They won't sit still, though. Eventually, if this were tried, we'd see Chinese-flagged tankers buying passage rights from Iran and being escorted by PLAN ships.
No way does Commander TACO take that shot. The US interdiction threat in the gulf is empty, and everyone know it. Iran gets paid at the end of every story. The whole boondoggle has been a failure for the US in every analysis.
For the record: it was both, more or less. Some of the elders in this community were around in the Slashdot days, so it was sort of a pun on our shared cultural heritage, albeit not geopolitical strategy.
Again, there's no need to "break" a blockade that is an empty threat. I mean, yes, they could try to open it with military force or the threat thereof, but literally just painting a red flag would do just as well. Trump won't fire on a Chinese vessel, period.
This would be a blunder by Beijing. It would involve trotting their ships through half a world of American and allied sensors, only to put an untested-in-blue-waters navy perilously far from nearest bases or support if anything goes wrong.
I’m not saying the likes of Xi, Putin or Trump couldn’t do it. But it would be an intelligence bonanza for the West, India, Japan and Taiwan.
I disagree with this assessment. While they have not engaged in combat in blue waters, they certainly are all over the Pacific, far from home. Also, the US and Canada regularly run spy flights that capture photos and radio signals from Chinese naval vessels. I'm sure their boats are well painted with NATO radars by now.
Even if PLAN ships aren’t as capable or matching the U.S, it doesn’t really matter. They just have to be there. The U.S is not going to risk an escalation with China.
They won't sit still, though. Eventually, if this were tried, we'd see Chinese-flagged tankers buying passage rights from Iran and being escorted by PLAN ships.
No way does Commander TACO take that shot. The US interdiction threat in the gulf is empty, and everyone know it. Iran gets paid at the end of every story. The whole boondoggle has been a failure for the US in every analysis.