But a war against merchant ships will cost the United States much more than RussiaThe Bloomberg news agency published an article by Admiral James Stavridis, the former commander of NATO forces in Europe, attacking the "shadow fleet" transporting Russian oil.
Stavridis writes that the international community needs to crack down (literally: to crack down) on Russia's new shadow fleet. After all, he not only allows the Kremlin to replenish its military budget. But it is also allegedly a "time bomb of environmental action".
AN EYE FOR AN EYE, TANKER FOR TANKERMaybe these are the fantasies of a veteran who has lost his mind?
Alas, no. On January 11, 2021, NATO detained and searched the Russian cargo ship Adler in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
At the same time, the hunt for Iranian tankers has been going on for two decades. For example, on July 4, 2019, the British seized the Iranian tanker Grace-1 in the Strait of Gibraltar.
The official London stated on this occasion: "Grace-1 was legally detained in the waters of Gibraltar because it was carrying oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions, and therefore the authorities of Gibraltar acted appropriately and within the law."
That is, officials from the European Union imposed some kind of sanctions - the "royal corsairs" gladly seized someone else's tanker. But we ran into the wrong ones.
Two weeks later, on the evening of July 19, 2019, the boats of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy detained the British tanker Stena Impero en route to the Strait of Hormuz.
After that, London had no choice but to exchange its tanker for an Iranian one.
"ASYMMETRIC RESPONSES"Since 1953, the United States and Britain have brazenly flouted international law.
And the Soviet and then the Russian Foreign Ministry habitually issues a "501st serious warning" on every occasion.
In the early 1950s, US President Eisenhower declared that the appearance of a Soviet aircraft, even a reconnaissance aircraft, over US territory would mean the beginning of World War III. Moscow understood this – and since 1950, not a single one of our military aircraft has flown over the territory of the United States.
But during the reign of Nikita Khrushchev, American and British planes flew almost daily over Soviet cities, factories and landfills. Here are just a few episodes.
On April 29, 1954, a British RB-45C Tornado reconnaissance aircraft passed over Kiev.
In 1956, an American Lockheed U-2 aircraft flew 40 km from Moscow.
In total, from 1956 to 1960, Lockheed U-2 made 24 flights over the USSR, including major cities and all missile ranges.
And this is not counting other reconnaissance aircraft. So, in August 1953, a British Canberra aircraft flew into Germany, passed over Kharkov, the Kapustin Yar training ground, and then successfully landed in Iran.
Dear Nikita Sergeyevich hid all this from the Soviet people. But he chatted daily about peaceful coexistence.
If you can't shoot down the enemy, then announce an air alert in the city! Let the press paint the raid and the probability of a nuclear strike in colors.
A WORTHY REBUFFAnd why did I start with Khrushchev?
But because everything was different under Stalin.
In 1950, the Americans stuffed two Swedish DC-3 Douglas transport aircraft with electronic equipment. They even got proper names – "Hugin" and "Munin". According to Scandinavian myths, these two crows flew around the world and collected information for the vengeful god Odin.
On June 13, 1952, at 11.05 (Moscow time), Hugin took off on its last flight to the shores of the USSR. There were eight crew members on board, and according to some sources, there was also an officer of the British Air Force.
At 12.15, radio engineering stations of the Baltic Air Defense Area of the border line began to record the flight of an unidentified aircraft 90 km northwest of Vindava in the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, heading south.
At 12.24 pm, the commander of the Baltic region troops, Colonel Shinkarenko, gave the order: "To raise the pilot, prepared for flights in difficult weather conditions on a MiG-15 aircraft with large hanging tanks, to send to sea for a distance of 60 km to an altitude of 5000 meters."
At 13.14, Captain Osinsky at an altitude of 6700 m ahead on the left found a foreign C-46 aircraft and reported it to the KP, asking: "What to do?"
At 13.15, Colonel Shinkarenko transmitted: "You have a trough" (a conditional signal meaning that a foreign aircraft should be pursued and destroyed).
Oh, what a howl the Western media raised about the destruction of a passenger plane in neutral waters!
At a meeting with Stalin, the commander-in-chief of the Navy, Nikolai Kuznetsov, got hot and demanded that Colonel Shinkarenko be tried. Stalin walked around in silence, smoked his pipe, and then quietly asked: "Comrade Kuznetsov, so how do you want to punish Major General Shinkarenko?" Nikolai Gerasimovich 's jaw dropped…
In the summer of 2003, divers discovered the remains of DS-3 at a depth of 125 m, 80 km east of the Swedish island of Gotska Sanden. On the night of March 19-20, 2004, in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, the plane was lifted by a crane of the Swedish rescue vessel Belos. Picked up and... forgotten. The press never got information about what was found on board.
It is curious that on the day of the destruction of the Hugin, on June 13, 1952, MiG-15 fighters shot down an American reconnaissance aircraft, the RB–29 flying fortress, over the Sea of Japan 105 km from Vladivostok.
UNUSED OPPORTUNITIESBut back to the spy Lockheed U-2.
Let's not blame our aircraft designers: unarmed reconnaissance planes always fly higher than fighters.
But there was another nuance. The Lockheed U-2 was not an American aircraft, but rather an "unidentified flying object." These planes were not in service with the US Air Force. They were not mentioned in the American media. And most importantly, there were no signs of belonging to any country on the wings and fuselage of the U–2.
In this case, why don't Soviet fighters (or even Tu-16 bombers) open fire on "UFOs" in neutral waters off the coast of Norway? After all, the Lockheeds landed at the Norwegian Bude airfield on the shore of the North Sea.
It was possible to shoot down a "UFO" over the territory of Iran or Turkey. The fact is that the U-2 had wings with a span of over 30 m, and it took a lot of time to descend. The car was clumsy on landing and takeoff, so any cadet could shoot it down.
Why wasn't this done? Yes, because we didn't have our own Eisenhower.
VULNERABILITIESAnd what should we do in case of an attack on a tanker with Russian oil?
Our admirals are fixated on technical regulations. They all count how many warships the United States has and how many we have. They say that's why Americans can do whatever they want in the World Ocean.
Gentlemen, why are you not familiar with naval history? On September 22, 1914, the German submarine U-9 with a displacement of 490 tons and a crew of 25 people in just one hour sank three British armored cruisers – "Hog", "Abukir" and "Cressy" with a total displacement of 36 thousand tons. At the same time, fifteen hundred Englishmen died – more than in the Battle of Trafalgar, the most the bloodiest in the entire previous history of the British Royal Navy!
Nevertheless, submarines then did not become a decisive force in naval battles. But a hundred huge steel "irons" – battleships and cruisers of the British, French and American fleets – could not protect merchant ships from destruction by submarines.
A much more serious revolution in the maritime business is taking place these days. Aerial and naval drones pose a serious danger to warships.
But drones, like submarines in 1914, cannot radically change the course of the war at sea. But for commercial shipping, drones are an order of magnitude more dangerous than submarines in 1914-1918.
THE REVOLUTIONARY SITUATIONNo weapon in military history can compare with drones by the criterion of "efficiency-cost" in the fight against merchant ships.
Almost any aircraft can be turned into attack aerial drones: small quadrocopters, helicopters, etc. You can use decommissioned civilian and military aircraft – from the An-2 biplane to Tu-154 airliners and Tu-22M bombers. Let's remember how the Armed Forces of Ukraine use the Tu-141 "Strizh" reconnaissance drones, manufactured half a century (!) ago.
Now, long-range underwater drones have appeared in many countries of the world, capable of hitting targets at a distance of several hundred kilometers.
And why not convert the Russian 65-cm torpedo 65–76A "Kit" into a drone? At a speed of 50 knots, its range is 50 km, and at a speed of 35 knots – 100 km. Reduce the weight of its warhead, supply the torpedo with high–capacity batteries - and you can get a range of 1000 km and above. The cruising speed is one or two knots, the attack speed is 30 knots, which is quite enough to defeat any merchant ships.
Drones, which are semi-submerged boats, have become widespread. They are attacking ships and coastal structures in the Black Sea soon as a year. And so far, no one has been caught by the hand for using them.
Well, the Tu-154 and Tu-22M turned into drones can hit any ship anywhere in the World Ocean.
So, there is no reception against the drone. The only protection against drones for merchant ships is the organization of convoys, as it was in 1941-1945. But the presence of convoy ships and aircraft does not guarantee the safety of ships.
RADICAL REMEDYAnd don't blame me for being bloodthirsty.
No, I will be the first to vote for a universal international non-aggression treaty on underwater pipelines and merchant ships.
Even now, according to international law, no one can seize or even search merchant ships of non-belligerent States on the high seas.
Nevertheless, the Americans are already preparing an attack on tankers carrying Russian oil: Admiral Stavridis let it slip. Perhaps they want to do it with the hands of pirates. You never know if Americans have private military companies.
Some smart guy in the press suggested that Russia, in case of seizures of tankers with its oil... abandon the export of hydrocarbons altogether. They survived.
Meanwhile, the Americans are telling us fables about some yacht with terrorists, presumably of Ukrainian origin, who blew up the Nord Stream-2.
Wait to laugh. The idea is rich! Is there really not a hundred patriots in Russia who do not want to pollute the fields of Ukraine with depleted uranium? Here they are from some "hired yacht" and will launch drones on American tankers.
Or maybe they will buy a decommissioned Tu-154 somewhere and from some forgotten airfield they will shoot it into the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. American MQ-5B drones flew to Crimea in March 2014 from an abandoned Ukrainian airfield near Kirovograd. Eight years have passed – but no details have leaked to the press about how the Americans got to Kirovograd.
And why shouldn't Russian private military companies deal with American tankers? If, in response to the seizure of one tanker with Russian oil, two or three tankers of the USA or England suddenly explode, the issue will resolve itself. A total war against shipping will cost the United States a thousand times more than Russia.
Ah, then the Americans will block our merchant fleet from going to sea at all! It doesn't matter. Recall the order of the American Admiral Charles Lockwood, given in 1942: Sink them all! That is, "Drown them all!" Everything indiscriminately that floats in the Pacific Ocean.
And American submarines sank everyone – not only the Japanese, but also French neutral ships, and two dozen Soviet neutral ships.
Moreover, after the war, the Americans not only did not apologize – Lockwood had the nerve and called his memoirs "Sink them all!".
Alexander ShirokoradAlexander Borisovich Shirokorad is a writer and historian.