Only works if you find someone to pay. I listened to a lengthy (German) podcast about international maritime law. To sum it up: you can’t do that much, because you won’t find the responsible person/company/state.

> German podcast

There was a Planet Money episode touching on Maritime law:

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/17/nx-s1-5577076/shadow-fleet-ru...

It was about Russian tankers breaking the sanctions, but with a well put explanation of why we can't just stop these ships even with extreme confidence in their fraudulency.

> why we can't just stop these ships

To be clear, why we don’t want to. Freedom of navigation makes all of us tremendously richer, even if it permits such fuckery.

Every great power has, at this point, rejected the notion in limited contexts. And if you’re not concerned about trashing trade, there is no incoherence to ignoring these rules.

In a hypothetical future where sailing under flags of convenience becomes untenable, all the legitimate merchant vessel owners would rush to register in the US or China. Those vessels would still be able to sail anywhere unmolested. Outside of a few pirate gangs, no one would be stupid enough to screw with them and risk kinetic retaliation. This might increase shipping costs by a few percent.

Russia can bluster and threaten but their navy is weak and shrinking. Most of their commissioned warships never venture far from port. Outside of their territorial waters they have minimal capability to protect their own merchant vessels or interdict anyone else's sea lines of communication.

> all the legitimate merchant vessel owners would rush to register in the US or China

The US can't afford to field the navy necessary to back this ams hasn't been able to for many decades

> US can't afford to field the navy necessary to back this ams hasn't been able to for many decades

This is nonsense. The U.S. Navy de facto guarantees freedom of navigation today. Globally.

If we switched to a national system, our Navy wouldn’t literally escort U.S.-flagged ships. Its military would just need to enforce the threat that you get bombed if you fuck with America.

We’d save money switching to a big-stick model. (I think we’d be poorer for it in the long run. But if you’re playing chess and your opponent machete, you’re not going to find any winning moves on the board.)

> Its military would just need to enforce the threat that you get bombed if you fuck with America.

Panting a Russian flag on the side of a crappy tanker is enough to get the US to back off.

Russia can do what it likes with current US leadership.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...

> Panting a Russian flag on the side of a crappy tanker is enough to get the US to back off

Has the White House rolled over?

I can’t see any update that says they have engaged.

So yes… I think.

> can’t see any update that says they have engaged. So yes… I think.

I wouldn't be suprised if Trump chickens out. But this logic is terrible.

The same pursuit that has been happening for days continues to happen. That the pattern has not changed in reaction to new stimulus isn't proof that the stimulus worked.

Just stumbled on the below link - Russia has directly asked the US to leave the ship alone. It’s going to be hard to duck this one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...

> Russia has directly asked the US to leave the ship alone

Yes. I am aware. Flags are being painted, registries updated and sternely-worded letters sent. The ship sails on. So do its pursuers.

> It’s going to be hard to duck this one

It really shouldn't be.

Just board the ship. Putin makes noises about international law. A D.C. lawyer insists that no, the vessel was stateless when found. And assuming there isn't like fissile material or a senior IRGC liaison on board, everyone grumbles and moves on.

Trump and Putin have a complicated relationship. But about the single thing that this will not depend on will be what maritime law says the U.S. should do. (And I think the legal arguments for seizure are on America's side on this one.)

Well, I got it wrong. The US has seized the ship.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/583459/us-seizes-venezuela-...

Oil tankers are basically "weapons of mass environment destruction" (slight hyperbole, sorry ;). When you shoot at them, or their captains have the valves opened, their oil will devastate a sizable chunk of sea and coastline.

So you really need to tread lightly around enemy oil tankers.

> Oil tankers are basically "weapons of mass environment destruction"

Which is why you sink them empty. Ukraine has been doing this for months now.

> The U.S. Navy de facto guarantees freedom of navigation today.

How is this working for the gulf of aden? Go to sleep grandpa, we can take it from here

> How is this working for the gulf of aden?

You’re really claiming the U.S. military cannot stop the Houthi attacks?

The administration’s position is this is Europe’s problem [1]. It’s literally part of America retreating from that historic guarantee.

(That said, the simplest response would be to give the Saudis a weapons deal to secure the coasts. You have to blow up the ports, which will trigger a humanitarian disaster.)

[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/03/26/vance-anti-europe-obsession

> You’re really claiming the U.S. military cannot stop the Houthi attacks?

Yes, absolutely we cannot. Everytime we drive by we roll the dice with hundreds of lives.

And stop reading western propaganda! It's bad for you.

> That said, the simplest response would be to give the Saudis a weapons deal to secure the coasts. You have to blow up the ports, which will trigger a humanitarian disaster.

The saudis have BEEN a humanitarian disaster for longer than either of us have been alive.

I am formerly a Marine. This a rather silly notion and I think you should back your claim up with some evidence. Even with as much damage as Donald Trump has done to the US's military preparedness and hegemony around the globe no other fleet operates like the Marine Expeditionary Units. No other fleet can respond to any critical location in less than 24 hours. Add the Coast Guard for near-CONUS and partnered patrols and the US still maintains dominance both at home and abroad.

Nations, like China, are catching up but largely because of two outsized factors:

- The US for some time has not been able to produce ships at home, at scale, and at cost. This is more of a slow burn because the fleet has been kept up to date for the most part. Eventually, new ships need to be built at home.

- Donald Trump has done damn near everything he can to install lackey's within the military, which reduces the military's top decision making acumen down to yes-men to a 79 year old geriatric patient.

Russia's fleet, on the other hand, is an aging joke. It is where we will be if we continue electing fascists that install Martians like Hegseth.

As we are seeing, "can't" is a really strong word.

Yes. I meant it more as "can't _just_", we can do it but need to account for serious ramifications in doing so at scale.

> (German) podcast about international maritime law

Russia isn’t even pretending to follow international maritime law. China hasn’t for a decade. And now America is being creative with its interpretations.

> And now America is being creative with its interpretations.

The US follows the rules carefully when Russia encourages it to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...

Still I don't see an issue - basically you either pay the armed coast gard cutter that stands in your way or you don't go through the straight. If you don't cause any trouble, the other cutter on the other end will pay you back. No money, no transit - unless you really like being boarded.

Regardless of what specific rules could be set you have to consider rules of engagement and potential escalation. What happens if a Russian merchant vessel (either legitimately flagged or shadow fleet) refuses to cooperate? Do you use force to stop them? What if they're being escorted by a Russian warship or combat aircraft?

You put mines and wait. We need to stop with “what if escalation” mantra when it was always Russians escalating.

Put mines where? How do you prevent neutral vessels from hitting them? What happens when they inevitably break loose in a storm and drift away? Naval mines are quite effective for closing down a body of water in an unrestricted hot war but we haven't reached that stage yet. EU and NATO countries still want to be able to use the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland for their own purposes.

You haven't really thought this plan through.

Smart mines. There are thousands of them deployed already.

Huh? What are you even talking about? Which models specifically? And how sure are you that they can reliably discriminate between Russian vessels versus others that look and sound identical?

You haven't really thought this plan through.

> And how sure are you that they can reliably discriminate between Russian vessels versus others that look and sound identical?

Based on recent events, even people struggle to tell what is Russian and what isn’t.

These smart mines might solve that?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...

No, smart mines won't solve that. I can't fathom where this fantasy is coming from. It's totally disconnected from the reality of current mine technology.

This is deployed in baltic already

https://www.rheinmetall.com/Rheinmetall%20Group/brochure-dow...

What's your point? Those weapons don't have the ability to reliably distinguish Russian shadow fleet vessels from others.

Most of the water isn't internal.. getting in and out of the baltic sea goes past Sweden/Denmark.

But we probably have promised not to blockade ships in some conventions. And little Denmark (or Sweden) do not benefit from setting a precedence that conventions can be broken.

Getting payback is easy though: support Ukraine.

There is no such convention as far as I can tell.

Most nations have either signed the UNCLOS to otherwise agreed to follow most of those rules. This includes the right of innocent passage through territorial waters. Of course if a vessel engages in hostile acts then they're no longer entitled to exercise that right.

So escort and inspect then.

There is. Its the treaty of Versailles. And it reaffirmed the Copenhagen Convention of 1857.

The Outlaw Sea, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865477223/theoutlawsea/ , is a book about all of the ways international water is essentially lawless.

Or at least a responsible person with money to pay for it. There are plenty of cases of some poor sailor getting stuck with the bill and forced to live on the abandoned boat as a result.

You can always make the regulations such that they're actually effective. You could require the company providing the bond be from a reputable country, for example.

If these ships are independent operators being influenced by Russia, seizing the ship will be a significant consequence because the next time Russia will have a harder time convincing a crew to sabotage a cable.