Just four days after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the initiation of “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” the plan concocted by Biden’s national security brain trust seems on the cusp of collapse.
According to reports, the French representatives at the initial “Prosperity Guardian” meeting stormed out in a dispute over the mission focus of the operation. French ships are now escorting French-flagged ships. It is unclear if the French have temporarily decided to go their own way while the international coalition decides who is doing what to whom or if they are out for good. There are unconfirmed reports that the French are trying to organize an EU effort to escort EU-flagged vessels through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. In the meanwhile, US-flagged ships, which the US Navy has a legal obligation to protect, are dead in the water waiting for an escort; some have…
