How shipping risks from Ukraine and Iran wars are converging

Geoff Bennett:

The blockade of the strait through which nearly all Middle Eastern oil flows has prompted Saudi Arabia to call for a maritime defense coalition to protect Red Sea shipping. Today, representatives from 43 countries met to take up that proposal.

For perspective, we turn now to Ian Ralby. He's a global maritime security expert, president of Auxilium Worldwide, and a senior fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy.

It's good to speak with you.

So, how does this drone strike near the entrance of the Suez Canal further complicate the situation in the Middle East?

Ian Ralby, President, Auxilium Worldwide:

Well, it shows that it's expanding. We now have not just a one or two choke point crisis, but a three choke point crisis involving the Middle East situation that's actually starting to meet in the middle with the crisis emanating from the Black Sea.

And so it's an expansion of not only one, but two major conflicts that seem to be starting to take away a lot of the maritime transit routes on which we are all reliant for global trade.

Geoff Bennett:

Say more about that, the degree to which the Middle East conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war are bleeding into one another. Walk us through that.

Ian Ralby:

Yes.

So, five days ago, on the 25th, we saw Ukrainian strikes against an Iranian vessel carrying weapons to the Russians in the Caspian Sea, north of Iran. And we often forget that the Iranians have two coastlines. They have the one that we have been all focused on around the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, but they also have the Caspian Sea to the north that has been an amazing weapon route for Shahed drones and other armaments to go from Iran to Russia to fight the Ukrainians.

And that has now been attacked. And at the same time, we have seen the Ukrainians attacking extensively different infrastructure, including the Caspian pipeline that ends up in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in Russia.

And so this is an expansion of two conflicts starting to meet there, and at the same time in the Mediterranean, where we have seen Ukrainian strikes against Russian and other shadow fleet vessels, including the Arctic Metagaz, which has been floating as a concern for quite a while now.

So these two conflicts are starting to merge as they continue to expand.

Geoff Bennett:

And if you look at all of the choke points, the Strait of Hormuz, you have got the Bab al-Mandab, now potentially the Suez, plus the Black Sea, if you're a tanker leaving the Persian Gulf today, what are your options?

Ian Ralby:

They're very limited, and you're running a huge risk.

What we're seeing, though, is that there's a choice. Run that risk without any kind of visibility or tracking and try to get either U.S. protection or some other protection, or take the risk of getting sanctioned and go through the Iranian route through the Persian Gulf Strait Authority.

Or, if you're China, negotiate separately, because it seems the one exception to all of this is the movement of Chinese vessels, which seem not to be applied in the same way for the Houthi blockade.

So it is a very bizarre mix of physical global trade and geopolitics and security, and that is becoming an increasingly complex picture that is hard to make sense of, but definitely seems to favor the BRICS countries, the ones that are focused on development from the Chinas, the Russias, the Irans, the Indians, and others who have been pulling a sort of a split in the global economy, and now seem to be emerging as a bloc able to push back against the West.

Geoff Bennett:

Meantime, you have got Saudi Arabia. They're now calling for a maritime defense coalition to protect Red Sea shipping. How big a deal is this, and what could such a coalition actually do?

Ian Ralby:

You know, it's very interesting, because the Saudis have been calling for something of this sort for a while. They were -- 10 years ago were trying to initiate a Red Sea coalition, but were very hostile to the notion of non-littoral states, so not any of the states that weren't immediately adjacent to the Red Sea being involved.

Now what they're calling for sounds a lot like the combined maritime force that the U.S. used to headquarter in Bahrain involving 35 to 45 states at any given time, with liaison officers and assets to provide that sort of regional security picture.

And so it remains to be seen what their focus and how their approach is going to be. But there are a lot of complications, especially because the Saudis now are potentially putting themselves in direct odds with the Houthis, which are obviously aligned with Iran. And, at the same time, there's friction with Israel.

And so the whole situation increases in its complexity by the day and involves a greater number of states, which makes it harder to see a path towards resolution, given the differing dynamics between a lot of those states bilaterally.

So it's a great initiative. It would sound great on paper and it would be great in another time, but this might be a very difficult one to pull off in any reasonable degree of success.

Geoff Bennett:

And strategic reserves can only cover so much for so long. If these routes of these exits stay blocked, what's the plan B? Is there a plan B?

Ian Ralby:

I'm not privy to one, but it doesn't sound like plan B's have been in high number lately.

We have seen a huge number of different factors depreciate the overall concern. In other words, we could have seen oil spike to $150, $200 a barrel over the last five months, but they haven't. And there are a lot of reasons for that. One is that China has decreased its demand for oil enormously, and they were one of the biggest demand signals prior to this conflict.

So they have actually helped that situation a lot. But at the same time, the U.S. has increased pumping. It's also increased its tapping into those Strategic Reserves, and the president has done an amazing job of timing messages in order to manipulate markets towards a calmer, more stable position.

At the same time, we have given sanctions relief to Russia and Iran at different times to allow for critical elements of the energy sector to keep costs, for example, of bunker fuel, the shipping fuel, to be lower.

But we're running out of numbers of options for how to proceed. And it may be that, if all of that oil ends up physically trapped, there is just no option but to actually confront that cataclysmic economic situation and take new approaches towards diplomatically resolving the situation, because, militarily, more military action is likely to create more military action, rather than a de-escalation in the overall situation.

Geoff Bennett:

Ian Ralby, thanks, as always, for your insights. We appreciate it.

Ian Ralby:

Pleasure.