we need to keep the lines of communication open so that misunderstandings don't escalate into tragedies
...
We're talking about the Cheney White House here, right?
You're probably thinking of this Fred Kaplan piece in Slate.
also makes me think of a post I read recently (from Drum? Yglesias?) wondering why we don't have a hotline with Iran like we did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Even (or, perhaps, especially) if someone is our "enemy", we need to keep the lines of communication open so that misunderstandings don't escalate into tragedies.
sure, that's the sane way to handle the problem. but this regime seems to believe that engaging in direct one-on-one talks with iran is equivalent to surrending to iran (hell, even hillary clinton echoed that line when she slammed obama for daring to suggest he would be open to one-on-one talks with iran). that means no phone hotline, unless, i guess it is one of those old fashion party lines.
i've always wondered why the no-direct-talks-with-evil stance current conservatives take doesn't make their hero ronald reagan a surrender monkey. after all, he had that red phone in his office, a direct line to the evil empire.
Iran doesn't pose anything remotely resembling the threat that the United States and the Soviet Union posed to each other in those years.
This is exactly why there is no such channel with Iran. The US-Soviet understanding wasn't there to prevent tragedies, it was there to prevent mutual annihilation. There's no such symmetry here.
4 gets it right. A war with Iran, who doesn't have the bomb, means all the carnage happens on the other side of the world and sky-high popularity at home.
Besides, in this case one side is very obviously spoiling for a fight, as it has demonstrated by cooking up an obviously phony "nuclear crisis" and doctoring footage of Iranian patrol boats. To think the people who attacked Iraq would consider for a second avoiding "tragedy" with Iran is laughable.
4 and 5 are sickening in their persuasiveness
7: That's the clear-eyed view of America today.
I haven't been following this closely enough to be sure, but were the radio 'threats' taken seriously in the moment, or just blown up into a big thing after the fact so we'd have an excuse to talk tough about Iran? They're both disgusting, but the first is scarier.
Radio trolls, who've been fucking with Gulf traffic since the 80s? Jesus Christ. Either that's one ornery loner, or some poor schmuck has the weirdest military posting of all time.
Crikey, I can't remember where I read the analysis. Apparently the Straits of Hormuz aren't very wide, and there are no international waters because the usual distance isn't there. So by the std treaties all the Straits are Oman or Iranian territorial waters. There was a treaty covering a compromise negotiated in 1995, but the US wouldn't sign & ratify. Ever since, the Iranians have been trying, thru various means, to get the US to sit down & work a deal.
Regarding no hot lines and the possibility for miscommunication, I believe the standard phrase is: "That's not a bug, it's a feature."
Just imagine if we'd torpedoed that ship and then heard the guy shout "Bababooey! Bababooey!"
11: I think the relevant concept there is "international strait." The Navy (among others) takes freedom of navigation through those very seriously.
Apologies because I haven't read much here and may be repeating an earlier conversation - have we talked about the overlap with the Gulf of Tonkin incident? I was thinking how extraordinarily ironic it was that this happened the very same week as the NSA declassified a report:
The Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred in early August 1964. On Aug. 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked a US destroyer, the USS Maddox, in the Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea off Vietnam's northeastern coast. Mr. Johnson warned the North that another such attack would bring "grave consequences." On Aug. 4, Johnson announced that another attack had occurred and asked Congress to vote him powers to respond. On Aug. 7, Congress gave him those powers in the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which became the legal foundation for increased US involvement.
Even at the time, some doubted that the second attack had occurred. Yet the Johnson administration produced what seemed a key piece of evidence - a North Vietnamese Navy after-action report, intercepted by the NSA, which appeared to discuss the battle.
In fact, the intercept had been mistranslated, according to the just-released report.
(Link.)
For some reason I find it hilarious that some tiny Iranian speed boats were flitting around U.S. Navy destroyers (or whatever) while some maniac is cackling on the radio "You blow up now!" In an abstract, no real world consequences sort of way, that is.
On the post itself, I tend to assume that the Navy is generally competent about operational stuff, and that if "Filipino Monkey" is a known problem in the Gulf they're capable of filtering that out. Which doesn't mean that they weren't close to opening fire just based on the speedboats getting too aggressive and too close. So until we see something more definitive, my operating assumption is that there really was a scary situation there but that the Administration then used the tape to make it look even scarier for propaganda purposes.
9: You can bet the US captains and their crews were taking it seriously. The last time the US war-gamed the speedboats swarming scenario the other guys won.
13. Just imagine if we'd torpedoed that ship and then heard the guy shout "Bababooey! Bababooey!"
Or shot down a commercial aircraft killing 290 passengers. I am not sure how how well-known the Iran Air Flight 655 incident over the Strait of Hormuz is these days (it happened in 1988), but this incident reminded me of it in some regards (mostly the location, quite different in others). US military propaganda is the same however. As I recall there were three key claims in that incident, the plane was descending, it was not scheduled and it did not respond to radio warnings that it received. All debunked within a week.
The airliner shootdown was more likely an out and out error due to "hyper-readiness" and bad operational procedures rather than ginning up a crisis from a minor event, however. And hey! They owed us one for KAL 007.
News: Radio is for everyone. There are no doormen; everyone can be a wanker if they want. This is not new or amazing; US airline pilots have a bad reputation for asking for "sports" scores on transoceanic guard frequencies.
News the second: US Navy carrier readiness is still at, well, relaxed levels. Only one ship is deployed.
News the third: The Royal Navy sinka yr ship back in 1981 in a similar exercise scenario,
Unstory.
The Royal Navy sinka yr ship back in 1981 in a similar exercise scenario
Yeah? Well the Constitution captured your Guerriere and Java in 1812.
I'm preemptively covering my eyes and ears to any comment about other events in that war, especially those about buildings being burned.
20.1: Radio is for everyone. There are no doormen; everyone can be a wanker if they want.
Shorter Alex: Before unfogged, there was radio.
As I recall there were three key claims in that incident, the plane was descending, it was not scheduled and it did not respond to radio warnings that it received. All debunked within a week.
Right. But in that case, these were the result of screwups at the ship level, not politically motivated lies/spin from Washington.
But in that case, these were the result of screwups at the ship level, not politically motivated lies/spin from Washington.
True, but Washington behaved very poorly afterwards. I'd nearly forgotten about that incident, but I don't think it's really the same profile as the current saber-rattling. It's a shameful episode in US military history in the area, but a different one.
The attack by Vincennes is a good example of what can go wrong in that kind of climate. It came after the US had sunk a few Iranian naval vessels. Which was in response to the Sammy B. Etc. Etc.
The wikipedia entry on Operation Praying Mantis makes it seem almost bloodless and the only deaths listed are tow US Marines. I doubt that is correct.
26.
Operation Praying Mantis is one of five American naval engagements cited by United States Naval Academy Prof. Craig L. Symonds in his book Decision at Sea (2005) as being decisive in establishing U.S. naval superiority. The others were the Battle of Lake Erie (1813), the Battle of Hampton Roads (1862), the Battle of Manila Bay (1898), and the Battle of Midway (1942).
One of these things is not like the others....
Although on 2nd thought Manila Bay may in fact be pretty similar,
It's a shameful episode in US military history in the area, but a different one.
Exactly. Much more shameful, I think. Oddly enough, Rogers wife and kids survived an attempted car bombing a few years later. Unlike the Swiss air traffic controller who was involved in the midair collision a few years back, who got stabbed to death by the father of one of the victims.
27: The one that's clearly different in scale is Midway. The others are similar, no?
I'm preemptively covering my eyes and ears to any comment about other events in that war, especially those about buildings being burned.
It's ok. Our side got the last laugh
29: At first blush, I just thought it ludicrous to have a small engagement against a totally overmatched non-seapower show up on the list, but in retrospect I may be committing The Fallacy of Over-Imbuing Distant Events with Unwonted Significance.
31. I think your first instinct was right. I look forward to Alex's comment.
News: Radio is for everyone. There are no doormen; everyone can be a wanker if they want. This is not new or amazing; US airline pilots have a bad reputation for asking for "sports" scores on transoceanic guard frequencies.
Why is "sports" in quotes? Is this some scandalous euphemism?
I think your first instinct was right. I look forward to Alex's comment.
Well, there had been a lot of talk about how missile boats were going to revolutionize sea warfare and render the aircraft carrier obsolete etc etc. It was at least a little noteworthy to see that no, small boat navies roll over and sink when facing modern warships.
Having read the article, I am somewhat surprised (and somewhat surprised at my surprise) to learn that the thing that binds all of humanity together, our great common thread of experience, is that every culture has loudmouth cranks.
Since at least 1982, U.S. Navy ships plying the Persian Gulf have been taunted by mysterious radio transmissions that are alternately obscene, nonsensical, racist, infantile, misogynistic and menacing. Sometimes they threatened U.S. ships; at other times they simply babbled away, all night, in falsettos.
So our poor sailors are being subjected to tapes of Limbaugh? Those monsters!
Before unfogged, there was radio.
That's about right.
Regarding Operation Praying Mantis, I suppose he meant it in a sort of neoconnish demonstration-of-will to control the seas way, which makes more sense than comparing it with Midway.
If there's a lesson about that it's probably that if you have to go into the muddy water where the enemy has a lot of fast-attack craft, you're well advised to deal with them first before they get out and running all over the place; it's the ones with the Exocets you need to worry about.