Secretary Hegseth on the Strait of Hormuz: DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT
March 13th, 2026There’s a disconnect between what U.S. leadership is saying and what’s happening on the ground, or, more accurately, on the water around Iran.
U.S. military strategists still aren’t fully comprehending the paradigm changing impact of unmanned systems. They, mistakenly, thought that destroying Iran’s traditional naval capacity would be enough to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Hegseth keeps repeating statistics about the destruction of Iran’s conventional military forces, but it’s Iran’s asymmetric capabilities that are the problem.
Try attacking a puff of smoke with a katana and see how that goes. If you’re Hegseth, you would boast about how sharp your sword is.
Iran can use small, cheap unmanned weapons, which they might have stockpiled by the thousands, to attack commercial vessels from dug in positions along hundreds of miles of coastline in the Persian Gulf.
Deployment of U.S. Marine amphibious units indicates that an Oh Shit scenario has materialized.
For the people who planned this thing, this is the realization that they rolled the dice and lost on any easy End Game. They were hoping that there would be some sort of popular uprising in Iran and ________ (fill in the blank with whatever fantasy world outcome you want because it doesn’t matter now). They were so confident, in fact, that they didn’t deploy the amphibious ready groups to the region as a contingency.
And now, as Sal Mercogliano states below:
“If you can’t risk a Navy destroyer into the Strait of Hormuz, why would you go on a LNG carrier, basically a floating bomb, into this region and think that you’re good to go?”
After oil markets closed for the weekend, The United States destroyed military targets on Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island:
The United States on Friday destroyed military targets on Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island, President Donald Trump said, threatening to strike its oil infrastructure if Iran continues attacks that have halted most ship traffic in the Strait of ?Hormuz.
The island serves as the export terminal for 90% of Iran’s oil shipments. In a social media post, Trump wrote the U.S. military “totally obliterated every MILITARY target” on Kharg while leaving oil infrastructure intact.
“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” Trump wrote, a warning that could further roil markets already dealing with what the International Energy Agency has called the biggest oil supply disruption in history.
Iran had no ability to defend against U.S. attacks, the president added. “Iran’s Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what’s left of their country, which isn’t much!” he said.
We have Trump, held in a joint lock by Israel over his activities with Jeffrey Epstein and who knows what else, engaged in a game of chicken with what amounts to a maniac death cult known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
If neither side flinches…
There are already massively inflated fuel and fertilizer prices. Thousands of flights have been cancelled. Higher food prices are already on the way, regardless of what happens.
Petrochemical exports from Iran, Iraq, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman are mostly or totally disrupted. Saudi Arabia is still able to export some oil through the Red Sea via their East West pipeline.
By my simple arithmetic, the emergency IEA release will postpone a deeper decent into chaos by about 19 days. Grok guesses 20 days. Perplexity guesses 24 days.
I don’t see how this gets turned around in that short of a period of time.
If the Iranians are determined to keep attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the throughout the Person Gulf, as they already have, it’s hard to see how that could be stopped.
Keeping in mind the hundreds of miles of Iranian coastline, let’s focus on two statistics from the Wikipedia page for Iran’s Shahed attack drone:
Number built: Unknown
Operational range: 2,500 km
In other words, Iran likely has the capability to disrupt shipping in the Persian Gulf for an extended period of time.
If the war continues, my guess is that governments around the world will begin ramping up emergency measures within 20 to 30 days.
Via: What’s Going on With Shipping?:
The Marconi Conspiracy
March 13th, 2026Via: Pandox:
People Getting Paid to Wear Cameras As They Do Chores, Videos Will Be Used To Train AI In Robots
March 13th, 2026Via: Los Angeles Times:
The hottest new gig-economy job in Los Angeles is performing at home to help artificial intelligence understand how humans move.
Hundreds of people from Santa Monica to Los Feliz are strapping cameras on their heads and hands as they do chores at home so bots can watch how they make coffee, scrub toilets, water plants and wash dishes.
At a corner table at Urth Caffe downtown, a woman is sitting next to a big black bag. A constant flow of visitors stops by. She slips each a package and instructions, and they move on.
“People think I am selling” drugs, she says.
She’s actually a manager for a San Francisco-based firm called Instawork that connects companies and blue-collar workers, and she’s handing out headbands with phone mounts, a simple piece of equipment that lets people record their every move — movements that will be turned into data to train robots how to act.
PENTAGON SENDS U.S. MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNIT TO MIDDLE EAST
March 13th, 2026An amphibious ready group (ARG) of the United States Navy consists of a naval element—a group of warships known as an Amphibious Task Force (ATF)—and a landing force (LF) of U.S. Marines (and occasionally U.S. Army soldiers), in total about 5,000 people. Together, these elements and supporting units are trained, organized, and equipped to perform amphibious operations.
Via: ZeroHedge:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved a request from U.S. Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East, for an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit, typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines, the officials said.
The Japan-based USS Tripoli and its attached Marines are now headed for the Middle East, two of the officials said. Marines are already in the Middle East supporting the Iran operation, the officials said.
More: Marine Expeditionary Unit Deploying To The Middle East
Thousands of Chinese Boats Mass at Sea in Geometric Formations
March 13th, 2026Via: AFP:
Thousands of Chinese fishing boats have been massing in geometric formations in the East China Sea, in coordinated actions that experts believe are part of Beijing’s preparations for a potential regional crisis or conflict.
Monitoring ship-tracking data on Christmas Day, Jason Wang could tell something “unusual” was underway as fishing boats swarmed into two parallel inverted Ls,each about 400 kilometres (about 250 miles) long.
Wang could see the roughly 2,000 fishing boats among the many thousands of vessels that ply the busy waterway through their automatic identification systems (AIS) — a GPS-type signal that commercial ships use to avoid collisions.
The vessels, which were as close as 500 metres (1,640 feet) to each other, held their positions for about 30 hours in near gale-force winds and then suddenly scattered.
…
Maritime and military experts told AFP the massing of Chinese fishing boats on December 25, about 300 kilometres northeast of Taiwan, was on a scale they had never seen before.
Another incident detected in early January involved around 1,000 Chinese fishing vessels clustered in an uneven rectangle, about 400 kilometres long, for more than a day in the same area of the East China Sea.
Hundreds of those vessels were also detected in the December 25 event, Wang told AFP in an interview in Taipei.
Last week, around 1,200 boats massed in two parallel lines further east of the January and December events and held their positions for about 30 hours, Wang said.
China’s massive fishing fleet operates in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and the South China Sea, competing with fishers from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.
While there is debate about why so many Chinese fishing vessels would gather in geometric formations in the open sea, experts widely agree that they were not there to fish.
Some experts said the only plausible explanation was that China was testing its ability to marshal a large number of fishing vessels that could potentially be deployed in a military operation, such as a blockade or invasion of Taiwan, or a crisis with Japan.
You Already Know Surveillance on Android Is a Nightmare…
March 12th, 2026But it’s not that bad. It’s worse.
Via: Sal Tech:
U.S. Navy Won’t Be Ready To Escort Tankers Through Hormuz For Weeks
March 12th, 2026Via: The War Zone:
The U.S. Navy is not yet ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, but it will happen. This is the synopsis provided by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in an interview with CNBC. The development comes as Iran continues to pummel international shipping in and around the critical channel, which the new Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vows to keep closed.
“It’ll happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now,” Wright said, of the planned naval escort mission. “We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.” Wright added that the Navy should be able to escort tankers through the strait by the end of this month.
Khamenei, it appears, is also resolute in his plan to keep the strait closed to all maritime traffic, reportedly having turned down approaches from several countries that were seeking an end to the attacks.
Iran War Disrupts Fertilizer Supply Chain
March 12th, 2026Via: CNBC:
The war in Iran could raise global food prices as the conflict disrupts fertilizer shipments through one of the world’s most critical trade routes.
While energy markets have focused on oil supply risks, analysts say threats to fertilizer supply chains through the Strait of Hormuz may also bring long-term economic issues through food inflation.
“Beyond energy, another risk receiving less attention is the potential knock-on effect on food prices, as fertilizer shortages push agricultural costs higher,” said Wolfe Research chief economist Stephanie Roth in a note written on Tuesday.
Roth estimates the disruption could raise “food-at-home” inflation by roughly 2 percentage points, adding about 0.15 percentage points to headline inflation in the U.S., on top of roughly 0.40 percentage point increase from energy.
Those potential price hikes come as U.S. consumers face a sustained stretch of higher prices for food, housing and energy.
More than one-third of globally traded fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making it a critical artery for agricultural supply chains. Commercial traffic through the route has largely been halted since the war started late last month, disrupting shipments just as farmers across the Northern Hemisphere prepare fields for spring planting.
New York Times: U.S. Responsible for Deadly Strike on Iran School that Killed 160, Mostly Girls
March 12th, 2026Via: Mint:
A Tomahawk missile strike on a school in southern Iran in February that reportedly killed more than 160 people, mostly children, was likely the result of a targeting mistake by the United States, according to a preliminary US military investigation cited in a report by the New York Times.
The report on 11 March, quoting unnamed US officials and others familiar with the initial findings, said the initial investigation has concluded that the strike on 28 February on the Shajarah Tayyebeh school building was the result of a targeting mistake by the US military planners.
The NYT report comes days after a CBS report found that the United States may have been responsible for the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran. Citing sources, the report said that preliminary US assessment has suggested that Washington is “likely” responsible for the attack, adding that it may have hit the school in error, possibly due to the use of outdated intelligence inputs.
The US military was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base, of which the school building was formerly a part, the preliminary investigation found, according to the NYT report.
Officers at US Central Command created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defence Intelligence Agency, people briefed on the investigation quoted in the report said.
The findings are preliminary, and some unanswered questions about why the outdated information had not been double-checked remain.
Two Tankers On Fire at Iraqi Port After Iran Attacks
March 11th, 2026Update: New Ayatollah’s First Message: Hormuz Strait Stays Closed, Warns ‘More Fronts’ Could Open
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Via: Oilprice:
Two oil tankers carrying Iraqi oil products caught fire Wednesday after being struck in Iraqi territorial waters near the country’s southern export terminals, according to Iraqi port officials and multiple media reports.
The vessels, Vishnu, a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker chartered to an Iraqi company, and Zefyros, a Malta-flagged tanker transporting condensate from the Basra Gas Company, were operating near Iraq’s Al-Faw port area close to Basra when the incident occurred.
Iraq’s director general of the General Company for Ports, Farhan al-Fartousi, told CNN that 38 crew members, all of whom were foreign nationals, were rescued from the tankers carrying Iraqi fuel oil.
Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO told CNN the vessels were attacked “while present in the sideloading area within Iraqi territorial waters.”
Iran claimed responsibility for the attacks via state media, saying an underwater drone attack “blew up two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf tonight.”
More: Oman: Salalah Port Closed, Fuel Storage Tanks On Fire
