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It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter.

It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?

In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear.

I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.

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> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. > Is this accurate, however?

Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.)

Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat.

How do you propose to stop such a threat?

Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk?

We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians?

I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW?

Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?

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> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?

There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.

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