US Sailors Stranded In Red Sea Deserve Immediate Military Support

[Timber Rattler]

https://gcaptain.com/watch-us-sailors-stranded-red-sea-immediate-military-support/

gCaptain has received reports that the French Navy is withdrawing from the US lead Operation Prosperity Guardian over a dispute about which ships get escort priority. An urgent report by Dr. Sal Mercogliano shows they are already escorting French-owned merchant ships through while about a half dozen US Flag ships remain stranded – without adequate US Naval protection – within range of Houthi missiles.

The safety of US-flagged ships, particularly those stranded with military cargo near the Red Sea, is of immediate concern. The lack of adequate military protection has left these vessels – some have been waiting for naval escort for over a week – vulnerable, as evidenced by the recent rocket attack on a US-flagged tanker delivering explosive cargo to Israel. This situation raises serious questions about our commitment to safeguarding our maritime assets.

Sources inside US shipping companies inform gCaptain that the US Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) and the Navy’s Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS), is working hard on a plan to escort and protect these ships. This work needs to be championed ASAP and expedited by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and White House as soon as possible because every moment US Flag ships remain in the area unnecessarily increases the risk they will be targeted by Houthis.

EXCERPT

[Timber Rattler]

This...is...BAD!

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/12/22/if-rumors-about-whos-running-the-show-are-true-itll-be-a-very-houthi-christmas-n600718

https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1737956292436615453

[bigheadfred]

What a cluster...

[Smokin Joe]

Let them withdraw. Bon chance, Bon voyage. Now, escort our own, in convoy, if need be.

[Timber Rattler]

Let them withdraw. Bon chance, Bon voyage. Now, escort our own, in convoy, if need be.

We can't.  The U.S. Navy doesn't have the ships anymore, which is why Austin and Lake were hoping to rely upon this latest "coalition" of the willing.  Even worse, if you read Dr. Mercogliano's report, the Biden Administration has NOBODY in the White House who has maritime expertise, with MARAD becoming a sad joke of its former self because of diversity appointments in the top jobs there.

Why is it a mess? The maritime interests of the nation were left to atrophy by the Obama administration who put a junior white house staffer and them a navy O5 submarine commander in charge of the important US Maritime Administration
@DOTMARAD
.

Trump recognized the deficiency and appointed 3 shipowners to his cabinet, put an experienced admiral in charge pf MARAD and opened a maritime desk - heady by a smart and - as
@JoshuaSteinman
 can confirm - put an ambitious USCG officer- inside the national security council.

On day 1 of the Biden administration they closed the NSC maritime desk leaving the white house without any maritime experience.
@SecretaryPete
  was given DOT as a political favor and MARAD was staffed with a long retired Admiral who had a multi-billion dollar climate change agenda.

This is not a political tweet - much of what the Trump administration tried to accomplish in the Maritime domain failed in the last year or was overturned by entrenched civil servants - but they did have an abundance of Maritime and Navy experts at the highest levels and had a few home runs like the revitalization of Philly shipyard, and the building brand new college training ships.

Biden has no maritime expertise on staff. Furthermore Biden put an army general as secretary defense, and has done a little to nothing to support the US Navy.

tl;dr there is an extreme lack of maritme and naval expertise within this administration.

The result is that the cornerstone of Naval strength - which is not our carrier groups, it is the strength of our allied coalitions - has fallen apart over the course of just a couple of days.

Out of our naval allies, only ten signed up for Operation Prosperity Guardian. Two of those refused to comit any hard assets. Two had few assets to supply. And one - France - stormed out of the first operational meeting in disgust and quit the group to go protect its own ships.

And now the most important waterway of global maritime commerce is blocked to all but French owned ships (they will open it up to EU ships shortly), US flagged ships with 🇺🇸 sailors aboard sit without protection in the Red Sea, and thousands of ships are going around the Cape of Good Hope emitting untold amount of carbon which the Biden administration claims is a priority.

This is an EPIC failure and a completely avoidable one. The White House has no shipping or naval expertise and should not have taken charge of this operation.

[Timber Rattler]

Update:

https://redstate.com/streiff/2023/12/23/red-sea-security-coalition-melts-down-as-member-nations-refuse-to-accept-us-leadership-n2167876

The Biden White House's grand idea for an international coalition to protect 10% of the world's shipping from the threat posed by a primitive Third World nation seems to be on the verge of a meltdown over the issue of American leadership of the operation. Yesterday, I reported that France had withdrawn from Operation Prosperity Guardian, which was to be a US-led multinational coalition with the mission of keeping the Red Sea, and particularly the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, open to international shipping; see Biden's Plan to Safeguard Red Sea Trade From Houthis May Match Afghanistan in Incompetence. Since then, Italy and Spain have announced they will not participate in a US-led operation.

Membership in Operation Prosperity Guardian has always been somewhat suspect. In Austin's statement on the formation of the alleged coalition, he publicly identifies ten members: the United States, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain. In a follow-up press conference, Pentagon spokesman USAF Major General Pat Ryder claimed the coalition was growing.

(snip)

The final box score shows that the 20 coalition members will contribute a total of two surface combatants.