This is a ballsy power play by Trump.
Lloyd's of London was the gold standard for maritime insurance policies until just a day or two ago when they started cancelling policies or jacking them up 3-5X. Others insurers followed. That collapsed commercial shipping traffic through Hormuz, which choked oil shipments out of the Middle East.
Trump doing this means the DFC has the chance to displace Lloyd's as the big dog in this game, when they have been the lock-in player for many years.
It also frees up all the oil that was getting trapped there, heading off shortages and keeping the energy market alive.
And why not? It's the American navy that sunk the Iranian ships that were harassing tankers. And the American Navy -- at least for now -- will keep those tankers safe.
It's a huge reassurance to allies -- both oil producers and oil consumers -- that our campaign in Iran isn't going to sink their economies. And it allows America to be choosy about traffic in the Strait.
It also potentially means billions of dollars in insurance premiums at wartime rates going to America instead of the UK. And those rates are STILL going to be cheaper than what shippers were getting.
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BREAKING: The United States has confirmed B-52 Stratofortress bombers are now striking Iran.
Understand what this means by understanding the sequence.
On February 28, the US sent B-2 Spirits. The B-2 is a stealth bomber. It costs $2.1 billion per aircraft. The US has 20 of them. You send B-2s when the enemy’s air defences are intact and you need to penetrate undetected. Four B-2s dropped 160,000 pounds of bunker-busting ordnance on hardened underground facilities in the opening wave.
On March 2, the US sent B-1 Lancers. The B-1 is a supersonic bomber. Faster than the B-2 but not stealth. You send B-1s when air defences have been degraded enough that speed, not invisibility, is sufficient to survive. The B-1s conducted the deepest raids into Iran since 2003.
On March 3, the US sent B-52s. The B-52 is a 70-year-old subsonic aircraft. It is not stealth. It is not fast. It has a radar cross-section the size of a barn. It flies at 650 miles per hour at 50,000 feet and it is visible to every radar system on earth.
You send B-52s when there is nothing left to shoot them down.
That is the sequence. B-2 when defences are lethal. B-1 when defences are degraded. B-52 when defences are gone. The US Air Force just told you, through aircraft selection alone, that Iran’s integrated air defence network no longer exists as a functional system.
The B-52 carries 70,000 pounds of ordnance per sortie. It can launch cruise missiles from standoff range without entering defended airspace at all. The US has 76 of them versus 20 B-2s. Deploying B-52s quadruples the available bomber strike capacity, and each aircraft can deliver more payload per sortie than any other platform in the inventory.
1,700 targets struck. 300 new sites added in the latest wave. $779 million in ordnance expended on the first day alone. Six American service members killed. Eleven aircraft lost. The campaign is intensifying, not tapering.
Here is where this connects to every post I have written today.
The B-52 deployment proves the conventional campaign is succeeding. Iran’s air defences are neutralised. Its underground facilities are being collapsed. Its missile production is being destroyed. Its leadership is being eliminated.
And the Strait of Hormuz is still closed.
Because the B-52 cannot sink a mine. It cannot intercept a Shahed drone launched from a fishing boat. It cannot neutralise an anti-ship missile on a mobile coastal launcher. It cannot stop a proxy in Yemen from firing at a tanker in the Red Sea. The asymmetric threat that closes shipping lanes operates beneath the altitude where strategic bombers are relevant.
The US is winning the war it chose to fight. It is not winning the war the insurance market cares about. The B-52 is the most powerful expression of that gap.
70,000 pounds of ordnance per sortie. And Lloyd’s of London still will not write a policy for a tanker transiting Hormuz.
That is the thesis. In one sentence.
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