Bullet Points:
** The Russia-Ukraine War is expanding to the Central Mediterranean. I can’t say that I’m surprised. The Russian Shadow Fleet needs to be stopped. Wait until the Ukes manage to acquire a submarine and turn it loose. (article h/t Claudio) It will be easier for the Ukes to buy smaller bulk haulers, load them up with anti-shipping missiles and drones, and send them against the Russian Scam Fleet.
** Bull riding for fun and profit in Mexico.
** Designs vs Functional Warheads (right) – It is highly unlikely that Pakistan or China would directly sell a completed nuclear weapon to Iran, as doing so would violate international treaties and invite severe global repercussions. However, both nations have a documented history of providing the technology, designs, and materials that have advanced Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranians admitted during negotiations within the last two weeks that they have enough nuclear material to create eleven bombs. When you consider Chinese or Pakistani aid to Iran, putting it into this framework makes more sense. The US had credible concerns that Iran had the capacity to create functional nuclear weapons prior to the present war with Iran. President Trump said they were two weeks from completing their first nuclear weapon. An opening occurred to strike the leadership (as assembled) of Iran, and both the US and Israeli allies acted to decapitate the enemy.
** 2025-26 revival of the Monroe Doctrine – explored here.
** Do we live in a computer simulation? Thoughts on the matrix…
** Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli (left), who issued a jihad fatwa, declaring that “shedding the blood of Trump and the Zionists is obligatory,” yesterday—-was killed in U.S. airstrikes overnight. Official confirmation awaited. They’re going to need to swear in more grand ayatollahs. I wonder if they’ll run out of turbans?
** The U.S. House of Representatives voted 357-65 to bury a resolution that would have forced the public release of all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment investigation reports, protecting lawmakers from the very accountability they demand of other Americans. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a vocal advocate for victims, introduced the measure as a privileged resolution to compel the House Ethics Committee to disclose its files.
** When life gives you lemons.
** Great explanation on Venezuela.
** China has reduced its air incursions over Taiwan. Fuel shortages?
** More tankers came under attack in Persian Gulf waters on Thursday. A Bahamas-flagged crude oil tanker was targeted by an Iranian remote-controlled boat laden with explosives while anchored near Iraq’s Khor al Zubair port. A second tanker at anchor off Kuwait was taking on water and spilling oil after a large explosion on its port side. This attack may also have been carried out by a remote-controlled boat. That brings the total as of this writing to nine commercial vessels that have been attacked by the Iranians.
** Admin – there won’t be a blog post at VM tomorrow, and possibly the day after as well.
Insurance
(h/t Stringshot – The Invisible Siege) A discussion of Maritime Insurance – must read. In part: The global maritime insurance system is not a market in any conventional competitive sense. It is a concentrated oligopoly layered three deep. At the surface sit twelve P&I clubs organized through the International Group, a London-based association that pools claims above individual club retention levels. These twelve clubs provide the third-party liability cover without which no commercial vessel can operate. Beneath them sit perhaps five to ten active treaty reinsurers, predominantly London-based, who absorb the catastrophic tail risk that individual clubs cannot carry. And beneath those reinsurers sits the retrocession market, where reinsurers lay off their own excess exposure.
Here is the structural vulnerability that no energy analyst models, because no energy analyst is trained to see it: the retrocession market and the entire insurance-linked securities sector, totaling roughly $41 billion, systematically exclude war risk. The approximately $60 billion retrocession market and the roughly $61 billion in outstanding catastrophe bonds focus almost exclusively on natural catastrophe perils: hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires. When a marine war risk reinsurer takes on Gulf exposure, that reinsurer bears it net. There is no deeper pool of capital behind the curtain. A single large vessel loss in the Hormuz approaches, conservatively two hundred to three hundred million dollars combining hull value, cargo, and third-party liability, could exceed the entire war risk premium pool for the region.
This concentration means the system has no shock absorber. When seven clubs withdraw simultaneously, they do not leave behind a competitive fringe that can step in and reprice. They leave behind a void. The remaining five clubs cannot absorb the risk because their own reinsurers face the same capital constraints. Lloyd’s syndicates writing war risk cover face identical Solvency II capital requirements. The entire edifice stood on a foundation that could bear steady-state risk and marginal escalation, but not discontinuous regime shift. (more)
What about the UK?
In a single stroke of economic and military genius, the Trump administration appears to have neutralized one of the United Kingdom’s most ancient and powerful geopolitical tools, potentially “crushing” a key ally’s economy to secure American energy supremacy. The crisis began when Lloyd’s of London—the world’s only insurance market large enough to back the staggering value of the global oil fleet—abruptly announced it would no longer insure any vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
This move would have effectively grounded 20 to 30 percent of the world’s oil that flows through that 21-mile chokepoint.
“Trump just killed the British Empire.”
Let me explain. This is the Strait of Hormuz. You’ve been hearing about it on the news. About 20 to 30 percent of all oil in the world goes through this strait. Here is what you don’t know.
In order to go through this strait, ships have to have insurance. There is only one company in the world that is big enough to insure all the oil tankers passing through this strait. That company is Lloyd’s of London. It is responsible for about 2 percent of the British Empire’s GDP, contributing over $40 billion to the United Kingdom and 50,000 jobs, but it’s also a geopolitical tool for the UK.
And they decided they were no longer going to insure anyone going through the Strait of Hormuz, which would have halted all energy shipments. It was kind of a giant F you to Donald Trump to confuse and distort the energy markets and make America look bad.
But Trump said that the United States government will start insuring these shipping companies. Not only that, they will provide U.S. Navy escorts for these boats. In just a matter of minutes, the United States has shut down one of the United Kingdom’s largest geopolitical tools dating back to the 1600s. This not only ensures they no longer have geopolitical leverage but also crushes their economy. It’s not like Lloyd’s can just magically come back online. Now that the United States is insuring these boats, which, by the way, were the reason boats could even go through that strait anyway because of the United States military, it’s not like these boats are going to go back to Lloyd’s of London insurance. They’re probably going to stay with the United States, and Trump knows this. A very subtle move but incredibly important.”
Indiscretion
(NY Post) WASHINGTON — The “final straw” prompting President Trump to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was her stunning non-answer at a House hearing Wednesday about whether she had “sexual relations” with top aide Corey Lewandowski, sources inside and close to the White House told The Post.
Trump had been nearing a boiling point in his frustration with Noem and already was considering ousting her after she claimed to senators Tuesday that he approved $220 million in ads starring herself, but her inability to answer the question sealed her fate. “The question about the affair at the hearing was actually the final straw. It was f—ing brutal,” one source said of Noem’s reply, which was widely seen as an admission that she was sleeping with her subordinate. Her husband of 34 years, Bryon Noem, had joined her at the hearing.
I wonder if she forced Lewandowski to do the deed? If you don’t, Corey, you’re fired! I hate to see sexual harassment in the workplace.
Where are they Now?
Secretary Noem is moving on to her new job as Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas. Noem will work with foreign leaders in both North and South America. The Trump administration has maintained a heavy interest in connecting with Latin American leaders to combat human smuggling, drug trafficking, and undocumented immigration. Thirteen heads of Latin American countries are expected to be present at the Miami summit this weekend. Some notable names, according to the White House, include: Argentine President Javier Milei, Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele Ortez, and Honduran President Nasry “Tito” Asfura.
Lewandowski may remain an unpaid advisor at DHS. Hisposition as a special government employee allowed him to work within the department while maintaining outside business interests as a K Street lobbyist.
Nuclear Weapons Policy
(RID – h/t Claudio) French Nuclear Policy is changing – Yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech at Île Longue, officially updating France’s position on nuclear matters. The speech confirmed the five-pillar structure of French deterrence, but pushed it in a tougher direction: France will increase its arsenal, abandon numerical transparency, and begin implementing a strictly controlled form of “advanced deterrence” against selected European partners.
From the outset, Macron presented his speech as another step in the gradual “sedimentation” of French nuclear doctrine, rather than a break with it. He reiterated that nuclear weapons remain the cornerstone of French defense and that deterrence is “totally and invariably sovereign,” in line with the doctrine since de Gaulle. The five characteristics of French nuclear deterrence—powerful and responsible, independent, credible, strictly defensive, and with a European dimension—were all reiterated, but Macron used them as a framework to tighten the parameters rather than simply reiterate established arguments.
The most notable tightening concerned power and opacity. While official figures indicate “fewer than 300 nuclear warheads” and a strict sufficiency as a sign of transparency, Macron announced that France would increase the number of deployed warheads and would no longer publish any figures in the future. He justified this decision by arguing that deterrence requires France to be feared, and that, in the current context, this implies a more robust arsenal and greater uncertainty for adversaries. (more)
Iranian Suicide Boats
Iranian forces have been known to have been working with remotely controlled drone attack boats for years.
Some, such as their corvette (right) of the Shahid Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis Class – this one named for the dead terrorist Qasem Soleimani (now sunk), can take on dual roles in the name of martyrdom.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy’s “Ya Mahdi” (a reference to Shia Islam’s 12th Imam) unmanned surface vessel was first publicly described in 2010 as a remote-controlled fast attack craft. In that year, the boat was showcased in exercises in the Straits of Hormuz, and IRGCN commander Ali Reza Tangsiri said that “since the boat has high speed, it is less detectable by radar.” Reporting indicates that the vessel is based on the civilian Bladerunner 51 speedboat (below), with manned variants serving with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.
The Iranians are unlikely to have only a handful of these suicide boats at their disposal. The Iranians have worked with the Houthis in organizing these kinds of attacks on commercial shipping for years. The Houthis have employed a wide range of small boats in attacks, but they have all had the same relative advantages. They are hard to detect on radar. They can carry large explosive payloads and strike at a vessel’s waterline, causing significant damage. Additionally, these kinds of suicide boats are cheap, easy to produce, and easy to maintain. You don’t need a shipyard to build such a drone. It can be converted to a suicide boat almost anywhere.
ICE Marine, a British company founded by Jeremy Watts and designed by naval architect Lorne Campbell, produced the Bladerunner 51, a 15.5-meter high-speed “Air Entrapment Monohull”. They sold those boats to Iran. I wonder what they thought that the mullahs would use them for? I hope they’re living large on the profits.
The Mullahs are Angry with the World
Would a BLT or a sausage pizza and a beer solve that problem? 
Is this taking things too far?
Sanctuary
- IRIS Bushehr (Sanctuary Vessel):
- An auxiliary vessel and converted oil tanker carrying approximately 208 crew members.
- Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake confirmed the ship and its crew were granted safe haven on humanitarian grounds.
- The crew has disembarked in Colombo, while the vessel itself is being moved to the eastern port of Trincomalee for protection.
- Initial reports cited “engine failure” as the official reason for the vessel’s entry into Sri Lankan waters.
Identify the Nuclear Weapons
1
2
Identify the ICBM
3
4
End
1 is “Fat Man” used on Nagasaki
2 is “Little Boy” used at Hiroshima
(1) Fat Man.
(2) Little Boy.
(3) Trident. Actually, Trident II, I think.
(4) Minuteman II.
– Kle.
How many nukes does a nation need? One is to many if a maniac has his finger on the trigger. Sure hope England and France can make a turn around from importing the Sharia ideology. As well as other European nations that have allowed the “mostly peaceful” religion to multiply, commit moral violations, have special “equal rights”, and get into positions of power.
Israel has somewhere around 100. Maybe over 100. Do they think that number is high enough? Likely not. Does the USA have enough? I would think that we have enough to kill the Northern Hemisphere (movie On the Beach), and maybe both hemispheres. Is that enough? If Iran had that capacity, it would have destroyed the planet for the sake of the Twelfth (hidden) Imam. Should the Ukrainians have given up their nukes? The British literally don’t have a navy besides a few nuke boats carrying their deterrent payload. The French are convinced that they have neither enough nuclear weapons nor delivery systems.
Identify the Nuclear Weapons:
1. Fat Man
2. Little Boy
Identify the ICBM:
3. Trident SLBM
4. Minuteman II
** issued a jihad fatwa, declaring that “shedding the blood of Trump and the Zionists is obligatory,”
.
I had posted this on FB and thought I’d put it here:
I thinking on the subject of spiritual warfare and I remembered seeing a video of an Iranian newscaster saying that all will be well Allah is on our side.
And then the bombs dropped on the broadcasting studio.
This is a demonstration that Allah is a false God, like with Elijah and the priests of Baal on Mt Carmel.
100% Ed…they can invoke Allah all they want, once dead by reliance on a false god the truth will be known.
Besides you and me being ‘infidels’ and must be taken out according to their throwback book. Not exactly compassionate.
😒
All of my JHP have a drop of bacon grease in them…….
I still have JiHAWG ammunition, even though they went out of business. Jihawg Ammunition was a product line introduced in 2013 by South Fork Industries, a company based in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, which marketed bullets coated with a pork-infused paint. The company marketed this ammunition as a “natural deterrent” to radical Islamic terrorism, based on the belief that being “defiled” by pork would prevent a Muslim from entering paradise.
.
“There’s Pig in the Paint”: The company used a pork-infused paint coating on its ammunition, which was advertised with the slogan “Put Some Ham in MoHAMed.”
IDNW-
1-“Little Boy”
2-“Fat Man”
3- UGM-133 Trident II D5 Extender.
4- Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).
Excellent
When I read “Ya Mahdi” it automatically and autonomously turned into “Yo Mama”. Given the legends associated with the 12th Imam, that probably gets the death penalty. But the really funny part is, “IRGCN commander Ali Reza Tangsiri said that “since the boat has high speed, it is less detectable by radar.” No. Just no. Radar can track and report on supersonic targets, but a “high speed” boat is too fast for it?
I read that too and it’s actually its size that makes it low radar detectable. There’s an article here: https://geopolicraticus.wordpress.com/tag/bladerunner-51/
It talks about the boat and Iran copying it. From the designer himself.
.
“I wrote to the naval architect responsible for the design, Lorne Campbell, to ask him about what would be involved in copying the design, and he responded as follows:
In theory the craft, being of composite FRP construction, is relatively easy to copy; a mould just has to be taken from it. In practice it is a complicated set of moulds and inaccuracies will result in poor performance. We believe that the hull shape is an advance in the art of high speed powerboat design but we have developed the concept since the Bradstone Challenger and will continue to do so.
Mr. Campbell gave me permission to quote him here, and he also added, “…it will obviously be very galling if the design is a), copied without payment of a license fee and b), used in an aggressive manner against us.” I suspect that in this case it would be somewhat difficult to successfully pursue intellectual property rights. However, Iran is in the process of accession to the WTO, against repeated objections in the US, and may ultimately pay licensing fees even where practically unenforceable in order not to prejudice the accession process. If the Iranians do not pay licensing fees for the design, if would certainly be in the interests of Lorne Campbell Designs to bring this to the attention of the WTO during the accession process, and I can’t imagine that this would be overlooked by those who have worked to keep Iran out of the WTO.”
CWIS, RAM, and other systems can track and engage boats, it’s not a speed issue. It’s a detection issue. Boats can be harder to detect via radar due to the clutter caused by the water and waves, especially at low angles (surface radar vs overhead). LO treatments (shape and coatings) help prevent detection, hence the newer more angular shapes seen on larger vessels.
The FRP hull is fairly transparent to radar and the engines are low and likely to be hidden in the surface clutter. Reminds me of a proposal we made in the 60’s for a Lebanese hash run using a 50′ wood and glass sailing trimaran that would have a big V-8 lurking under the galley table for those moments when a 50kt sprint might be needed.
We know they work and are difficult to detect. There must be a sea state somewhere between flat and “Victory at Sea” where they can stay on step and yet it’s rough enough to keep the boundary level clutter high.
Sitting here having my morning covfefe, then I come across your BLT pic and now that’s all I can think of…might be on the menu for later…and the heck with other cultures who won’t embrace a decent BLT.
***
I think I0Ed needs a Bladerunner 51, might be better at speeding to the fishing hole than a Bass Pro, and “under the radar” to boot so your ‘special spot’ can be kept secret.
There is no question that EdB needs a Bladerunner 51.
Sitting here having my morning covfefe, then I come across your BLT pic and now that’s all I can think of…might be on the menu for later…and the heck with other cultures who won’t embrace a decent BLT.
***
I thinking EdB needs a Bladerunner 51, might be better at speeding to the fishing hole than a Bass Pro, and “under the radar” to boot so your ‘special spot’ can be kept secret.
Ok, double post, one with typos…weird. Can’t possibly be operator error (that would be me).
My boat used to be a suicide boat.
There was a good chance where we were all going to die every time we took it out.
Then I found this interesting propeller called a turning point hustler that has four blades instead of the three I was running. And each pair of opposite blades is a different pitch. What a game changer.
That blade runner actually gets its speed from a type of drive that keeps the propellers only half in the water.
It takes balls for congress to ask Noem about sexual dalliance and vote to squash the payoffs of congress.
My thought as well…especially considering their ‘infidelities’ are massively worse than some fling between consenting adults. (Yes, it was wrong, but Minnesota fraud is okay with them?)
Noem has demonstrated a few odd personal choices every once in a while. Guess the accumulation added up to a “You’re Fired” moment. Maybe she needed an ethics tutor to help her tone it down.
This is not a shot at Trump, but having seen his son fool around with Guilfoyle with no repercussions makes me wonder what he’s willing to tolerate in his staff.
The Lewandowski stuff is old news.
Trump does seem to show an occasional blind spot when it comes to women. Don’t know if it’s part of some master plan, or a result of how he was raised.
Before women’s lib decided to destroy the playing field there was a strong tendency to put women on pedestals.
Sorry to hear about Kristi Noem. I thought she was doing a good job. Maybe too big a step from Governor of Soth Dakota to the national stage?
Nothing Trump does is without careful consideration, no billionaire of his ilk can afford to not learn from past mistakes. He has a plan and this ‘move’ is part of it, shake things up and do a little a slight of hand for the low hanging fruit types while doing the real work outside of their view.
ALL, and I mean ALL, politicians need to have an ethically grounded person overseeing what they do and whispering to them when they’re about to do something felony stupid. The $220 million DHS ad that starred Noem was one of those. Helping keep her legs closed where a SUBORDINATE was involved is another. She could bang almost anyone except a subordinate and not suffer much of a blowback. Whether hubby is cool with it or not is a separate issue. The problem with politicians is that most of them are not that bright (cunning, yes – bright, not really) and they have massive egos. So they don’t want somebody acting as a surrogate conscience.
I’d love to see Boating with edB Blade runner edition.
All I need is financing. Maybe I’ll set up a GoFundMe.
Seriously yes!!
Well the “The Invisible Siege” as noted above was a sobering read. The future implications are not good at all. I will need another coffee and a long walk as a result of reading that analysis. I strongly suggest everyone on this blog take the time to read that analysis. Thanks LL for pointing it out.
*
I knew the nuclear weapons.
I’m hoping that similar to Y2K, it won’t be as disastrous as it sounds. Especially with Trump intervention as Larry mentioned.
We can be essentially self-sufficient in oil in the US at will.
*
If the PRC starves for lack of oil, that seems like a big win.
*
If Europe starves for lack of oil, well, I would have cared more before they spat
in my face every day since WWII.
*
If the insurers become too inconvenient, they will destroy themselves. They have
zero inherent power, and should realize that they can be dissolved at will by
those who do. Maybe they’ll push and die, that would be great. Insurance should
always have been illegal, anyway.
– Kle.
Almost forgot… March 6, anniversary of the final day of the Battle of the Alamo in Texas.
Besides reducing flights over/around Taiwan, China is reducing/stopping oil exports.
LLoyd of London
About time they are taken down a notch.
“In a single stroke of economic and military genius, the Trump administration appears to have neutralized one of the United Kingdom’s most ancient and powerful geopolitical tools, potentially “crushing” a key ally’s economy to secure American energy supremacy. The crisis began when Lloyd’s of London—the world’s only insurance market large enough to back the staggering value of the global oil fleet—abruptly announced it would no longer insure any vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
Yes, I guess they didn’t see that coming, just like their awesome gamble the UK would never fight another major war again?
FFS.
They’ll all be buying “Golden Insurance” from the USA. I’m sure that will put a dent in the deficit. What will happen to Old Blighty? They’ll just quietly become an Islamic Republic and replace KC3 with a Sultan.
Yep, Lloyds got their ‘access’ to intel cut off, and ‘thought’ they would be making a smart move… oopsie… :-)
They maneuvered themselves into insolvency along with the UK.