Naval blockades

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Naval blockades have a terrible image. The ongoing illegal Israeli naval blockade of Gaza is an important example, but there were much more famine-causing naval blockades. I guess few may remember or know about the Biafra genocide (1967-1970). The famine in Germany during winter 1916/17 is another example that slipped into obscurity of history, known mostly to history or WWI nerds. The Israeli naval blockade of Gaza Strip is a necessary component of its genocidal effort to liquidate the Palestinian population presence in the Gaza Strip. Relatively little-known in the West is the famine in Yemen, created in part by a naval blockade.

To cause a famine via a naval blockade has been recognised as a war crime for a long time. 

Blockade of Toulon, 1810-1914

 

I will argue that naval blockades can be used for good and lessen the horrors of war.

The American efforts by submarines and air power against Japanese maritime transport during 1942-1945 did contribute to a famine in Japan, but they also did ensure Japanese defeat, even without any spectacular sea battles, continental land battles or city bombing. The Japanese war effort relied on maritime transportation and Japan was short of transport ships by war's start and captured just barely enough transport ships in the opening weeks of the conflict to satisfy its minimum transportation needs.

Imagine Ukraine had launched a campaign of distant naval blockade against Russia by using armed merchantmen with helicopters for boarding. These ships could have departed from foreign ports, met up with a helicopter coming from an airport and at sea they could be commissioned into a warship. The helicopter could transport all the arms & explosives equipment needed for the cruise (transported to the airport by diplomatic luggage). Russia would not be starved at all due to ongoing ability to import food by land routes, but its export revenue and thus its ability to economically support the war effort would largely have collapsed.

Argentina occupied the Falklands Islands (and South Georgia) by force in 1982. The British responded by sending the navy, some land forces, a few strategic bombers and submarines to retake the islands by force. About 900 people died. Alternatively, the UK could have declared it's acting in national defence and just sent a SSN or two as well as a support and garrison to Ascension. The submarines could have established a naval blockade indefinitely. Only outgoing ships would be engaged in order to not accidentally sinking a ship going to Uruguay instead and in order to avoid sinking incoming ships with humanitarian goods. Argentina has enough food production to not need any food imports and was easily able to import medical goods via land, of course The blockade would merely have crushed the Argentinian export economy. A single SSN at the Rio de la Plata could neutralise seven Argentinian ports if aided by reports from diplomats in Uruguay telling about which ships actually left Uruguayan ports rather than Argentinian ones. Argentina's foreign trade would have been crushed and it would have been forced to evacuate the occupied territories within months or a few years. The total loss of life would have been in the low hundreds, very likely none British (other than the one man who died during the invasion).

Israel could be pressured to end its still ongoing genocide effort against Gaza and its ethnic cleansing efforts in West Bank and (apparently also in) Southern Lebanon by a naval blockade at the straits of Gibraltar and Bosporus (plus closed Suez Canal). There wouldn't even be a need to blockade the Bab-el-Mandeb (Red Sea) because the Israeli port of Eilat has too little capacity and the impact on maritime trade would be compounded by a similar air traffic embargo and by the strength of the political signal.

Morocco could be forced to end its illegal occupation of West Sahara (equal to Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, but never treated as harshly by the UN) via maritime blockade. Its ability to maintain air traffic over the Atlantic and maybe trade via land route would be insufficient to resist the blockade. Morocco has a lot more ports, but Spain has enough naval and air power to succeed with such a blockade without any foreign assistance. It could recognise the Western Saharan exile government, conclude a mutual defence treaty and then I suppose it would be authorised under international law to enact a naval blockade. Cargo ships loaded with food or medical supplies only could visit a Spanish port for inspection before safely cruising to a Moroccan port. To liberate the entire country of Western Sahara might cost less than a hundred, certainly less than a thousand lives.

Indonesia could be forced to let Papua go via a naval blockade, but the effort required would be disproportionate considering the population sizes and the dependence of Indonesia on maritime transport. The many ports and routes would reduce a submarine campaign to a campaign of harassment anyway. The Indonesian government could reimburse companies for lost ships and cargo to maintain maritime trade despite harassment and bleed out financially, but the harm done would still be disproportionate to the

Northern Cyprus is a too tricky case as well. The Turkish occupation could be sustained by airlift and Turkish maritime trade could be substituted with land trade or hidden among the maritime trade through the Bosporus.

Iran could have defeated the Iraqi war of aggression in the 1980's via naval blockade if the U.S. hadn't intervened and de facto broke the legitimate naval blockade. 

Most European navies have followed two paths, with some overlap: Land attack navy with a nuclear deterrence submarine fleet (U.S., less so UK and France) and/or inefficient balanced miniature navy (a couple frigates, maybe one or two submarines operational at a time, possibly one or two small to medium-sized aircraft carriers).

They forfeited the convoying concept and also the concept of directly securing maritime lanes in favour of defeating hostile submarine fleets in port, by anti-submarine blockade ("GIUK gap" obsession) or by aggressively hunting them. They are not optimised for wartime naval blockade, albeit some offshore patrol vessels and poorly armed frigates were built especially with enforcing UN embargoes at sea without much violence in mind.

We still have many ways of enacting a naval blockade despite this lack of optimisation.

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A wartime naval blockade can be maintained by

• sustaining a surface warship patrol at a strait or canal entrance/exit
• land-based aerial reconnaissance & strikes by fixed and rotary wing air power
• submarines of sufficient quantity, readiness, range and endurance (not necessarily SSNs)
• armed merchantmen as commerce raiders, preferably with helicopters (the lowest cost approach)
• blocking a strait (especially if there's no international waters passage through it) 

It's better to use torpedoes, missiles and bombs rather than mines because it would be exceedingly difficult to hit only the correct ships with mines. Published naval mine danger zones could be employed to channel the targets into fewer and narrower lanes for easier picking by submarine ambush or boarding, though.

Western navies could do it in some scenarios, but they're not built for it. The British would be hard-pressed to sustain a Strait of Gibraltar blockade with more than one SSN plus one frigate or destroyer, for example. Their combat ship and submarine fleets are at very low readiness and their replenishment fleet is in total shambles. As of now, five container sets (to turn a feeder container ship into an armed merchantman) and a list of civilian helicopters to commandeer would yield better readiness to conduct a naval blockade against Russia or China than the existing royal navy IMO.

I shall not end this pointer without pointing out non-lethal close relative to the naval blockade; cutting communication cables, pipelines and power lines at sea, overseas asset freezing, trade embargo, blacklisting embargo breaking ships for ports/flag/shipping insurance, confiscating assets by embargo-violating companies and individuals, embargoing trade partners, driving prices of export goods of the targeted country down or import prices up.

 

related:

/2015/09/naval-commerce-raiding-today.html 

/2021/12/future-naval-commerce-raiding.html 

/2024/03/a-ukrainian-merchant-raider.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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