The Sanctioned/Stateless Tanker Nabbing Gives...if we are Willing to Take

...the commerce raiding hint screaming from on high...

Sometimes, accidental missions show you a whole host of paths you need to take to be ready for what the future will ask of you.

In the special operations arena, Operation Eagle Claw was one such moment. Without that searing example, the special operations overmatch from the aviation side of the house to the ground element that we saw from Desert Storm through to the capture of Maduro earlier this year would simply not have happened.

That is a big flashy example, but since the United States started going after the sanctioned and stateless merchant ships over the last few months, I’ve been feeling a tapping on my shoulder growing in intensity.

Again, small and medium conflicts will tell you—if you will listen—what you need when the big conflict comes.

It started tapping me on the shoulder with the capture of the tanker Bella 1/Marinera off Iceland last month.

Look at the below video, what catches your eye?

If you want more detail on this specific operation, Sal Mercogliano—as always—can give you the details you need.

OK, we’ve soaked this in. Now the latest on Monday pointed to us by Charlie B, another “stateless tanker” taken down for the first time in the Indian Ocean.

Charlie B@supbrow

Stateless Dark Fleet, US OFAC sanctioned tanker, boarded by 🇺🇸 forces conducting a right of visit and flag state verification visit, in the southern Indian Ocean. The tanker apparently ran the quarantine on tankers in Venezuela. Appears to have been heading for the Sunda

Department of War 🇺🇸 @DeptofWar

When the @DeptofWar says quarantine, we mean it. Nothing will stop DoW from defending our Homeland — even in oceans halfway around the world. Overnight, U.S. military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II without incident in the

2:19 PM · Feb 9, 2026 · 5.1K Views

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1 Reply · 9 Reposts · 25 Likes

So, from the GIUK Gap to the Indian Ocean, the US Navy (and her USCG sidekick) are, in essence, conducting entry-level commerce raiding.

In the takedown above, we had a DDG and an ESB. In the earlier takedown off Iceland, we had a USCG cutter, a US Army ‘Little Bird’ helo … that was flying off another ESB.

Just look at that beautiful lady…we’ll get back to her in a bit.

I’m not interested in the tactical play-by-play of these takedowns. Plenty of people have already done it, and done it better than I can. No, let’s back up from the tactical, through the operational, and into the strategic.

At that level, this is whispering something very important to us if we find ourselves in a conflict with the world’s largest navy and maritime fleet west of the International Date Line.

These post-Maduro takedowns are all using already high-demand/low-density personnel to do the actual boardings. You can do that with a few targets at relative peace. That minimizes risk and maximized control at the highest levels. That is a luxury we will not have during any war against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

It may be fought as a regional war in the air and on land in the first few months, but make no mistake—it will be a global war at sea. You will not have exquisitely trained special forces personnel to take down the PRC merchant your ISR feed just told you is over the horizon. They have a higher and better use in general war. Taking down merchant ships? Right below marching up and down the square with the Sergeant Major. Nope, you need to execute that mission out of ship’s company.

Once that balloon goes up, I don’t care which ocean you are in, you will be surrounded by PRC assets in their merchant fleet. Not only are they fair game, odds are they will be a cornerstone of how the PRC will not play fair at sea. Things could get sporty.

Good news, we have the solution at hand, the U.S. Navy’s Visit, Board, Search & Seizure (VBSS) teams.

D+0 is not the time for a room full of silence when someone asks, “So, every Navy and Coast Guard warship has at least one VBSS team that can take down tankers by boat or their embarked helo, right?”

Do we? In what we know will be a target-rich environment, do we have more than one team? Why not? Why don’t we have teams built in the USNR who, once activated, integrate into specific ships? No CO will sniff at a helo full of watchstanders arriving who can also conduct VBSS.

Yes, yes, yes…make excuses about training, time, money, or—something I have heard before from some of the more pathetic ‘leaders’ in our Navy, your fear of your Sailors carrying weapons…but I am even less interested in your excuses than the War Gods of the Copybook Headings will be. The mission must be done, and your command will do it. C1, C4, see if I care. It will be done.

Are we training, manning, and equipping our fleet for this eventuality? If not, what ethical or moral quandary does that put them in at D+1? What are we doing now that is more important?

When I asked myself that question yesterday—mostly the money and time—the first thing that popped into my nogg’n—was my rant 16 months ago against the drive, mostly by people in the DC Beltway, to have us invest in SLCM-N.

There are almost no surface officers—and very few aviation branch officers—under the age of 55 that have any working memory of the administrative, training, and manpower drain lugging a nuke around on your boat costs you.

For a fraction of the cost of fully deploying the don’t-need-war-will-be-over-by-the-time-you-use-it SLCM-N through the fleet, we could have every surface warship—including the amphib fleet—have a full-up-round VBSS team…or two.

We should ensure that our fleet has the ability to do this organically, everywhere, from every warship. All it takes is to make it a priority over other things, like the nuclear autist’s SLCM-N.

Back to the ESB. What is this class of ship’s primary characteristic? What does she bring to the game?

Flexibility.

Having platforms with a lot of “white space” sprinkled about your fleet is a hedge against future-risk. You can shape its available capacity to meet the needs of the moment. Need an afloat base to board a lot of ships in a choke point? Need to transport a school of unmanned vessels to their launch site west of Guam? Need some place to park a lot of containerized missiles? She’s your girl.

I don’t care how well paid or credentialed your advisors are, they cannot see the future. They can present a list of possible futures, but that is it. Those who shape their advice around the concept of, “I’m not sure what will come, but here is how we prepare to be ready for the most likely needs, and some flex to adjust to the unexpected.” are the ones who deserve your time and funding…and an allowance to be wrong now and then.

So, there you go.

1. Be ready, because at least in the opening months of the next Great Pacific War, if we are smart and ready, we will be commerce raiding from Tierra del Fuego to Svalbard.

2. We only have six ESB commissioned or under construction. Buy more.