I'm not sure how that would change anything? The US navy defends pretty much any ship on the open sea to the best of their ability, no matter who you are flagged as.

I suppose you could make an argument the the US should only defend US flagged ships, which might save the US money or something. (I don't think I'd believe this argument, but you can make it)

> The US navy defends pretty much any ship on the open sea to the best of their ability, no matter who you are flagged as

Unless that ship is headed to the Gaza Strip: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid .

Peter Zeihan predicted that the US will gradually withdraw from being the global security guarantor as it doesn’t serve their interests anymore, and that we will see an increase in attacks on cargo ships on the open ocean.

For context, Zeihan is former Stratfor, the Zero Hedge of geopolitics.

I'm anticipating India growing their navy.

Attacks on cargo ships don't happen in the middle of the ocean (for obvious reasons) but near coasts, were regional powers can provide security.

Regional powers will provide security only if its in their interests to provide security.

I think the presumption is that the U.S. would (have to) respond differently to an attack on a U.S.-flagged vessel compared to an attack on anyone else. So, not a question of defense, but of the proportionality of the post hoc response.

They wouldn't save much US money. Longer routes means less shipping capacity, means higher shipping cost. That doesn't just affect europe, it's a market, a ship leaving China can equally go to Europe or the US. It affects the countries that are importing the most, at the very top of which sits the US.

Presumably most ships owners would look and discover that the US navy is the largest in the world and thus switch their flags to the US - they would then pay taxes to the US (and have to deal with a lot of other US laws that they don't now). Either that or they would pay a lot more insurance. Ships going to Europe might switch to either UK or France for flags (again paying respective taxes and laws) - both are reasonably powerful in their area, though not on US level. China's navy is up and coming and so may be worth looking at for a flag as well.

Note that the budget of the country in question is what is really being talked about, and not the entire GDP of the country. It is possible for the US navy to save money while costing the average US citizen money.

>Presumably most ships owners would look and discover that the US navy is the largest in the world and thus switch their flags to the US - they would then pay taxes to the US (and have to deal with a lot of other US laws that they don't now). Either that or they would pay a lot more insurance.

You've just described mercantillism. Post Bretton-Woods is the first time in centuries the world hasn't worked that way. The dream of free trade and globalism was that everyone had equal protection on the seas. I fear you're correct that we're returning to a darker time where autarky reigns and trade is restricted to essentials.

Oh, the post-Pax Americana world situation is going to be a lot darker than that. Multilateral nuclear proliferation, here we come!

If only there were a body of water through which the ships could sail from China directly to the US...

Non-US-flagged ships carry goods to/from the US and if not then the might transport goods that will be refined into some other good the US will import. The USA are #3 exporter and #1 importer in the world with a value of >1.4 and >2.4 trillion dollar respectively https://www.statista.com/topics/1308/trade-in-the-us/#topicO...

Can you put a US flag on a merchant vessel built outside the US? If not, this isn't a real option, because there's no capacity to build large container ships in the US; and probably not enough capacity to crew US flagged ships with US based crews either.

The country of registration is separate from the country the ship was built in, and separate from ownership or nationality of the crewmen.

A ship can be built, owned and operated from outside the US but still be registered in the US.

You may be thinking of the Jones Act, which implements cabotage in the US, a fairly common practice among seafaring nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabotage

Confer: Operation Earnest Will 1987-1988 [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will

Why?

Attacks on US flagged ships are acts of war against the US, which you would think would cause hesitation on the part of the Houthi and Iran. And having more US-flagged ships helps the US maintain a logistic capability in the face of larger wars.

The Houthis have already been firing drones at US warships; I don't imagine firing rockets at US-flagged cargo ships would be any more of an act of war than that.

> Attacks on US flagged ships are acts of war against the US, which you would think would cause hesitation on the part of the Houthi and Iran.

Meanwhile, attacks on EU vessels will likely attract sympathy for the attackers from the EU.

Indeed, Stockholm is in EU

Attribution for these is difficult. Many non-state actors involved. Maybe the US can launch another failed war against a concept (terror, drugs, etc)

There isn't any question that Iran proxies, including the Houthis, have been attacking American assets. No major actor disputes this. The tricky part is what to do about it. The Iranian proxies have been trying to strike a balance of harming/harassing US forces while keeping the attacks at a low enough level to avoid a major retaliation and full blown war. Calibrating the right response is not a trivial problem.

this ain't obscure APT hacking.

in this case it's pretty clearly the Houthi-let Yemeni government, which is a proxy for Iran, and all parties have been pretty vocal about it.

To print a bigger target on them?

What?