On a phone try scrolling all the way to the bottom of the thread and find the "desktop version" selection and click on it to put the conversation in order. Then turn the phone sideways and expand the view. This works for me.

Okay, but what happens when Piracy Changes from "Collecting a Ransom" To Crippling a country?

Let's assume China and the USA have a COMPLETE falling out.
China imports about 75% of the FUEL and their FOOD (Peter Ziehan).
How easy/hard does it become to just SINK every ship carrying food or oil, headed for China?

BTW, I bring this scenario up, SPECIFICALLY because it highlights WHAT I BELIEVE is Trumps plan on Greenland through S. America. We are going to get cut off from the rest of the world. Because the Globalists would rather have WWIII with NUKES than give up their chance to control EVERY country in the world.

We are CLEARLY moving in this direction (hence the TSMC Chip Making in AZ), Greenland, Venezuela, etc.

For basic Piracy... I stand corrected (Thank you).

But for pre-war crippling of our enemies or perceived enemies.
Big ships are BIG Targets. Pipelines are (as we've seen) easy targets.

Well, divide and conquer.
Trump has to help SOME of their pawns...
While targeting some of their stronger pieces.

I could be wrong, but I believe he is doing this for US.

Trump is in a TOUGH spot. Do you RELEASE the Epstein stuff BEFORE you figure out "Who is using it, and how, against WHOM?" (He clearly used it to remove the Ambassador from England)

It's easy to tell us what "WE" would do or should do... When we have NONE of the extra information Trump has. Some good, some bad (clearly).

Celebrate his wins. Pray for his soul, and give him space to "Shake The Box"

Your assumptions do not include history. Modern piracy has always been limited- long before today’s navy. Even in the heyday of piracy it was still a fraction of what Hollywood has glamorized it as.


Drones don’t really change much. For one, consider the primary barriers to piracy I mentioned. Drones don’t remove the height problem for boarding. They also don’t do much about armed guards. Nor do they change the economics of piracy or shipping.

Piracy is economically limited. The limited infrastructure and economic network access of piracy are a significant choke point and one of the drivers of it’s limited spread. Surely you don’t think drones will let Somali or Houthi pirates swarm out into the ocean lanes between China and the US West coast, do you?

From economics to geography piracy wouldn’t expand if the US had smaller warships. Indeed a single frigate, even a coastal guard one, suppresses piracy over a large area. This is because of the requirements for piracy. Piracy is fundamentally a poverty trap exploitation business that exists in the narrow overlap of failed states + shipping chokepoints + desperate populations. It’s not a scalable threat to global shipping architecture.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

While the US’ navy does perform counter-piracy operations, it isn’t with the big warships and the USN isn’t even a majority player there. Indeed fact no nation does.


When it comes to ships, since that is core among your premises, the USN doesn’t assign ships on anything other than opportunistic cases, unlike other nations that assign ships on a dedicated basis. Even considering the opportunistic uses, the USN provides between five and ten percent of the ships used in counter-piracy. Where the US does lead is in command and control infrastructure and leadership.

Most remain unaware that there are several multinational organizations that handle counter piracy. Mostly because if the media reported on that and how successful it has been, it would be less fear inducing.

The primary ship classes (which are not exactly uniform across countries, but close enough for this discussion) used in active counter piracy operations are frigates in the 3-5k displacement range. One of the reasons these and smaller dominate is the cost of deployment, which is also why nations rotate patrols between them. Sometimes a destroyer class is deployed.

Another reason is that frigates hit a sweet spot in task capability. Helicopters are crucial and frigates provide that. The frigate provides longer range “warning shots” and sensor range, while the helicopters provide rapid response that pirate skiffs cannot outrun outmaneuver. Helicopters are the primary method to counter high freeboard levels because you drop down to the ship instead of climbing. In order for pirates to expand and target the big ships with a high freeboard, they would need to field frigate class ships with helicopters. And that is incredibly expensive, prohibitively so.

Consider this: today I could buy a small ocean going vessel from which I could launch pirate operations and deploy to the Gulf. I mean that literally - the ship is in the zone of 200k. But the cost of operations in logistics blows that out of the water, if you will. Then where would I get revenue from? Most piracy is really more of a hostage situation where the ship is ransomed back. Why? Because where an I going to offload that cargo in the Gulf area? It just isn’t viable in the gulf with or without big USN ships.

I understand your reasoning, but the premises it uses are simply incorrect and the opposite of the reality. The premise that we have giant shipping ships because of the USN stopping pirates is demonstrably false as I have shown. The premise that snakes and faster cargo ships are more pirate resistant is not only false but the inverse of the case. The fact that piracy only occurs in limited areas that have specific features needed for piracy, and that outside of those areas there is already limited to no counter piracy operations demonstrates that your premise that absent the big US navy ships piracy would expand is also false.

Drones don’t fix any of those premises. They don’t eliminate or reduce the regional requirements, the cost of operations, or the physics of boarding.

Sorry, was doing this from my phone, and I have trouble following comments there.

Perhaps you replied to the wrong comment. I have no idea what position you’re talking about for I have made no assertion resembling what you stated.

"When the "Police" stop roaming around, I assume it will pick up, like inner city crime does..."
I agree, and those who have the most to lose will pay to stop the crimes ...
unless the corrupt fedgov continues to make us pay for it,
just as they make us pay for gambling losses by the banking cartel and Wall St.
The biggest enemy of the American people has been in D.C. for more than a century.
In some ways Trump is making progress against that enemy.
In other ways Trump appears to be assisting the enemy.

First, THANK YOU for the details. Very educational.

Second, with the advent of Drones and the ability to attach a Drone Mine to the bottom of a ship, and emit enough noise to hold the ship hostage.

This, to me, changes everything. Piracy will become technological. And the smart Pirates will charge what amounts to a nuisance fee (like anti-virus software, LOL)...

Finally, and I am not challenging what you provided... But is there a "normalcy bias" here. Because we have had quite the fleet knocking the crap out of any ships that threatened ships for a long time. Piracy has NOT been a great business idea for some time.

When the "Police" stop roaming around, I assume it will pick up, like inner city crime does...

You think CVN's can do this without other warships? Not an informed position.

Faster is REAL hard. Power for propulsion on displacement hulls is proportional to the cube (^3) of speed. No getting around this physics.

"When that Navy goes away. Shipping will have to start utilizing ships that move FASTER to be a target for a smaller amount of time. Those ships will have to charge more to protect themselves. All Prices go up. Availability of things drops.

It is a FAR more nuanced situation than you are giving it. Also, we've all but lost the ability to make these ships. "

No, we have not we still make them. They just aren't economically competitive even when you ignore piracy - which is rather geographically limited. Nor is your assertion about why we have these big container ships correct.

Container ship size is driven by:
- Port depth and infrastructure (your ship is useless if it can't dock)
- Canal constraints (Panamax, New Panamax, Suezmax classes exist for a reason)
- Economies of scale in cargo handling and fuel consumption
- Interest rates and capital costs (larger ships = more capital outlay)

Even if global piracy was zero, shipping ships would still be the size they are today. Economies of scale and fuel efficiency -> Big ships -> Low per-unit costs - this is the reason. Annual operating costs per TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit - basically a standard shipping container) drop by more than one-half when moving from Panamax to larger vessels. That's not piracy protection - that's pure physics and infrastructure optimization. Pirates don't factor into naval architecture decisions at all.

If they did, we'd still have larger ships but they'd have anti-boarding features built into them. In fact, your argument that big and slow is easier for pirates is inverted from reality. Modern pirates use fast skiffs. Container ships cruise at 12-20+ knots. The differential isn't the issue. You simply are not going to get fast small container ships that a small, fast pirate skiff can't catch. What actually matters is freeboard height (how high the deck is above water) and armed guards. The largest ships are harder to board, not easier.

Even with that aside, recall I mentioned piracy is geographically constrained. Piracy is geographically concentrated in a few chokepoints. The vast majority of shipping routes have zero piracy risk. The idea that the entire global fleet architecture is optimized around piracy avoidance is not how shipping economics works. Standard war-risk premiums hover at 0.3–0.5 percent of vessel value per transit - but only for high-risk zones. Most shipping routes carry essentially zero piracy-related insurance cost.

The zones where this applies are:
- Gulf of Aden (Somali piracy zone): 0.3-0.5% per transit
- Strait of Hormuz: ~0.2% per transit
- Red Sea during Houthi attacks: 0.6-1% per transit (spiked dramatically)
- Gulf of Guinea: 0.3-0.7%

The global total of war-risk premiums is close to $1 billion. That sounds large until you realize global container shipping moves ~$14+ trillion in goods annually. War risk is not even a rounding error in global shipping economics. Ship stores and lubricants is far greater of a cost, and that comes in at about 4% of operating costs for a typical 10k TEU ship. Fuel is half of operating costs. And fuel costs go up on smaller ships for teh same amount of cargo (physics, again). A lot.

Say you had a fleet of ten 10K TEU ships and you switch to 40 2.5K TEU ships. Your daily fleet fuel consumption would from about 1,750 tons to about 2500 tons - for moving the same amount of cargo. Call it roughly 30-40% more fuel for the same cargo capacity.

That will drive you to the larger ships all on its own. But that is before accounting for:

- 40 crews instead of 10
- 40 sets of port fees instead of 10
- 40 insurance policies
- 4× the maintenance

This is why the industry relentlessly pushed toward larger ships until they hit the physical constraints of ports and canals, not because the USN has big warships to fight pirates.

Frankly that wouldn't matter in any good way. The entitlement spending is so far beyond out of control it dominates anything else budget and spending-wise. Yes even, and especially, defense. Until you address that grave abomination and wrangle it down, anything defense related is irrelevant.

This is especially true for naval ships - arguably one of the few net benefits at a monetary/asset level.

And surely you're not suggesting a modern navy doesn't need aircraft carriers - the largest of naval warships? Which makes your recommendation even less meaningful.

FANTASTIC!

Without trying to be too graphic, saying goodbye to NPR gives me the same calm, contented state of mind as if I had just squatted down and unloaded a Guiness-Book-record nineteen-pound "viable candidate" on the steps of the DNC and didn't bother to flush. The circling flies are bringing tears of joy to my eyes. Or maybe it's the smell...

"Trusted news" my ass.

And they are still at it, but since I am not paying for it I don't care. This is one of the best things that has been done since Trump took office, and it's not just a matter of revenge. It's a matter of the idea that there's NO reason for us to pay for news reporting as a matter of routine - or at all. EVER.

The details I'm noting are not public.

Here is the sophomoric government site:
https://www.goldenfleet.navy.mil/

No, I saw it, but I'd like to understand the details to be convinced that its economic.
I haven't found details online. If you can point me to some links, I'd appreciate it.
(I see the BBG47 as an example of Star Wars' death star.)

I thought I explained how BBG-47 isn't a defenseless target. Did you miss it, or disagree?

Per congressional reports 95% of traffic through the Red Sea is Asia to Europe, not to the US.
Per industry statistics about 10% of shipments to the US went through the Red Sea and therefore affected.
As I stated above, Europe is the primary beneficiary of anti-piracy efforts there and US taxpayers bear the costs.
BBG47 is an overpriced sitting duck target. Perhaps Trump can put his golden name on some attack subs or
cyber systems instead.

Somali pirates absolutely affect US goods, and require longer force projection. However, shutting down pirates does not require BBG-47. That is for China.

I agree on the shipping consumption issue, but the location of the piracy (Houthis) currently
has little affect on US goods which cross the pacific unthreatened while Europe is the
destination of the shipping being threatened by Houthi pirates.

We agree on 90%
Except the USA consumes more than Europe.
We were/are always a primary beneficiary.
This is why China struggles when we stop buying as much.

But I've learned to let Trump be Trump. These are long term projects.
The Carrot. And I am watching him threaten their bonuses (the stick).
And that 50% "planned increase" may shrink once things change.
(Whatever they promise us ALWAYS shrinks before it gets to us).

Besides the 50% increase is 1/2 due to inflation :-)

But I would not be surprised to see Trump snatch that stuff away AFTER the midterms.
He cannot afford ENDLESS more attacks and still carry the house and senate.

Once he does, things will LIKELY shift back, but he needs the win to keep the wolves at bay.

As stated in a reply to Thor, https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
I have no issue with some ships being built, but the type of ships that were effective in WW2
are sitting ducks today, and those are the ones that Trump appears to be promoting.
(Trump's ego shouldn't be a deciding factor in naval construction decisions.)
Dealing with piracy (which is a valid goal for naval power) does not require a CVN today.
Must American taxpayers always pay for such anti-piracy efforts when the benefits are often
primarily for European countries?
I agree, Trump has started to move the spending on defense toward actual defense of
American interests. Building an expensive navy of sitting duck naval war machines is
going in the wrong direction.
Increasing military spending by 50% as proposed today is utter foolishness.
(Sorry this has gone off topic.;^)

Right! Voluntary, not forcing me to support it!!!!!!!!!!

There has never been a world economic leader without a dominant navy.