We use cookies (including third-party cookies such as Google) to remember your site preferences and to help us understand how visitors use our sites so we can improve them. To learn more, please see our privacy policy and our cookie policy.

To agree to our use of cookies, click 'Accept' or choose 'Options' to set your preferences by cookie type.

Options Accept
BullionVault

CHARTS

  • English
  • Deutsch
  • Español
  • Français
  • Italiano
  • Polski
  • 日本語
  • 简体中文
  • 繁體中文
  • Daily audit
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Deposit
  • Login
  • Open account
  • ABOUT US
    • About BullionVault
    • In the press
    • Reviews
    BUY/SELL BULLION
    • Vaulted gold & silver
    • -Live order board
    • -Daily Price
    • Coins for delivery (UK)
    INVESTMENT GUIDE
    • Guide to gold
    • -How to buy gold
    • -Gold investment
    • -Gold investment plan
    • -Investment insurance
    • -Compare asset performance
    • Guide to silver
    • -How to buy silver
    • Guide to platinum
    • -How to buy platinum
    GOLD NEWS
    • Gold news front page
    • -Gold price news
    • -Opinion & analysis
    • -Market fundamentals
    • -Gold/Silver Investor Index
    • -Infographics
    CHARTS
    • Gold price
    • Silver price
    • Platinum price
    • Price alerts
  • Login
  • Open account
  • BUY/SELL BULLION
  • Vaulted gold & silver
    • ⤷
    • Live order board
    • Daily Price
  • Coins for delivery (UK)
  • INVESTMENT GUIDE
  • Guide to gold
    • ⤷
    • How to buy gold
    • Gold investment
    • Gold investment plan
    • Investment insurance
    • Compare asset performance
  • Guide to silver
    • ⤷
    • How to buy silver
  • Guide to platinum
    • ⤷
    • How to buy platinum
  • GOLD NEWS
  • Gold news front page
    • ⤷
    • Gold price news
    • Opinion & analysis
    • Market fundamentals
    • Gold/Silver Investor Index
    • Infographics
  • CHARTS
  • Gold price
  • Silver price
  • Platinum price
  • Price alerts
  • ABOUT US
  • About BullionVault
  • In the press
  • Reviews
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Daily audit
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Español
    • Français
    • Italiano
    • Polski
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文

Gold News

Live support

NEED HELP? ASK US NOW

Search form

Gold News front page

Gold Price News

Gold Priced Like Covid Never Happened as Powell 'Fails to Rescue' Stocks from Bond Slump

More...

Gold Investing In Depth

Learn about gold bullion bars

Learn about gold bullion coins (and costs)

Gold investment: Why & how?

Gold Investment Analysis

  • Latest Gold Investor Index
  • Diversification: Gold as investment insurance
  • 40-year Asset Performance Comparison Table

Gold Articles

Opinion & Analysis

Gold Price News

Investment News

Gold in History

Gold Books

Gold Investor Index

Gold Infographics

Archive

  • March 2021 (5)
  • February 2021 (23)
  • January 2021 (25)
  • December 2020 (24)
  • November 2020 (23)
More...

List of authors

How Iran Sank the US Navy

Saturday, 2/11/2017 10:01

Why you never heard about this 2002 firefight...

IT WAS July 2002, almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writes Brian Maher, editor of Addison Wiggin's Daily Reckoning.

The US had just delivered terrorist-sponsoring Iran an ultimatum.

Its leadership had to step down within 24 hours...or face the wrath of the new American "pre-emption doctrine."

A carrier battle group was sent into the Persian Gulf to menace Iranian shores. An amphibious assault force of combat-ready Marines steamed alongside. Some 20,000 sailors and Marines in all.

But Iran wouldn't budge. They wouldn't surrender. But how could a middleweight power like Iran stand a chance against a behemoth?

Iran's military boss gathered his commanders...mulled his options...and hatched a plan.

The US Navy entered the gulf ready to read the Iranians a severe lesson in American arms. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a blizzard of green blips filled the radar screens. Swarms of anti-ship missiles came zinging from all points – from land, from commercial vessels at sea, from low-flying planes that scooted in under the radar.

How could that be?

There were no warnings, no radio chatter, nothing to indicate an attack.

The fleet's defenses leapt into action. But the arithmetic was impossible. They were swamped by the sheer volume of incoming.

As the missiles were unloading their lethal cargoes inside American hulls, an armada of small Iranian boats barreled toward the reeling American ships. All laden with explosives. And all on a one-way mission.

19 US ships were on the bottom when the smoke cleared. The carrier, the escorts, the amphibious ships, the lot of them. 20,000 sailors and Marines went with them.

The American commander in charge of the operation wailed the Iranians had "sunk my damn Navy."

"The whole thing was over in five, maybe 10 minutes," the Iranian commander gloated.

The pre-emptors were themselves pre-empted.

Maybe you don't recall any of the foregoing. There's a reason why – it never actually happened.

It was part of Millennium Challenge '02, a $250 million war game running from July-August, 2002. And the "Iranian" commander was very much an American – retired US Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper.

But Van Riper knew his enemy to the roots of their teeth, their strengths...and their weaknesses. And he turned the enemy's weakness against them. In other words, he acted like a real, thinking enemy would.

He exploited the Americans' greatest weakness. He used pre-modern communications to evade the fancy US electronic surveillance. Motorcycles relayed orders to the troops. Light signals directed airplanes to take off, not radios. The planes, once aloft, observed radio silence to further reduce their electronic signatures.

Once the carnage ended, Van Riper described the American mood as "an eerie silence. Like people didn't really know what to do next."

So what did they do next?

They pretended it didn't happen. They "re-floated" the ships and started over. The Iranians had to follow the American script from there on in. They were ordered to leave their radars going so they could be destroyed, for example.

Frustrated by the rigged process, Van Riper stepped down six days into the exercise.

The American side told Van Riper he was "playing out of character...

"The [Iranians] would never have done what you did," they bleated.

Just so. But several months before September 11 2001, someone has proposed a war-game scenario in which terrorists flew a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon.

The powers that were rejected it as "unrealistic".

Funny how realistic the unrealistic can get. A cautionary tale, perhaps.

The US is connected to the world by vast networks of communications technology these days. But that very interconnectedness – a great strength – is at once a great weakness. The US is vulnerable to weaker enemies who, like Gen. Van Riper, don't "play by the rules".

They can't hope to win face to face. But if they can hit Achilles in the heel, like Paris of Greek mythology, even a runt can topple a giant.

America's the modern-day Achilles, with its vulnerable heel. And there are plenty of Parises out there, lurking.
 

  • Reddit logo
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
  • Google logo
  • Yahoo logo
  • LinkedIn logo
  • Digg logo
  • StumbleUpon logo
  • Technorati logo

Publisher of Agora Financial, Addison Wiggin is also editorial director of The Daily Reckoning. He is the author, with Bill Bonner, of the international bestsellers Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt, and best-selling author of The Demise of the Dollar.

Addison Wiggin articles

Please Note: All articles published here are to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it. Please review our Terms & Conditions for accessing Gold News.

Follow Us

Facebook Youtube Twitter LinkedIn

 

Mobile apps

 - live trading 24/7

 - buy & sell instantly

 - up-to-the-second charts

 

 

 

Daily news email
Go to 'communications settings' 

Get the latest daily gold price news free by email

Latest gold news by email

 

 

 

Gold Investor Index
2 March 2021

Silver Investor Index

Silver beats gold again

 

 

 

LBMA webinar
21 January 2021

LBMA

London gold trading

 

 

 

Bloomberg TV
1 February 2021

Bloomberg TV

r/silver-surge

 

 

 

ET Now
3 March 2021

Gold drop

Gold's big drop

 

 

 

  •  Email us

Market Fundamentals

  • Green Energy: Platinum Key to New 'Hydrogen Catapult'
  • 2021 Gold Price to Rise 11.5%: LBMA Forecast
  • 'Cut Bullion Duty to Cut Smuggling': India's Gold Industry
More...
  • Cost calculator
  • Cookies
  • Terms & conditions

©BullionVault Ltd 2005-

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Save your cookie preferences

We use cookies to remember your site preferences, record your referrer and improve the performance of our site. For more information, see our cookie policy.

Please select an option below and 'Save' your preferences.

Save

You can update your cookie preferences at any time from the 'Cookies' link in the footer.

Secure auto-logout warning

You have not been active for some time.

For your security you will be logged out in   minutes unless you take action.