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It’s not fear, it’s cost-benefit, and it would take all the trucks in the middle east to move a tiny portion of the export that typically goes via ship. It woul
by ethagknight 7mo ago
It’s not fear, it’s cost-benefit, and it would take all the trucks in the middle east to move a tiny portion of the export that typically goes via ship. It would be easier and more aligned for Qatar, UAE, Saudis to pay mercs to keep the strait clear.
- sebastiennight 7mo ago> it would take all the trucks in the middle east to move a tiny portion of the export that typically goes via ship May I suggest an alternative mode of freight that pre-dates trucks and can move much larger volumes at a much lower CO2 cost, namely... a transcontinental train line? (obviously not going to happen, and might even trigger a few PR cycles about a "hyperloop", but if you were going to try to build large-volume freight, that's where I'd start)
- BurningFrog 7mo agoPipelines are by far the best option for large-volume oil freight on land! Note that it takes about 10000 trucks to carry the 2 million barrels of oil in one typical oil tanker.
- sebastiennight 7mo agoI can't believe that I didn't think of a pipeline first. So... yes. Also another argument against trucks: they consume fuel to carry fuel.
- beAbU 7mo ago> I can't believe that I didn't think of a pipeline first. Don't feel bad, a pipeline is just a different type of train. The tracks are hollow and the cars are molecular in size.
- sourcecodeplz 7mo agothat railway can be bombed too
- sebastiennight 7mo agoI'd say there are orders of magnitude of difference between attacking a narrow passage of water that borders your very large country (here the narrower the area you want to block, the better), versus a few-meters-wide railway that starts in another country and goes thousands of kilometers in a direction pointing away from you (and in the second case, the narrower the target, the more difficult to hit).
- kipchak 7mo agoI'm reminded of the pre ww1 Berlin–Baghdad railway.
- sebastiennight 7mo agoWell see? Problem solved!
- cjrp 7mo agoI guess a train line has a similar risk of security concerns/disruption, vs. trucks which can be re-routed.
- beshur 7mo agoIs there a real merc naval power that can support operations against ground based anti-ship missiles?