All is so predictable, on so many different levels.
Despite all the confident predictions, and vast expenditure on air delivered explosives, this confrontation in the Middle East was never going to be a short war. And within hours of its first strikes, it had morphed into a regional war, with the allies of Iran and the hapless hosts of US military bases immediately targeted by the respective combatants.
It was also a war that quickly demonstrated its effect upon global trade, which should have been eminently foreseeable after the Houthis had earlier demonstrated their ability to close down the trade routes through the Red Sea. It did not need a strategist with the perspicacity of Mahan or Clausewitz to see the even greater vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz.
So, this week, nearly six months into the confrontation, the war has spread further, with the Houthis rejoining their active combat against the infidels passing their benighted coast. It will be surprising, with their grasp of maritime intelligence, if they confine their attacks upon Saudi-owned vessels. And with the US Secretary of “War” shouting at Congress, while simultaneously claiming victory and demanding more huge sums for lethal ordnance, it would take a brave person to bet on any good news soon.
Meanwhile, as the drone and missile strikes on merchant ships continue, the casualties among their crews mount up. Sadly, this grim toll is largely forgotten about as the focus of attention revolves around the cost of fuel on global forecourts and the worries about all this political instability on the cost of living. The costs of a seafarer dying or suffering serious injury from an Iranian drone or an American Hellfire missile slamming into the engine room or accommodation block are noted only by those more intimately involved.
Merchant seafarers, like it or not, have always been on the front line, simply by virtue of living aboard the target.
It is both pointless and futile to suggest that all of these merchant seafarers are by definition non-combatants. Cold, hard reality will point out that such a definition means absolutely nothing and probably never did in the history of warfare.
Efforts to regulate the status of such people in modern times has invariably failed, once hostilities have been joined, and the need to impose blockades or interrupt maritime supply chains have been identified.
Think back to the early days of submarine warfare, when the “rules” required merchant ships to be stopped and their crews and passengers put in a “place of safety,” before the torpedoes could be loosed. That did not last long, in either of the two world wars because of simple expediency and the value of the surprise attack.
Merchant seafarers, like it or not, have always been on the front line, simply by virtue of living aboard the target. If ships are going to be anywhere near harm’s way, those aboard them will inevitably become collateral damage.
And in the sad case of those aboard the several hundred ships still trapped in the Persian Gulf, they had no choices open to them when the gates slammed shut in February.
The appeals by the Secretary General of the IMO, specifically based on the growing seafarer casualty figures, have been politely listened to, but have fallen on deaf ears.
If there is anything slightly less gloomy about the present situation, it is that there is rather less willingness among those operating ships to risk the lives of their crews than has been the case in the past. Notable have been the prohibitions issued by both the Indian and Philippine governments in an attempt to keep their nationals away from ships in the hazardous areas.
Quite how effective these efforts will be remains to be seen. Employment, wherever it might take a seafarer, is a powerful incentive.
We should not, as the headlines continue to focus on the petrol prices or shortage of various commodities, lose sight of other areas that have become increasingly hazardous to shipping.
Cheerful reports about the huge number of Russian-controlled merchant vessels damaged and destroyed by Ukrainian attacks have said little about the fate of their crews. Reports of reciprocated destruction upon ships, in or around Ukrainian ports and on passage in the Black Sea, have been more forthcoming, and show a slow but constant toll of deaths and injuries.
The appeals by the Secretary General of the International Maritime Organisation, specifically based on the growing seafarer casualty figures, have been politely listened to, but have fallen on deaf ears.
Good will is in short supply, especially in an increasingly unstable world.