The Red Sea Calculus Needs Tweaking

solid words from a solid leader

Real nice scoop by Ward Carroll. Over at his YouTube page, he has a superb interview with the former Commander of the Eisenhower Strike Group, Rear Admiral Marc Miguez, USN who just came back from a nine-month deployment, spending most of that time dealing with the Houthi threat.

He is relatively candid in a very good way. Refreshing.

Via Matthew Loh:

Rear Adm. Marc Miguez said in an interview with the YouTuber Ward Carroll that the US National Command Authority had to consider Iran's response.

"There are definite strategies that were put forward, but our National Command Authority decided that those — I would call more aggressive postures and more aggressive strikes — was not something we wanted to challenge," Miguez said in the interview published Monday.

"We all know Iranian-backed groups like the Houthis , where that threat's emanating from," he said. "And so that is the calculus that's handled at echelon zero, at the National Command Authority, with NSA, and everybody else."

"Those are things that I don't dabble in," he added.

Bingo. Senior leaders should be candid and direct in answering questions in ways that standard issue citizens can understand.

He also does not put anyone on report … but he does accrue some personal and institutional capital by responding to Ward’s questions this way.

Individuals can draw their own conclusions, but from his seat it validates a lot of the concerns we’ve raised here and over at Midrats the last few months.

Miguez indicated that he believed the US should adopt a more aggressive posture with the Houthis.

"Moving forward, we are going to have to continue to deal with this," he said. "It'll be up to our National Command Authority to probably be more aggressive with our strike groups and all of our assets, not just Navy."

…

"If we can get that focus with a whole-of-government approach, I think that's what's going to result in a freedom of navigation in that critical strait, which impacts about 20% of the global commerce," he said.

Miguez was appointed as the Navy's chief of legislative affairs in July.

Nothing radical, but still unusual from leaders at this level. Very good.

It looks like he’s headed to a good job for this skillset.

Since leaving command of the Eisenhower carrier strike group, he's been vocal about the US needing more training to fight drones after seeing how extensively the Houthis used them in the Red Sea.

Excellent.

I need to keep Miguez in my scan, and I hope the right people in Congress and on their staffs have already made his acquaintance.