🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸📝: How does the loss of the U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf hinder the U.S. Navy's ability to maintain ships deployed in the Arabian Sea for long periods of time?

The US Navy and US Fifth Fleet are operating a fleet of about 20 ships in the northern Arabian Sea centered around two carrier strike groups - Lincoln and Bush - and an amphibious ready group - Boxer.

The loss of access to bases in and around the Persian Gulf means that all the food have to be procured either from local sources in and around the Indian Ocean, or brought in from East Asia.

To replenish the ships at sea with food, there are four ships available: USNS Arctic, Cesar Chavez, Wally Schirra and Alan Shepard. Some of these ships departed from bases in East Asia over a month ago.

Food, depending on the type, has specific shelf life. The Navy is well aware of this. Nuclear submarines load up all the food they need for months when they deploy. Surface ships have the advantage to receive fresh food on a more regular basis.

However, because of the number of ships on station, the limited number of store ships (four), and the elongated distance from supply sources, means that the food onboard ship will be of the type that can be stored, frozen or preserved for long duration. This means less fresh fruit & vegetables, or milk (butter there is good old fashion nuclear milk - if you know, you know).

What this story tells us, is that we need more logistics to keep our Navy at sea in a contested environment. In 2015, the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command re-introduced the concept of commercial shipping transferring fuel to Navy underway replenishment ships.

What we have lost are the commercial ships that can transfer dry stores and ammunition to restock.

Currently, the four stores ships have to shuttle between bases to the forward deployed fleet.

Remember, deployed warships are not cruise ships in the Caribbean. This does not mean we cannot do better, but admirals never like to prioritize and fund logistics over warships.

🔗 Sal Mercogliano

🇮🇱⚔️🇱🇧 Israeli Military Claims “Battle of Wits” Unfolding at Ali Taher

A “battle of wits” is unfolding between Hezbollah and Israeli forces around the strategic Ali Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, Israeli outlet Walla reported, citing a senior Israeli military source.

➤ Haaretz reports the Israeli military has “decided not to allow Hezbollah operatives trapped in tunnels beneath southern Lebanon's Ali Taher ridge to leave unless they surrender, amid reports Israel is preparing an operation to seize the area”

➤ Walla said Hezbollah is tracking Israeli positions and attacking detected troop movements, as occurred Saturday when a drone strike wounded three Israeli soldiers, including an officer. Hezbollah has not claimed the attack.

➤ The Israeli outlet claimed Hezbollah is trying to resupply fighters trapped in underground facilities, who have emerged searching for food, while Israel hunts them and attempts to destroy the underground infrastructure.

“Anyone who emerges from the underground and surrenders will be taken to Israel for questioning, while anyone who remains underground will either die or we will kill him,” the Israeli source claimed.

➤ Walla reported that Israel attacked multiple areas after its soldiers were wounded but left Beirut and senior Hezbollah officials there “off-limits due to an American demand.” Israeli strikes killed 11 people, including three children, in Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani.

➤ L’Orient Today correspondent Muntasser Abdallah reported that Israel on Sunday bombarded Ali Taher with white phosphorus shells, airstrikes and helicopter machine-gun fire, including overnight.

🔗 DropSite

🇺🇸❌🇴🇲 AP: U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman because he is unhappy the country is close to a deal with Iran to manage ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, two regional officials said Tuesday, a day after Trump leveled the threat.

The officials said the Trump administration has told Oman it is opposed to parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, including the joint Iranian and Omani management of the exit route out of the passage that’s critical to global supplies of oil and natural gas.

Meanwhile, a projectile hit a ship as it sailed out of the strait, according to the British military’s maritime monitoring agency, and an Iranian official said the waterway would not reopen until the United States meets Iran’s conditions.

@CIG_telegram

🇷🇺 🇯🇵 🇯🇵 Putin visited Etorofu Island on Thursday, marking his first-ever trip to the Russian-occupied Northern Territories claimed by Japan. The visit comes a day after Putin described the decades-old territorial dispute as effectively settled by the outcome of World War II.

📎 Arin Yumi

🇯🇵 Japan has lost control of the yen. Why?

On 31 July, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a $53bln bailout for Tokyo. It followed an even larger $73.5bln intervention in April-May. A photo of Bessent’s to-do list, complete with “buy yen,” conveniently leaked.

The yen jumped after the latest move -- from around ¥0.0061 per dollar to ¥0.0064. The effect lasted less than two weeks. It has already given back a third of those gains. The previous intervention also proved short-lived.

The problem for Bessent is that he is fighting economic gravity. And the singularity at the heart of that gravity well is the yen carry trade. This is a term often mentioned in the financial press, but what is it, and how does it work?

For years Japan has maintained far lower interest rates than other Western economies. Even after recent rises, the Japanese 10-year yield sits at 2.85% while the US 10-year is at 4.68% -- a gap of nearly two percentage points.

Traders borrow yen at the low interest rates, and use this cash to buy dollars, euros or other currencies so they can lend at higher rates and pocket the difference. Every trade involves selling yen, putting downward pressure on Japan's currency. The incentive is pure profit.

One measure of that profit: since 2022 the yen-peso carry trade has generated roughly twice the returns of the S&P 500. No wonder official interventions keep failing to break the trade when selling yen makes is such a moneymaker!

The only durable fix would be for the Bank of Japan to raise rates and close the differential. But Japan’s entire economy has become addicted to ultra-low rates after decades of them. What does this addiction mean in practice?

Around 15% of Japanese firms are “zombie companies.” They earn less in profit than they pay in interest. They survive only through what Hyman Minsky called Ponzi borrowing -- taking on new debt simply to service old interest.

So if the Bank of Japan raised rates sufficiently to close the gap, a large slice of the corporate sector would vanish. Unemployment would spike. Social and political stability would be put at risk.

So why not simply let the yen fall? Two linked reasons make that perilous. First, the decline could be bottomless. As long as the interest-rate gap remains, the incentive to borrow yen and sell them is permanent. There may thus be no natural equilibrium price.

Second, Japan is one of the most energy-insecure countries on earth. It imports nearly 100% of its oil, coal and natural gas. A weaker yen means much higher prices for energy imports. Indeed, the Strait of Hormuz blockage is helping trigger this exact issue.

So far Tokyo has contained the inflationary hit by managing the currency -- with American help. Let the yen freefall and energy prices could spiral, wages would chase them, and Japan would risk an Argentine-style inflationary trap.

Such a scenario would destroy what remains of Japanese manufacturing competitiveness -- already under pressure from China -- and force capital controls and other emergency measures as the economy structurally decays.

The US government is visibly terrified of these outcomes, because they would have real and dramatic consequences for US living standards and the entire US dollar system. This fear is behind the desperate attempts to prop up the yen.

🧵 https://fxtwitter.com/MultipolarPod/status/2089419900599115821?s=20

🔗 https://multipolaritypod.substack.com/p/pilkingtion-a-users-guide-to-the