Peter Apps
12.6K posts
@pete_apps
Journalist, author, wheelchair user, podcast host, reservist @BritishArmy, columnist @Reuters, @uklabour member, proud of all of the above. Open to DMs
"I've never seen an American president, not just in our lifetime, in the last two centuries of American history, be that critical of a British prime minister." @RNicholasBurns tells me "a fundamental mistake is: disparage your allies, make life difficult for them at home, you really can't expect them to be with you in a fight that they didn't start
Exclusive: Ministers could push back major shipbuilding programmes and other projects to make £10 billion worth of savings in the Ministry of Defence thetimes.com/article/98990d…
Where you grow up shapes who you become. I was raised in Aberdeen and educated in a state school - an experience that grounded me early in the value of hard work, resilience and community. Growing up, I saw firsthand the importance of opportunity and the difference that strong role models can make. It taught me discipline, responsibility and the belief that service to others matters. Our backgrounds don’t limit us. They prepare us.
If Hitler had been killed in British bombing in 1940, would we have called it "assassination"? Would retaliation against Axis infrastructure, after the bombing of British cities, be called "escalation"? Try to get the terminology right, wrt Iran War, please @SkyNews @BBCWorld
'This would double the risk to the West.' Defence Secretary under Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon, says that sending a British warship to the Strait of Hormuz would leave it as a 'sitting duck'.
Just spoke to @POTUS about our European allies’ unwillingness to provide assets to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning, which benefits Europe far more than America. I have never heard him so angry in my life. I share that anger given what’s at stake. The arrogance of our allies to suggest that Iran with a nuclear weapon is of little concern and that military action to stop the ayatollah from acquiring a nuclear bomb is our problem not theirs is beyond offensive. The European approach to containing the ayatollah’s nuclear ambitions have proven to be a miserable failure. The repercussions of providing little assistance to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning are going to be wide and deep for Europe and America. I consider myself very forward-leaning on supporting alliances, however at a time of real testing like this, it makes me second guess the value of these alliances. I am certain I am not the only senator who feels this way.
It's curious that America's Indo-Pacific allies, which are arguably more directly exposed to disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, are not in the firing line here. I suspect this reflects the enhanced expectations of 'civilisational alliances', plus a perceived NATO quid pro quo.
BREAKING: The Indian Navy just escorted two LPG tankers through the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian permission. Think about what that sentence contains. The world’s largest democracy. Whose prime minister received Israel’s highest parliamentary honour three weeks ago. Whose intelligence agencies reportedly helped the US locate the Iranian warship that was sunk by a submarine. That country just received safe passage from the same Iran whose military infrastructure Israel is bombing with American weapons. The tankers are Shivalik and Nanda Devi, state-owned Shipping Corporation of India vessels carrying fuel for India’s industrial sector. They crossed after Prime Minister Modi called Iran’s acting president and External Affairs Minister Jaishankar held three separate conversations with Araghchi. A third Indian tanker remains in the Persian Gulf under naval warship protection. Twenty-two Indian vessels had been stranded west of the strait. Iran said yes. To India. While saying no to everyone else. This is the permissioned chokepoint operating in real time. The Hormozgan provincial IRGC naval command, running Hormuz under Mosaic Doctrine standing orders without needing Tehran’s approval, verified the vessels by radio hail and AIS transponder signal. The Indian Navy provided the escort. But the escort alone does not explain passage. A naval warship reduces the physical risk of attack. It does not remove the legal requirement for maritime war risk insurance. Banks financing the cargo demand it. Ports receiving the vessel demand it. Letters of credit require it. Charterparty clauses mandate it. After P&I clubs cancelled Gulf war-risk extensions on March 5, single-voyage cover is available at 1 to 5 percent of hull value. For a state-owned vessel, government indemnity can substitute. But the cover must exist in some form or the vessel cannot trade. India’s SCI tankers carried either single-voyage war risk cover or sovereign indemnity. The Navy escorted. Iran permitted. The insurance architecture, the military architecture, and the diplomatic architecture all had to align simultaneously for two LPG tankers to cross 21 miles of water. That alignment took a head-of-state phone call, three foreign minister conversations, the release of three seized Iranian tankers, supplies of medicine, and a naval warship deployment. For two ships. Now consider what it would take to restore normal commercial traffic for the roughly 24 to 37 tankers per day that used to transit before February 28. The diplomatic, military, and insurance infrastructure required to move two state-owned LPG carriers under sovereign escort and government indemnity does not scale. It cannot be replicated for thousands of commercial vessels owned by private companies, insured by commercial markets, and financed by banks that will not accept a phone call from a foreign minister as a substitute for a valid P&I certificate. And here is the asymmetry the market has not priced. India got its LPG through. India has not got a single urea vessel through. No ammonia. No sulfur. The permissioned chokepoint grants energy to diplomatic allies while blocking the fertiliser molecules that India itself desperately needs. Indian plants are running at 60 percent capacity. Delhi asked Beijing for emergency urea on March 12. Beijing banned phosphate exports through August. The Indian Navy can escort a tanker. It cannot escort a molecule through a permission gate that has decided fertiliser is not on the approved list. Full analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…
