EU plans to launch a naval mission in the Red Sea.
This is two days ago. They said they will launch within 3 weeks.
Borrell insisted that the EU mission — dubbed Aspides, from the Greek for “shield” — will not take part in any military strikes and will only operate at sea.
“This is the purpose: protection of the ships. Intercepting of the attacks against the ships. Not participating in any kind of action against the Houthis. Only blocking the attacks of the Houthis,” Borrell told reporters before chairing a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels.
I find this ironic…2 months late and comes after United states did all the heavy lifting.
The French shipping giant, CMA CGM just announced an end to shipments through the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia is moving oil exports to a port on the northern Red Sea.
Diversion of shipping to avoid the coast of Yemen continues to increase. Of course attacks on commercial shipping will end if there is no commercial shipping to hit.
How long will it take for the White House to claim victory and go home?
So an EU force, which will want to have access to the US airspace situation monitoring feed. So is this an upgrade of the number of armed anti air escorts using the claim of being a separate mission for political domestic cover, or an actual separate mission. I don’t know that the navies involved are that good at ADA operations. I also suspect the ADA capabilities of their ships are 2d, or 3d tier at best.
That varies by country. Greece doesn’t have much of a navy. Their most advanced ship is a 30 year old class of frigates. They have Sea Sparrow and Phalanx, but no SM missiles of any version. None have fixed array radar systems. I doubt these 30 year old ships have the data network links required to plug into a multi ship AEGIS ADA network. To get an idea of the combat readiness of the Greek navy, they eagerly want to upgrade (yes upgrade) to the failed Littoral Combat ships that we are dumping.
The German frigates are also old they have 3 frigates with 24 SM1 and 32 advanced sea sparrow, but no fixed array battle control systems. Their newest frigates have only short range point defense ADA systems. Belgium has two 30 year old frigates, 16 early generation sea sparrow and a CIWIS system. No phased array radar system.
Their ships are aligned to conduct surface warfare and ASW operations. They expected to be fighting against Russian OSA class missile boats and Krivak frigates, while hunting Russian diesel electric subs in costal waters, all under the cover of land based airpower.
In addition, reports are the Houthis are threatening to cut undersea fiber-optic cables that go by the coast of Yemen. The loss of the cables could severely effect internet communications between Europe and Asia.
The US Navy is looking at an escalating asymmetric war of attrition, and time appears to be on the side of the Houthis and their allies.
That was the mainstream media outlets who have been insisting the that the Russians are only a few weeks away from running out of artillery shells and missiles for almost two years.
The US has run out of artillery shells and land-based missiles to send to Ukraine, and Israel is getting the first shot at any remaining stocks.
The campaign against the Houthis is exhausting the sea-launched missiles at a rate that is far higher than they can be replaced.
The UK navy is in even worse shape. Here is a picture of a weapons storage area for a British destroyer:
The US is screwed big time if we get into a major conventional war against Iran, Russia, or China. The fact that we have pushed them together means a war against one is likely to involve all three.
The US has run out of artillery shells that it can send to Ukraine. The US has sent about 2 million shells to Ukraine. Current production is only a tiny fraction of the number of shells that Ukraine has been using. It will take many years to restock.
Of course, Israel is still getting shells. The apparent pecking order is Israel first, Ukraine second, and the US Army is last.
