am not opposed to reducing the budget of the DoD, but it only makes sense as long as the civilian agencies needed for peacetime maintenance are funded to increase their capabilities to actually maintain the peace - and that beings with expanding the US Coast Guard. The peacetime Global Fleet Station of the 21st century might be a US Navy amphibious ship in certain situations, but it should also be the National Security Cutter. The maintenance of peace is a manpower intensive, thankless security role that ALSO belongs to the civilian security agencies, not solely the DoD. It is past time the US government forwards national security of this country by recognizing this reality, and balances the reduction of DoD capabilities with an increase in US Coast Guard capabilities for the offshore engagement role the US Coast Guard has a long history of performing. This needs to start now - not later - because while today's challenges might be piracy and illegal oil bunkering off Africa, territory disputes in the Pacific region, the global narcotics trade that is creating significant challenges off our own southern border, or the polar regions of this planet - there are several regions that are going to get more competitive sooner than later, and the offshore economy is expanding at a pace far greater than maritime security forces globally are adapting. While Mitt Romney wants to reconstitute the US Army by 100,000 and grow the US Navy, President Obama would be wise to counter by expanding the US Coast Guard - because the lesson of 10 years of war has taught us that if the objective is peace, the nation needs strong civilian security capabilities. It is time to apply the lessons of the last war towards the future being shaped.

5) It is often suggested that the US needs to help foster some sort of alliance in the Pacific similar to NATO, but it is my hope that long before that rhetoric is explored towards some reality the US gets more deeply engaged and serious with South America. In a global economy, the Monroe Doctrine doesn't work for us anymore for the same reason the Monroe Doctrine with Chinese characteristics is failing China in the Pacific - there are too many interconnected economic relationships in today's global economy for security interests to be conceded by great powers. China, among others, is coming to South America as we speak, indeed I fully expect China's first carrier deployment to be to South America in early spring of 2016 - namely Brazil, not the Middle East as is commonly speculated. Brazil, India, China, and Russia are all poised for difficult, but productive decades ahead. The rise of the BRIC nations combined with an impending era defined by energy and resources - including water - of the next two decades will change the national security landscape globally. Unfortunately, every Powerpoint I have seen produced by the DoD fails to reflect what that change means to force posture, and ignores the key role South America is going to play regarding the national security landscape of the mid-term future. The time is now to start thinking about the BI in BRIC, and what they truly mean to national security for the United States in the 21st century.

Pushing the Fleet to the Breaking Point, For What Exactly?

US Navy Photo

This is not how we should be celebrating the early retirement of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65). Bold emphasis by me.

The Navy will deploy the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and its strike group four months early and shift its destination to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, DOD officials said here today.

The deployment late this summer is in response to Central Command’s requirement for an extended carrier presence, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said. The move affects 5,500 sailors aboard the Stennis and the Aegis cruiser USS Mobile Bay.

Last week, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta approved a request from Central Command commander Marine Corps General James N. Mattis to accelerate Stennis’ deployment. “The decision will help support existing naval force requirements in the Middle East and reduce the gap caused by the upcoming departure of the USS Enterprise Strike Group,” Little said. “It is in keeping with our long-standing commitments to the region.”

Aircraft carrier strike groups provide commanders with ample and flexible air assets to enhance interoperability with partner nations and maintain strong military-to-military relations as well as respond to a wide variety of contingencies, Little said.

The Bremerton, Wash.-based Stennis strike group was due to deploy at the end of the year to U.S. Pacific Command. The group returned from duty in the Middle East in March.

The accelerated deployment to the Central Command area of responsibility is not aimed at any specific threat. “In keeping with Centcom’s requirements, this is a very important region for our defense strategy,” Little said. “We’ve had a presence in the region for decades and we have a range of interests that this extension of our capabilities will support.”

Nor, he said, is the deployment a direct response to tensions with Iran. The U.S. military is “always mindful of the challenges posed by Iran, but … this is not a decision based solely on the challenges posed by Iran,” Little said.

Currently the USS Enterprise and USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike groups are deployed to U.S. Central Command. The USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is due to relieve the Lincoln group shortly. The Stennis group will relieve Enterprise.

The Navy continues to operate at a high operational tempo in order to meet U.S. security needs around the world,. “Our deployment strain is as great as or greater today than it has been at any time in the past 10 years,” a Navy official said.

Sailors and their families have been informed of the change, Little said. Navy officials looked at a wide range of options to ensure Navy commitments and combatant commander mission requirements are met and to lessen the impact of schedule changes.

The carrier strike group will be ready to deploy even given the accelerated timeline, Little said. “The U.S. Navy is well-equipped to ensure our sailors are trained and ready for this deployment,” he said.

Navy leaders understand the operational and personnel impacts this accelerated deployment will have. These include training cycle adjustments, crew and family uncertainty and reductions to quality of life port visits.

As more information becomes available, the Navy will release it, officials said, noting defense leaders are “committed to keeping sailors and their families informed about current and future deployments to the best of our ability.”

The Stennis will be deployed for eight months, meaning the original 6 month Western Pacific deployment scheduled for later this fall is now an eight month deployment in the Middle East only a few weeks away. And for a reason the DoD can't explain, except to say it's not specific to Iran, Navy families get screwed over yet again. If it really is not specific to Iran, something is very wrong.

The Kearsarge deployment last year was eight months. The Bataan deployment last year was eleven months. The Lincoln, to be relieved any day now, departed Naval Station Everett on December 7, 2011, and won't arrive in Norfolk until mid-August; eight months. Eisenhower, which will relieve Lincoln, is on a nine month deployment. Now Stennis, leaving four months early will be on an eight month deployment. I'm sure I forgot a few long deployments among those...

Someone needs to tell the President no, or maybe the President needs to tell General Mattis no. The very real issue is, if the United States is not about to fight a war with Iran, the US Navy is going to wear out their equipment pretending to fight Iran, and the toll on people is very real.We are reducing the number of carriers and amphibious ships at a time we are clearly pushing them at an operational tempo higher than at anytime ever, including the cold war? WTF? The Bataan, which returned in February, has the second longest deployment by a US Navy ship since World War II!

Hey Congress, wake up! That's a red flag!

What exactly is the Navy killing itself for? If these long deployments aren't a domestic political agenda to avoid a public spat between the President and General Mattis, then the answer must be these deployments are intended to prevent war with Iran. There really is no middle ground here, because there really can't be any other justification for this type of persistent operational tempo where Admirals are constantly bitching in public (rightfully, good for them!) about the high operational tempo - but when it comes time to just get back to a normal operational tempo, those same Admirals refuse to stand up to someone and push the fleet further down the dark path.

Bottom line, those Admirals are only saying yes for one of two reasons: either because the need for the CVN is a legitimate reason of state specific to the prevention of war, or the reason is specific for the sake of their own job - in other words they lack the guts to say no to a politician, and that probably goes double in an election year where saying no would have a political amplification impact. I guess it's better the sailors and their families bend over backwards so Admirals don't have to strain themselves, or something like that.

Or maybe we really are legitimately on the brink of war with Iran, and General Mattis is keeping the peace in the Middle East one extended aircraft carrier deployment at a time. I suppose it's possible - color me a skeptic, but that is scary if true. Either way, at what point are the tens of thousands of Navy sailors going to find a single DC reporter with the guts to ask a tough question?

AirSea Battle As Operational Scapegoat

The AirSea Battle (ASB) discourse is looking an awful lot like the counterinsurgency (COIN) debate was circa 2009. Is AirSea Battle a strategy? An operational concept? Is it an operational concept passing for a strategy? Does anyone really know or agree on what AirSeaBattle is? Of course there's also a few questions that have fairly little in common with COIN. Given China's contribution to anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities some question whether or not ASB is really about all about Beijing. There have been a few sound criticisms and many, many spurious criticisms of ASB. Few take on the central issue: ASB is purely a operational concept--or at at the very least an umbrella concept for a host of tactical efforts to synchronize air and naval operational and technical integration. So why is it being blamed for problems of strategy?

USN Captain Philip Dupree and USAF COL Jordan Thomas, the two service leads in the AirSea Battle office, wrote a sensible op-ed in Armed Forces Journal in an effort to clear the air about ASB. The piece argues that ASB is tied to a quest for a "pre-integrated" joint force whose closeness would facilitate greater rapport and capability-building. We get a clearer picture about the concept when they describe what a world without ASB would look like:

In such a future, attempts to use the familiar expeditionary model of massing combat power — the so-called “iron mountain” — at a handful of main operating bases to conduct extensive mission rehearsal and subsequently seize the initiative at a time and place of the Joint Force commander’s choosing, may not be feasible. Advanced adversaries could deny secure U.S. land basing at very long ranges, preventing air and naval forces from gaining local air superiority. Sea basing could also be challenged and attempts at ad hoc integration may be insufficient. Enemy capabilities could prevent surface action groups from operating at effective ranges and sea control may therefore be untenable. Space and cyberspace access would not be assured, and global communications and the exchange of information could be held hostage by any motivated aggressor. 

Sure, ASB may be about China in many ways but this paragraph demonstrates that the office has focused more on the capability in question. ASB could also be about Iran in the Persian Gulf and a host of other future scenarios in a world in which the barriers to operating a reconnaissance-strike complex seem to be rapidly falling. Good strategy is impossible without viable tactics, and ASB is simply a means of ensuring that a future strategist has tactical and operational options. The joint expeditionary model in all its facets--air, naval, ground, and the cyber elements that join all of the other domains together--is threatened. And ASB helps obviate that facet of the problem. So what's the beef, beyond the clumsy way it has been explained?

ASB is being criticized mostly because of what it supposedly implies about US strategy in the Pacific. But ASB has as little to do with the fundamental tenants of that strategy. Nor is it clear that it is entirely about the Pacific. Context would ultimately dictate the shape of a US-China confrontation, and ASB would be only one part of a larger military effort. Of course, it is not entirely free from a geopolitical context. The linked article discusses the idea of a global commons, something that may not exist in the way the authors imagine it. But the commons is not necessarily essential to the shape and form of ASB. The doctrine is about a specific set of weapons that can threaten American response to regional actors.

The problem--and this has little to do with the Pentagon and everything to do with American strategy as a whole--is the way that the doctrine is becoming seen as a stand-in for specific American policies and strategies in the Pacific and elsewhere. Such confusion is understandable. First, prior doctrines were based within specific scenarios and strategies. Second, the military's effort to prepare for crisis situations has outpaced domestic politics.  AirLand Battle (ALB), ASB's namesake, was couched within a specific threat scenario Americans had accepted for generations: Europe must be defended from the Soviet hordes. Every instrument of American national power--from official diplomacy and public diplomacy efforts to conventional and nuclear forces--had to hold the line in Europe.

ALB, though part of the Army's post-Vietnam internal shift, originated because prior operational concepts for accomplishing a set mission were judged invalid. There is nothing close to the level of consensus that existed over the need to hold the line in Europe when it comes to US policy in Asia or the Persian Gulf today. Is China an enemy, an competitor, or a state that can be cooperated with?  There is arguably a significant debate among the American foreign policy and national security community surrounding this question and as Robert Kelly has blogged Southeast Asia is also nearly invisible in US domestic politics. Our threat perception of Iran is far more clear, but this has not necessarily translated into a more long-term vision of what we will do beyond the immediate task of preventing them from acquiring nuclear weapons. Furthermore, if US strategy in those regions is also in flux, the states that will inevitably lie in the path of warfare also get a vote too.

As two analysts recently wrote about operational concepts, the military is really not in control of the most important strategic aspects of how ASB would be employed in a given theater scenario:

When you only control 25% of the mechanisms of national strategy, and that strategy itself is subject to rapid and radical change, this leads the military to develop operational concepts that must cover every conceivable enemy, in every conceivable circumstance, in any terrain or theater.

Let's take a look at a recent case study. As Sean Lawson argues, network-centric warfare was originally a fairly benign idea: who could argue with the proposition that military forces could take advantage of new technology and organizational concepts to network themselves better? NWC also fit well within the geopolitical context of the 1990s, dominated by what seemed to be endemic global uncertainty and confusion over the American military's role. NWC applied to both peace and war, increased American capabilities for regional intervention in brushfire wars, and telegraphed superior synchronization and offensive capabilities to potential adversaries. As befitting its naval origins, NWC built on a tradition of Cold War use of naval forces for crisis stability and federated command and control. Of course, as we now know, NWC also merged with an expansive theory of geopolitics after the September 11 attacks that stressed global intervention across the spectrum of war and peace. It seems that we've shed NWC 2.0's geopolitical ambitions and returned to its operational core. Or not. The point is that NWC, as an operational concept, had very little intrinsic flaws. Most mid-2000s critiques dealt with the way it had been applied as a driver of a geopolitical doctrine--a very different animal.

The military has been left holding the bag because of political uncertainty, a relationship that has been a constant since 1991. Doctrines like ASB and NWC are attempts to merely enable what seems to be the political consensus of the moment. If those politics shift, the doctrine does too. The most likely near-term use of ASB, in fact, will probably be in the Middle East if prevailing trends in the military balance continue.  It would be simply another addition to a long trend of "big war" capabilities migrating to middle-range and small wars. ASB is an operational chameleon, in short, because it must be.

Iran, China, and Cyber Posses

The asymmetric tit-for-tat with Iran continues. A virus may have been used to attack oil terminal controls on Kharg, a strategically important island in the North Arabian Gulf. Whether this was actually a cyber attack, who conducted it, and for what purpose are currently unknown. Regardless, we can expect to see more of these sorts of non-kinetic strikes on maritime infrastructure globally.  The barriers to entry for cyber-attack are fairly low. Malicious code and TTPs are available in the open source and it doesn't take a computer science degree from a prestigious university to employ them effectively. CSBA's article on the democratization of violence elaborates.

This concept should be nothing new to ID readers as we’ve discussed open source (as defined by John Robb) naval warfare here on several occasions. Mr. Krepinevich accurately articulates the issues facing the United States via the proliferation of high technology warfare, including PGMs, cyber, bio, etc. But he provides little in the way of recommendations to counter this trend except a continued stay ahead of the Jones’ approach: “… the Pentagon will need to prove better than its rivals at exploiting advances in artificial intelligence to enhance the performance of its unmanned systems. The U.S. military will also need to make its robot crafts stealthier, reduce their vulnerability to more sophisticated rivals than the Taliban, and make their data links more robust in order to fend off efforts to disable them.”

A more proactive recommendation would be to permit, or even encourage non-government entities to take an more active, even offensive, role in defending their interests. The expectation for companies and individuals' to maintain domestic readiness and business continuity in the face of natural disasters has already been established. Many Americans and companies learned a hard, but predictable lesson following Katrina and other hurricanes last decade: the federal government, as large and powerful as it may be, is not agile enough to come to the rescue of every American in need. Similarly, commercial shipping companies were slow to realize that the First World’s expensive navies would not always be in the right place, at the right time, with the right ROE in the vast Indian Ocean to protect them from pirates, so they took matters into their own hands with embarked armed security guards.

Lately, American companies have come under attack from a variety of state and non-state actors. These cyber attackers, some sponsored by states with malign intent, others just self-organizing sophomoric thugs, place an increasing toll on the cost of doing business and the global economy. It should come as no surprise to most Americans that the computer experts with the maddest cyber-skillz likely don’t work for Uncle Sam’s Cyber Command and other government agencies and that the commercial sector will always be more nimble and responsive than the federal government. So then why shouldn’t Google, Cisco, etc. take an active role in offensively attacking the actors - both state and non-state - who disrupt their operations? When future attacks against a US commercial network occur, the private sector should go after the perpetrators with a vengeance -- counter-attacking with cyber, legal, and any other conceivable means until the threat is disrupted or deterred. Some might consider this anarchy, unecessary escalation, or a failure to accept rule of law. But in the face of an increasingly broad and dynamic range of threats to civil order, do we really have a choice?  As to possible future cyber-vigilante targets, here are one analyst's thought provoking ideas...

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

April 6 Observations

North Korea

News sources has stated there will be 2 South Korean AEGIS ships, between 3 and 4 Japanese AEGIS ships, and between 4 and 5 US AEGIS ships monitoring the upcoming North Korean rocket launch. US and Japanese warships are suspected of carrying SM-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptors. As long as the rocket does not deviate from the announced trajectory, it is highly doubtful there will be any kind of shootdown. With the Rocket expected to fly over the Yaeyama Islands, which will likely feature either a US or Japanese warship in that area, things could get interesting. It is unclear if South Korea can shoot down a ballistic missile launched from North Korea even if they wanted to.

The North Koreans reportedly have 3-4 mini-submarines that have recently deployed from an East Sea base in North Korea. It is training season for North Korean submarines, but it was also training season for North Korean submarines when the Cheonan was sunk in March of 2010. The rocket launch is taking place from a base on the other side of North Korea.

With the frenzy of activity taking place related to North Korea, it has become more and more clear that Japan and South Korea are looking to send some punishment in the direction of North Korea. North Korea is being provocative, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have intent to escalate. China and the US appear to be working overtime to restrain everyone in the region, and of all the kinds of cooperation one could see in the 21st century from China and United States, it strikes me this is the most important kind.

Iran

From the New York Times:

A major Chinese ship insurer will halt indemnity coverage for tankers carrying Iranian oil, beginning in July, two of the insurer’s officials said Thursday, amid tightening Western sanctions against Iran and after similar action in Japan.

The decision by the insurer, the China P&I Club, is the first sign that refiners in China, Iran’s top customer for crude oil, may struggle to obtain the shipping and insurance to keep importing from Iran. Iran’s other top customers — India, Japan and South Korea — are running into similar problems, raising questions on how Tehran will be able to continue to export the bulk of its oil.

The price of Brent crude oil is up 16 percent since the start of this year on concerns that Iranian supply may be disrupted because of Western sanctions.

The China P&I Club, whose members include shipping companies like Sinotrans and Cosco Group, is the first Chinese maritime insurer to confirm that it will halt business with tankers operating in Iran.

China doesn't say no to money without a good reason, particularly when they have a monopoly. It is unclear if this is a result of sanctions working as intended, or the State Department working overtime - but either way this is quietly a significant victory against the Iran regime as part of the Obama administrations policy of diplomacy in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. There is, of course, a disturbing flip side to this. Insuring the flow of oil to China would, in theory, be a major political consideration by Iran that would usually discourage the Iranians from closing the Strait of Hormuz during hostilities. This development is a double edged sword, on one side this applies tremendous economic pressure on the energy sector of the Iranian economy, but on the other side it removes a key incentive that would normally dissuade Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz during hostilities.

Saudi Arabia

Based on latest figures from the Department of Energy (FTP), the US imports a daily average of 1,470,000 barrels of oil, which averages out to about 44.7 million barrels per month. We have already discussed Saudi Arabia chartering 11 VLCCs and sending that oil to the United States, and each of those VLCCs is expected to bring about 2 million barrels per vessel. It appears that was just the beginning, and Saudi Arabian state owned Vela has chartered 3 additional VLCCs for the same purpose. 14 VLCCs each carrying 2 million barrels means the United States is expected to import at least 28 million additional barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia over the next two months. That is slightly more than a 30% increase in US oil imports from Saudi Arabia for April and May.

All news reports on this activity are quoting analysts who believe this is the beginning of a major program. This seems very odd to me. Saudi Arabia recently ramped up production by 1.5 million barrels a day, but that ramp up was primarily done to compensate for oil expected to be lost from market due to sanctions from Iran, who was last known to export around 1 million barrels a day. That increase in production also takes time, and can't simply be turned and off like a light switch. It is also worth noting that Saudi Arabia has not decreased export of oil to any other nation, meaning this is all additional oil on the market. For Saudi Arabia to ship out 28 million barrels in a massive VLCC charter program in such a short period of time, they would have to draw that oil from standing stock. If this program is simply ramping up to something bigger, and more VLCC charters are expected, that means Saudi Arabia has begun a program that essentially transfers their existing standing stockpile of oil to other nations.

It is very difficult to imagine that Saudi Arabia would ship their standing stockpile of crude overseas without a damn good reason - a much more important reason than some Presidential election in the United States. Indeed, if one was to start listing all the plausible reasons why Saudi Arabian leadership would give up the very commodity that gives them their political power and influence globally, the only reason that makes any sense at all is that the Saudi Arabian leadership must believe those standing stockpiles of oil are facing legitimate risk.

While I am aware that Saudi Arabia holds offshore stockpiles of around 10 million barrels in Rotterdam, Sidi Kerir, and Okinawa; does anyone know how big the stockpile of oil is in Saudi Arabia?

If we continue to see the VLCC program expand and more oil continues to be shipped out at a rate greater than the rate of accumulation, the most plausible scenario is that the Saudi's must believe war is about to break out over the Middle East, and for some reason the rest of us can only speculate about, Saudi Arabia believes they will be a target in such a war.

Israel and Iran

I listened to the discussion on Iran by Matt Duss and Ben Birnbaum tonight and thought it was interesting, but I am not sure what criteria Israel would use setting a date for a surprise attack by against Iran. Indeed, when someone says it is almost certainly not a specific date (they said April 13), my first instinct was to check the moon phases that night. Both Matt Duss and Ben Birnbaum seem to think the criteria for an Israeli attack hinges on the ongoing diplomacy. I'm not sure I believe that, as I tend to think Israel is making calculations on actions alone - like the effectiveness of oil sanctions against the Iranian economy or their military capability options against Iran we don't know about.

I recently read this very interesting CRS Report titled Israel: Possible Military Strike Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities (PDF) by Jim Zanotti, Coordinator Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, Kenneth Katzman, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, Jeremiah Gertler, Specialist in Military Aviation, and Steven A. Hildreth, Specialist in Missile Defense dated March 27, 2012.

It is a very interesting read, but I think they missed some pretty important details, and I think those details may have been omitted on purpose.

A few thoughts.

The report is missing a realistic discussion of cyber capabilities and what the first 3 hours will look like. Let me be clear, the Command and Control capabilities of Iran (and potentially Syria) will not survive the first 3 hours, and there may not be a single bomb delivered during that period. The cyber smart bomb that Israel has likely prepared and potentially already placed on the networks of the Iranians is going to make Stuxnet look ATARI grade. We have been openly discussing the possibility of Iran being bombed by Israel for years - with that kind of lead time, the Israeli's can open a can of whoop ass in cyberspace unlike anything the world has ever seen. Expect it.

An attack by Israel is likely to originate from Israel, but the question is where will the Israeli Air Force go and refuel after finishing the bombing. It could be anywhere, and the bottom line is wherever that place is, the Iranians will struggle to field any credible capability against that target within 24 hours because of C2 problems Iran will be struggling to deal with, and the Iranian Air Force will find that their pilots lack the courage necessary to conduct an airstrike against any air field protected against the Israeli Air Force. Fortune won't favor the brave, the IDF Air Force is one of the very best in the world and even the United States Air Force would have its hands full trying to fight past the Israeli Air Force trying to bomb an airfield protected by the Israelis.

It is entirely possible that Iran could try to rain down dozens, maybe even hundreds of ballistic missiles down on Israel. I'll put my money on the ballistic missile defense capabilities of Israel against the destructive and accurate targeting of the Iranians in that fight. Iran's capabilities would be modern in the 20th century, but this is the 21st century and Iron Dome has proven that Israel is way ahead of everyone when it comes to defensive systems that shoot bullets to hit bullets. I do not see conventional ballistic missiles being anything other than a terror weapon, and ultimately it will be a weapon more likely to kill civilians than military targets. Also noteworthy, the report analysis concludes Bushehr is an unlikely target. I agree with that analysis, and think that is an important detail that might play in the broader diplomacy both before and after any military action - and I do believe that is a specific detail the Obama administration needs to mention more frequently in public as it goes to the heart of the issue that the nuclear power program is not the issue - the nuclear weapons program is.

Finally, there is a train of thought that if Israel attacks Iran, the first thing Iran is going to do is attack the US or other Arab nations in the region. If there was ever wishful thinking from a neoconservative perspective, that would be it. I guess it is possible that Iran could try to mine the Strait of Hormuz and claim they didn't do it, but the first mine that hits a supertanker heading to China - even China is going to call Iran on their bullshit. Iran is almost certainly going to play the wounded Persian role in public in an attempt to rally the Arab world behind them - specifically Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. Attacking the Arab world is not going to forward that agenda, and the retaliation by the Arab world following an Iranian attack on them could potentially be much more dangerous and damaging to Iran than limited airstrikes by Israel.

I have no idea if Israel is going to bomb Iran this week or this year. If Israel is going to attack, I think they will wait until June because that is when the US will have the MIW equipment being moved from CONUS in the Arabian Gulf, because while most calculations don't matter to Israel - insuring the US has had time to position major equipment to be used in defense is one consideration Israel is likely to account for.

I personally believe the Obama administration sanctions on Iranian oil is a huge deal, and could be a golden bullet over time. The oil sanctions strike at the economy of Iran, and if sanctions start getting painful to the people - that could change events inside Iran quite a bit. It would be a mistake to compare sanctions against North Korea with sanctions against Iran, as those nations really have almost nothing in common at the street level. I think Iranians will support a lot of stubbornness from their leadership in support of the nuclear issue, but given the shakeup we have seen in the Arab world over the last 15 months, the tolerance of the people as a whole when it comes to the national economy likely has limits, and the oil sanctions is the first real biting blow to the Iranian economy that will actually test those limits a bit.

Like I said, sometime after June when the naval equipment arrives. Regardless of where negotiations are at (and they have almost no chance at all of success by themselves), that gives a few months for the sanctions to start adding stress to the economy inside Iran.

Thought of the Day

In many ways, the role Russia is playing in Syria today is very similar to the role the US played in Bahrain last year. In many ways, the role Iran is playing in Syria today is not unlike the role Saudi Arabia played in Bahrain last year, just less overt.

More Tea Leaves

The Navy is moving a substantial amount of equipment to the Persian Gulf that if used, would be done specific in combat against the capabilities fielded by Iran. I am simply highlighting that fact about the MIW shift to the Gulf or other recent military orders reported in media this week; not trying to start a conspiracy theory.

So maybe this other relevant activity is just a coincidence, but even as a coincidence it is very interesting. Lets start with China.

The government on Tuesday raised retail prices for gasoline and diesel fuel for the second time in less than six weeks in an attempt to keep pace with soaring crude oil prices.

Chinese motorists are now paying $4.43 a gallon for 90-octane fuel — nearly equal to the $4.45-a-gallon average for mid-grade fuel in California, according to AAA.

The reason provided is found later in the article.

The increase should ease pressure on China's two main refiners, the state-owned China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. and PetroChina Co., which are not allowed to pass costs on to consumers. The two have reported losing billions of dollars already because of soaring crude prices.

In other words, China is not having a supply or a demand problem right now, what they are having is a 'losing money' problem because of the current high costs - and because China price fixes their fuel, they must price fix it relative to the global market.

Long term I think everyone recognizes that China's demand is going to go up, but right now supply and demand isn't the issue - there are no supply problems with China even with Iranian sanctions. Raising the cost of gas and diesel will insure that supply will go up because by any measurement - this is a fairly significant cost increase for fuel for the average Chinese citizen. Also worth noting, China has not cut back any orders for fuel from any of their import sources, so despite less demand in the near term China will be stockpiling rather than reducing supply.

So if China is reducing demand, why is Saudi Arabia ramping up supply?

Saudi Arabia’s state shipping company, Vela, is set to send 11 supertankers, totalling up 22 million barrels of crude oil, to the U.S. this month and next, an abnormally high number, shipbrokers and analysts said Friday.

“This is the first time in several years for Vela to hit the market with such volume-and in such a short timeframe,” Omar Nokta, managing director at Dahlman Rose & Co., told Dow Jones Newswires. “In 2011, Vela fixed 1 VLCC to the U.S. every other month.”

Vela wasn’t immediately available to comment.

According to the International Energy Agency, Saudi Arabia’s oil production rose to 10 million barrels a day in February, its highest in 30 years. The Kingdom is expected to continue to increase output in the coming months, the IEA said in its monthly oil market report published Wednesday.

I know what you are thinking... this is an effort to bring fuel prices down and pick up the slack for Iranian oil cut off by sanctions and problems in South Sudan, but that simply isn't true. OPEC data shows that those problems were previously absorbed with other measures and they consistently claim the price for crude is artificially high. A lot of analysts continue to say that as well, and Bryan Walsh mentioned that specific point in his TIME column the other day.

Right now much of the recent price spike is due to tensions with Iran, a major oil producer. War with Iran is a real possibility, albeit an uncertain one, and if the missiles were to fly, we could easily see a price spike of $50 a barrel or more. So traders and major oil consumers are stockpiling crude now as a hedge against that very situation, which in turn drives the price up now by artificially inflating demand.

Emphasis mine. There is no supply problem. Because while margins are legitimately tight (they always are these days), it has been noted in several places including the Financial Times that there is a lot of hoarding of crude right now taking place globally, in particular Europe. Now we are seeing a "wall of ships" heading for the United States. It is being said that this is part of an Obama administration plan to bring the price of oil down, but that is hard to believe, because the Obama administration knows that isn't going to work. Shipping in more crude to the US isn't for the purpose of increasing supply on the market - rather increasing the supply in reserve.

Why does the Obama know that won't work? Because for the last few weeks politicians have had more than a few open discussions with experts on the topic and it has been specifically asked whether more crude in the US would reduce prices - and every expert has agreed it would not. The problem in the US isn't the supply of crude, it is the capacity of refineries.

With the East Coast poised to lose 50 percent of its oil refining capacity, three members of Congress on Monday worried that while the country is producing more of its own crude oil, it might grow more dependent on other countries for gasoline and diesel fuel.

Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Meehan hosted a panel of energy experts for a field meeting in Aston, Pennsylvania, of the Committee on Homeland Security.

Meehan and two other legislators, Congressmen John Carney from neighboring Delaware and Mike Fitzpatrick from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, peppered the experts with questions about fuel prices and logistics as well as national security.

Two refineries in the Philadelphia area have closed in recent years, and a third is scheduled to close this summer.

A massive delivery of crude from Saudi Arabia to the US - which is about to happen - is not going to impact fuel prices at all. All it does is add increased supply as a reserve, because refinery capacity is full and cannot actually use all this extra crude coming to the US. Said another way, we are hoarding supply, not for use to bring prices down (which is impossible without more refineries), rather to have in case of delivery disruption.

Then you have the rumors that the Obama administration is going to release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help address fuel prices. I don't believe it, rather I think the idea is being floated to calm investors. Every time they are asked, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says there is not need to release stockpiles because there is no supply crunch.

So why are the big energy importers in Asia, Europe, and the US hoarding crude supply? Why is the US suddenly shifting naval resources to the Persian Gulf specific to capabilities of Iran? Isn't a massive delivery of Saudi Arabian supertankers to the US at a time we lack the refinery capacity to actually use all that crude quickly exactly what stockpiling for war looks like?

I think it is a frightening thought what is going on, only because of what I believe these events are telling me as an observer. The sanctions on Iranian oil are in place. It will take a bit of time, likely 3-6 months, to get a feel whether they are working or not. During that 3-6 months period, it is extremely unlikely anything is going to happen, except that production is going to get very high and everyone is going to stockpile around the world.

So tell me this. What is the intelligence assessment of major oil importers telling those nations political leaders in the US, China, and Europe about what Israel is likely to do if it becomes clear the oil sanctions against Iran - said to be the most potent type of sanctions - aren't working?

I don't care what the folks in Tehran are saying publicly, there is no way they are oblivious to what the tea leaves are suggesting is going on. The Obama administrations diplomatic moves have begun ahead of negotiations with Iran, because the precautionary actions the US would need to take ahead of war with Iran are being taken and written daily in plain sight of major newspapers for all of us to see.

The media can claim this is the Obama administrations grand plan to bring down gas prices, but since the Obama folks know they can't actually saturate the market due to lack of refinery capacity - I reject the popular media rhetoric that this is just Obama administration politics. At no point in the last 3+ years has the Obama administration demonstrated their plans are stupid and are designed knowing that failure is the result. If the Obama administration is involved in hoarding supply on supertankers from Saudi Arabia, it is being done so they are damn sure they have that stockpile when they need it.

Keep in mind, the only legitimate reasons the US would need that extra supply is if the economy suddenly shoots off like a rocket over the next 6 months (very unlikely) thus demand increases significantly, or if the supply chain is disrupted. Which do you think is more likely?

If I'm off base here, I'm very happy to be wrong. Hard to ignore what's happening though.

Filling in the Gaps

CENTCOM has asked for and will be getting some money for increased capabilities specific to Iran.

In a “couple of cases,” Iran improved capabilities “faster than we anticipated,” he said.

The Command requested the additional funds because “our growing reliance on our maritime forces requires an ability to project power against asymmetric threats, particularly in the confined and crowded sea lanes” of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, Major David Nevers, spokesman for the Central Command, said in an e-mailed statement.

Funds were shifted from Pentagon biological and chemical weapons defensive programs and Navy and Air Force shipbuilding, satellite and aircraft programs deemed to have excess funds or experiencing delays.

Congress approved a $28 million shift to provide six U-2 spy planes with upgraded satellite links that increase their capability to “provide real-time, high bandwidth video feeds to ships, ground forces and command and control centers,” according to the reprogramming documents.

The article goes on to cover many, many of the reprogramming changes. Here are a few more.

Congress also backed the shift of $10 million to increase funding for a joint Navy-National Reconnaissance Office program to equip the service’s new anti-radar missile -- the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile made by Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) - - with a “Special Target Engagement” capability that includes a broadcast receiver...

An additional $4.8 million was approved for integrating new sensors on a Navy underwater vehicle “for very shallow water- mine countermeasures missions,” according to the documents.

The Central Command also won congressional approval to shift $3.7 million to developing a defense against drone attacks. The system will cover “vulnerable areas below typical air-defense radar coverage areas,” according to the documents...

Congress also approved plans to accelerate installation on coastal patrol craft of the “MK 38 Mod 2” system, which includes the laser-tracker for precision aiming of machine guns. Lawmakers rejected the planned source of $4 million in funds so the Comptroller is looking to other sources, a document said.

As described by BAE Systems Plc (BA/) and subcontractor Boeing Co. (BA), the tactical laser system “brings high precision accuracy against surface and air targets such as small boats and unmanned aerial systems. The system also provides the ability to deliver different levels of laser energy, depending on the target and mission objectives.”

Interesting stuff. The Iranian Navy fights with a mix of low tech and high tech, and uses their low tech capabilities to hopefully disorient and distract US naval forces so that their high tech capabilities have a chance of success. The US Navy is trained and equipped to fight both, but US Navy warships are better optimized to fight the high tech threats than the low tech.

It is not difficult to interpret what the CENTCOM folks are thinking with each request. The U-2 modifications are intended to give the best information for strike packages. The Anti-Radiation missiles are to knock out radar systems that would be used from Iranian truck mounted and other mobile missile systems against ships within range from the Iranian coast (or islands). The Gatling Guns and other point defense system modifications like laser pointers are intended to increase capabilities dealing with low flying drones or small boat swarm attacks.

The swarm attacks are particularly challenging, because fighting them is much easier said than done. Iranian swarm tactics are designed to negate the LOS defensive weapon systems used on US Navy ships, which would allow the swarm to close to target rapidly at high speed - how high of speed depending upon sea state and other factors. From about 8 miles out, the Iranians use 107mm rockets to create LOS obstructions between their target and the swarm - essentially a wall of water - that makes it very difficult for precision targeting the obstructed small boats of the swarm - largely because speed and distance become difficult to track.

Once within very close range - say less than a mile - many of the larger defensive weapons have difficulty hitting very fast boats on the water due to their close range, which is exactly what the small boat swarm wants - an old fashion gunfight. The laser targeting systems on US Navy guns should help US Navy sailors target more efficiently in that close range gunfight where boats could potentially be moving around the ship at speeds of up to 60 mph.

Finding the swarms and preventing them from getting too close to US Navy warships is the desired course of action in any naval war against Iran, but it is much easier said than done. In many cases even today, US Navy ships may not even small, fast smugglers in the confined waters of the strait or other locations in the Gulf until they are already within that 8 mile zone. The small boats are stealthy and fast, and all kinds of various environmental or geographic conditions can make them very difficult to pick up on radar.

Even during the recent high profile transit of the USS Carl Vinson into the Persian Gulf earlier this year, reporters noted that small boat smugglers were able to get remarkably close to the US Navy ships. It can be a tough problem, particularly if the warships are dealing with anti-ship missile attack from more high tech capabilities fielded by Iran at the same time.

I don't know about you, but if I was the CO of a destroyer in the Persian Gulf when war breaks out, I'd want to have as many Marines on the ship as I could safely berth (including extra corpsman) with as many big guns as they can operate (and a few spares). When at sea my DDG would have the silhouette of a WWII destroyer with as many muzzles as possible sticking out of the ship. It might create more work for the safety officer, but based on all tactical writing I have seen related to Iranian low tech naval tactics, one can never have too many guns when fighting the Iranians.

Preparing for War

In chess, to achieve checkmate you must first position your pieces properly.

For years I've dismissed the topic of war with Iran. I just never thought it would happen, or at least knew we would see it coming so have repeatedly dismissed claims that war is near. We'll, this is the kind of movement I've been waiting to see happen before taking this too seriously as a legitimate possibility, rather than an implied one.

Today, mentioned in passing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee - without a word or question on the topic from any supposedly well informed Senators - Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert told the Senate committee that the US Navy is going to deploy 4 minesweepers to the Persian Gulf (which will double the number of US Navy Minesweepers in the Persian Gulf) and also send additional mine hunting helicopters to the region. This comes following news earlier this year that the US Navy is working on the USS Ponce to deploy to the Persian Gulf to be a full time Mine Warfare Command Ship.

In other words, the Chief of Naval Operations announced to the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning specific details about preparations for war with Iran, and in response the Senators drooled on themselves in silent capitulation. The only thing missing from that scene from this mornings Twilight Zone moment in the Senate was the CNO knocking on the microphone asking "is this thing on" for dramatic effect.

When the CNO tells Senators in a public hearing that the Navy is deploying four little 1300 ton minesweepers to the other side of the world, in any context that can be described as the US Navy preparing for war with Iran. Deploying minesweepers to the Persian Gulf isn't like a typical 6 month deployment of a Navy warship, because some big commercial vessel will almost certainly be chartered to carry the ships across the ocean. This is a big deal.

This is also what a naval buildup for war against Iran looks like.

Update: And here is the charter. Note the timeline. Basically we seem to be in a hurry to get everything in place by summertime.