It Could Happen Here - Shipping Security in the Strait of Hormuz

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

James and Gare talk about the world of private maritime security, pirates, and the strait of Hormuz. Sources: https://www.register-iri.com/wp-content/uploads/MN-2-011-39.pdf https://en.mercopress.com/2009/04/26/cruise-ship-melody-fended-off-a-pirate-attack  https://www.jstor.org/stable/48821900?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3Aa5c02fb4e4aea98208bb9f0b37780d3b&initiator=recommender&seq=1  https://abcnews.com/Business/International/pirates-attack-us-flagged-maersk-alabama/story?id=9114429  https://www.ospreyobserver.com/2011/11/riverview-resident-receives-commemorative-knife-after-surviving-pirate-attack/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi, everyone. Welcome to It Could Happen here. It's me, James, today, and I am very lucky to join by Garrison. Hi, Gah. Hello. Hi. Garrison, I've summoned you here today to talk about votes, a topic that white men love. but we're not going to talk about like going out on the lake.

And looking for bass today, I've only done bass fishing once. It's not for me. Do you hold up the fish for the picture? Do you do the picture? I wasn't blessed with the bass on that trip. But I did get to, it was very interesting because the guy had like a purple boat with gold flex in it. It didn't represent who I thought he was as a person. It turned out actually he had a boat sponsorship and he was going to sell it.

But it was a cool boat. I got to drive that boat pretty fast, do some donuts and stuff. so that is another thing that calls to a part of my soul. I want to talk about private maritime security today. The reason why, of course, is that Iran is currently attacking boats in the Strait of Hormuz. And elsewhere, right, there's some boats were attacked in port in Basra. Yesterday, we're recording this on Thursday. At the time of recording, they have attacked six boats.

It's more likely than not that there will be more boats attacked by the time you're are listening to this. It's been a really bad week for boat guys. It's been a bad year for boats in general. Oh, Venezuela, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about private maritime security. So, like, when these boats are transusing the Strait of Hormuz, right, the United States has offered and then rescinded the offer to escort them through the

Strait of Hormuz, it is very unlikely that the United States is going to be able to sufficiently escort every boat that goes through the state of Hormuz. And this is a long-standing issue, right? I think probably lots of listeners won't be aware of the long history of private security on ships, right? I'm only going to talk about this in the context of the 21st century, but this goes a lot further back. It's largely a consequence of the way the law governs the ocean. It's actually the same, wow. Sorry, a daddy long legs.

I don't know if there's an American word for that that I don't know. Daddy long legs, that's correct. Yeah, absolute unit has just entered my office space. I will let them be. The reason that we can have private security contractors, often with machine guns, etc., on boats, is the same reason that horrific labour abuses are perpetrated on boats on a daily basis, right? Perhaps the most well documented, or among the most well documented, are the ones of Thailand on fishing ships, which often involve Burmese refugees or people fleeing Myanmar right there,

essentially enslaved on these boats or in sort of indentured servitude of trying to quote unquote pay off their trip out of the country they were fleeing right and we're talking about labor abuses today and I want to talk more about private security most security provided two boats in the world in general it's not provided by states it is provided by private military contractors right earlier on in the 20th century the typical profile of one of these people would have been that They'd left the military and a state in the global north. They had found, let's say, life or employment in the civilian world to be difficult for them. And I've met a number of these people in a number of places.

Many of them went to parts of Africa thinking that they were going to work protecting wildlife and then ending up protecting large container ships instead or attempting to work for a company that would one day let them protect wildlife or something similar. generally the companies they end up working for are generally referred to as private maritime security companies, PMSCs, as opposed to PMC private military contractor, right? Although it is a version of the same thing. Generally, these companies offer a shipping company a sort of package. And it's not just armed security.

It also includes stuff like intelligence, crisis response, and potential intervention. I spoke to someone, for instance, who had worked for a shipping company and his major job was to deal with when people were kidnapped. off the boats, he would then either go and rescue the people or negotiate with the people who would kidnap them. These are like cargo ships, oil tankers, like what kind of? Yeah. So mostly they're on large commercial vessels, right?

Cargo ships, oil tankers, things with an expensive cargo, although it is not unheard of for PMSCs. For instance, you may have a maritime security company to secure your large mega yachts. Sure. Right, or another boat that you're worried about. I mean, these happen only cruise ships sometimes? Yes, there was a shootout in the early 2000, so a shootout is probably a strong,

private security characters on it, I think it was an Italian cruise ship, fired at pirates who were attempting to board the cruise ship. Huh. It's a lot less uncommon than you would think. So when we're planning the 28 Cool Zone Media crews, all access included, we're going to have to contract with one of these companies. I think we can probably bring that in-house.

I think that would be the goal at that point, right? Within the greater I-Hart ecosystem, Garrison, we have so many automatic weapons. You don't listen to the like, Belfed machine gun podcast. The I-Hart militia. It's us and Ted Cruz, and we're, we haven't really agreed on very much other than ownership. Maybe we should talk about when the real reason like PMSCs took off in the 21st century was the rise in piracy of Somalia, right? Before this piracy had existed, mostly in Southeast Asia, piracy has existed for as long as people going on boats has existed, right? But specifically,

piracy of Southeast Asia had before this been more of a like a smash and grab kind of situation, like turn up, take what you can leave. What was distinct in the, this piracy that we began to see from like 2008 onwards was that pirates were either trying to seize the entire cargo of a vessel, the vessel itself, or to kidnap people from the vessel and hold them for ransom. I guess the most high profile case was called the Mearsk, Alabama. Are you familiar with this one? No. Okay, this is, that's good because you get to hear a story. I don't keep up with pirate news.org. Really? I can see you being like pirate curious. No, you're not interested in...

I've always had kind of a love-hate relationship with pirates. Okay. You know, undeniably cool in some way. Also, a little bit messy. They can be messy. Yeah, yeah. Lots of, lots of overlap between pirates and anarchism. I'm sure you've... This is true. Yeah. Some of my same critiques there for you know, both sides. Yeah, yeah, it can also be messy. As soon as the pirates all start wearing matching black suits, then we can talk. I think that's inherently like a piracy isn't about that. Piracy is about self-expression. That's the thing. So you got to.

Yeah. Yeah. Agree to disagree. I like a diverse pirate outfit personally. In this case, a small vessel, right? I think they had four or five pirates. They had like pretty basic weaponry, right? Like Kalashnikovs, I think.

They boarded the Mears, Galabama. The boat had a pirate alarm, and they sounded the pirate alarm. It is, in this you have to struggle to repress your like 18th century, like, a mine palace, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The crew sheltered in, they had like a safe room. Yeah. They went in the safe room.

Well, they captured the captain of the ship pretty quickly. The ship didn't have any means of defending itself other than it tried to, like, I'm not a massive boat understander. It tried to use its rudder to swamp the pirate ship as it was coming up. So kind of flick it, and that didn't work. Yeah. And one member of the ship's crew who hid himself with a knife and successfully subdued and captured the leader of the pirates. And the crew then attempted to trade this person for their captain.

They tied up the pirate who they had captured, attempted to trade him for their captain. the pirates took the leader of the pirates and then never gave the crew their captain and then made off in a lifeboat with a large amount of cash and the captain. This resulted in a standoff. Now, the Maas, Alabama was a, I believe, a US-flagged ship. It may have been a U.S. Dutch ship, but it was flagged to like a nation in the major, in the global north, right? This will become relevant later.

The United States sent two boats, which, proceeded to engage in a standoff with the lifeboat for several days, where they first attempted to drop a sap phone and a mobile phone to the pirates in a lifeboat. The pirates threw those in the ocean because they thought that they were using them to communicate with the captain of the ship. At one point, the captain who they'd held hostage ended up in the ocean, but then he got back into the lifeboat.

The situation was resolved eventually by the Navy SEAL shooting all the pirates. They were based on one of the US ships, and they use sniper rifles to shoot the pirates. Really? Yeah. They shot them all off the lifeboat while the captain of the ship was also in the lifeboat. Whoa. Yeah, no.

I would be shocked if there's not a film about this. I know the captain of the ship has written a book about his time being captured. But obviously, like this kind of rattled the world, right? It scared a lot of people specifically in the shipping industry because this is a scary thing to happen. And specifically this change in the nature. of piracy from taking stuff to potentially capturing people. And I believe the goal of the pirates here was to get the captain ashore where they could

hide it more easily, right, in Somalia. And then it becomes an entirely different issue when you're trying to get US troops into a completely different country to rescue someone. A different like landmass, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really important to talk about like the jurisdictional issues here because they are what gives the PM. MSC is so much leeway. I think we'll take a little break talking about jurisdiction and then we will

come back. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the honest talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and Iheart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tomorrow night, our 2026 IHeart podcast awards are happening live at South by Southwest. It's the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year

and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show? made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal.

The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is love trapped.

This season, an epic battle of He Said She Said. and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. Excellent. Listen to Love Trapped on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. Hillary opens up about complicated family dynamics, motherhood, and releasing our first record in over 10 years. We talk about what it's taken to grow up in the entertainment industry and stay grounded,

through every chapter. It's a raw and honest conversation about identity, evolution, and building a life that truly matters. You desire in family like this picture, and that's not reality a lot of the time is for people. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life, and I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. So to understand private maritime security companies, you've got to understand the world of flags of convenience first.

Are you familiar with flags, the convenience, Garrison? No, no, okay. This is good. This is James gets to download shit that he reads that no, for no reason at like 11 o'clock at night. There are nations in the world states that allow vessels to register under their flag, even if the owner of the vessel is not a citizen of that country. It's called an open registry. So if you hang out in the port, spend time looking at boats, look at the flags and other

boats, you will often see flags of a few countries. The most common ones are Liberia, Panama, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The reason that boat owners might choose, let's say you garrison have a boat, right, or you a shipping company, Garrison Davis boats in incorporated and you don't want to register in Canada or the United States. Might be to avoid tax liability. Might be to avoid what you consider to be burdens and safety regulations. Okay. Might be to avoid the frustrating constraints of Canadian labor law.

Or it might be to avoid some ecological constraints on your boats, which your flag nation might impose. And generally, flags of convenience have very little. in the way of taxation and regulation, right? And so people might choose to flag their vessel in Liberia, Panama, Public and Marshall Islands, Hong Kong instead to avoid some of those issues, right? Now, the issue comes when you register your boat in Liberia and your boat is off on its way delivering things and then some pirates sees your boat.

I'm guessing Liberia is not going to be of much assistance, yeah. They're not coming. Yeah, yeah. the Liberian Navy is not available to help you in that instance, right? Now, because there tends to be very little constraint on flags of convenience, there's also very little constraint on what can happen on those boats, right? So you could hire a private maritime security company and they could protect your boat and the chances are the flag of convenience country would not regulate anything that they did on your boat

or the weaponry they held on your boat. Oh. The RMI does. The Marshall Islands does. It does regulate somewhat the weaponry that the Marshall Islands flagged boats could have. I think the reason there are so many boats flagged in the Marshall Islands, at least in part, is because half the world's tuna is caught in Marshall Islands waters. So a lot of those vessels will probably have, they will choose to have the Marshall Islands flag

because it allows them to fish in territorial waters, would be my guess. I've met some contractors on Marshallese boats. So I met a guy who was a helicopter pilot for a tuna fishing boat in a bar once. I guess they fly the helicopter to look for the fish and then the boat comes and catches the fish. Huh. Yeah, fascinating world. I don't think it's a highly enjoyable job. But I think people do it to get their flight hours up so they can do other things.

So because of this legal, it's not really a legal gray area. It's just the fact that these people are not regulated in any way, right? can carry weapons on ships. Now, in the case of piracy of Somalia specifically, the United Nations did authorize military action against Somali pirates and between 20 and 40 boats were there at any given time in the next four years trying to police piracy. But that's not enough boats because every boat that is moving through that area is at risk for piracy. And pirates can use very small boats to board very big boats, right? And unless that very big boat is somehow able to defend itself, all they need is a few weapons and the ability to get aboard and they're hard

to truck, right? I've heard from people who did contracting in the pre-2008 era that basically they put barbed wire on the edge of the boat to stop people getting on. And then they had the LRAD, like they, was that long range? The sound weapon. Yeah, the sound weapon. I'm not sure that it was there as a weapon. I think it was there to notify other ships like, get out the way, but that it could be weaponized. And then after that, it was like big sticks and harsh words, I guess. So, like, when you have the guys who took over to Merse, Alabama, coming in with a few Kalashnikov, they have the balance of force on their side, right?

That is no longer the case anymore. Initially, in 2009, groups like Blackwater tried to get in on this. And they did it actually by more or less, I guess, like copying the privateer model that we'd seen in, like the 19th century, they refitted commercial boats with weapons and offered them like for hire as like a rental, like as an accompaniment. They would like escort another ship. Yeah, they'd escort you through this dangerous area and then turn around and escort someone who was going the other way or that was the idea. Sure. It didn't really work. A, because it was expensive, right, to run these vessels and B, because you'd need so many of them. And so what they

up doing instead was actually stationing people on the vessels. So these security contractors will now live on the oil tanker or the container ship, either for its whole journey or for the duration of the time, which it's considered danger. And also, I mean, if pirates try to get onto the big ship and all of the military guys are on a different ship a little bit behind, you have to get those guys onto the other ship. Right.

And then now you're shooting at the ship that you're supposed to protect. And I can see that being... That does just make it a little bit more complicated, yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, the way, according to reports I've read, I should say, the way they have got around this issue is by preemptively shooting at vessels that they consider to be a threat. Sure.

And there are plenty of allegations of that. We'll get on to the lack of really any means of legal accountability at some point. What they do instead is they allow contractors to go on the ships. And these contractors then have to be armed, right? The way they tend to be armed is, depending on the flag of the ship and what regulations it has, right? Generally, if they're entering into an area where they can't be armed, they have what are called floating armories. Those are what they sound like. You don't understand how long in my freelance career I spent trying to get onto one of these particular boats.

It was a long time. So is this just like a tiny boat on a string with a whole bunch of guns on it? Like what a... It could be an old oil platform. Yeah, okay. Could be a little boat, could be a big boat. Sometimes the contractors themselves were like, that's where the contractors will meet the big boat, right?

And they'll get on it there. So they have like an area they can hang out. Like it has living facilities. Huh. I've spoken to a few people in this world. But, you know, if you happen to be listening and you're a boat security guy, I don't know. This just continues to fascinate me as an area where like the state doesn't exist.

And we have this like post-state private militarizing. It's like anarcho-capitalism, yeah. Yeah, yes, yeah, exactly. It is a vision of the ANCAP future that I don't love. That is very interesting, right? There were states that offered to have, like, vessel detachments. The Dutch did this, I believe. They would be like, we will send you.

I'm not familiar with the Dutch military, sorry, Dutch listeners, Dutch Marines, I imagine, right? And you can have a few of them on your boat. But even Dutch companies or Dutch flag vessels weren't using it because there was so much paperwork and the government couldn't keep up with their demands. They were like, now we'll just get some guys, we'll just pay them.

We're fine. Yeah. The state has more or less completely removed itself from the sphere and removed itself from doing anything approaching accountability. And so, like, it is extremely hard for these people to be held accountable for things that they do in international waters, right?

there are like industry standards, so the industry itself sets in the same way that there are standards for cops that the cops themselves set and those have generally not been the best means of accountability, right? In the theory, any time they engage someone, certainly if they kill someone, the ship's authorities should report that. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, cool. I'm sure they will. I'm sure they love to do the paperwork. But then who would they report it to? right? Do they report it to the country they suspect the people they are shooting at their country? Do they report it to the flag of convenience country? Do they report it to the company they work for? Like, I'm sure there is some jurisdiction of maritime law which would give us an answer to that. But in practice, there appears to be very little mechanism for accountability in the same way that there is very little mechanism for accountability for labor law violations at sea.

I would recommend if people haven't listened this podcast called Outlaw Ocean it's probably five or six years old at this point. I think it was a New York Times investigation along with someone else. It was a good podcast about labor violations at sea and they specifically looked at some of these fishing vessels and the fact that they use people

who are essentially an indentured servitude but they also touched on private maritime security. These days, we see a lot less piracy of Somalia, right? Like, it has reached its peak. I found this little chunk in an article I was reading on J-Store this morning that I thought was interesting. Quote, maritime security companies have been consulted on Greenpeace activists attempt to climb onto a gas prom offshore platform in September 2013 to protest drilling in the Arctic and attacks against oil and gas installations by the movement for the emancipation as the Nisia Delta.

So I guess these people have a wide remit. in which they operate. As I say, they're somewhat different from like land-based PMCs, because land-based private military contractors are generally operating either with backup from a state or as backup to a state. And so there is like an accountability mechanism somewhat there. Like we saw in the global war on terror that we were like we still lack accountability mechanisms for private military contractors on land.

But that certainly remains the case. on the ocean, right? Yeah. So another thing we should consider here is the historical parallels, right? And the obvious historical parallel would be to look to 1987 and what's generally referred to

as the tanker war, right? What the United States attempted to do was to open up a channel. The straightforward movement is very narrow, as I said, it's narrowest point. It's just 21 miles. There are two channels, because obviously not the entire 21 miles

is deep enough ships to go through. There are two channels that are each about two miles wide. I think they're three kilometers wide. Still not very great at that conversion. So the United States attempted to open one channel and then run a convoy system, right? Think about when you have roadworks and, you know, the cars go one way and then the cars go the other way and someone goes in front of you and they have like a flashing light to tell you to follow them or what have you. And the United States attempted to escort convoys of mostly reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the straight of Hormuz, right?

The very first escort mission involved a Kuwaiti oil tanker, the headman reflagged as an American tanker to become the Bridgeton. And it was the Bridgeton that struck an underwater mine on that very first mission. It didn't cause any casualties. It did cause damage to the ship. During that same operation, a United States ship also struck a mine. It was called the United States Samuel B. Roberts, I believe. It struck a mine while transiting into national waters.

It just goes to show that when there are mines in this area, any of the United States, area, it's very hard to know when they've all been removed and it's very hard to know where they all are, right? Now, during that same operation, a United States warship mistakenly shot down an Arrayalian civilian flight, killing all 290 people on board. This goes to show how crowded the space is around the Strait of Hormuz, and it goes to show how, I mean, even in a relatively modern war, the possibility for mistakes is very high. And that's before you even consider the fact that the Trump administration is willing to accept, even among administrations as the United States,

they are willing to accept a very high number of innocent deaths. I also want to talk about, because this is such a small strait, such a crowded straight, right? The possibility of attack is not just limited to naval attack, right, to boats. we know that the US destroyed most of Iran's navy, and we're going to speak about how the IRGC Navy is not the same as Iran's regular flag navy, right? When we talk about the Iranian Navy, big gray boats, yes, the US has destroyed many of those. With the IRGC, we're looking at much smaller, fast attack vessels, right? Sometimes civilian vessels with a machine gun mounted to them.

Those have not all been destroyed, and it would be very hard for the United States to destroy those all from the air, as it will be for the United States to destroy the ground attack capability that Iran has, right? They have Hormuz missiles, they have Shahid drones, they can use regular unguided rockets. A Shahid drone from anywhere in the country of Iran, given its range, could hit a boat in the Strait of Hormuz. These Hormuz-class missiles, they're called Hormuz missiles. They're launched from vehicles, right? like a lorry, and it comes out and it pops up its back, lifts up the missile and launches it.

These are very easy to hide, right? Lots of entities in this region use tunnels and caves to hide things. I'm sure the Iranian state does too. But you could hide one of these missile launches anywhere in a city, in a cave and a tunnel. It only needs to pop out, deliver its missile, and then it can be abandoned, right? Or it can go back into its cave, whatever it wants.

but the Iranians don't need to destroy every ship that transits the Strait of Hormuz to close the Strait of Hormuz. First of all, there are only two, three kilometers channels, right? If there is a wrecked ship in one of those channels, the channel gets smaller and smaller, and therefore your chance of hitting the mines that are there gets higher and higher, right? Because there's less way to go around them. The Iranians only have to make transiting the Strait of Hormuz uninsurable. to succeed, right? So what has happened with private maritime security contractors so far is that their presence has made transiting high-risk areas, areas at high-risk for piracy, an insurable

effort because frequently you will hear that a ship with armed security has never been taken by pirates. That's really hard for us to confirm, right? Like, there's no independent data on that, but certainly it likely reduces a chance of them being taken by pirates and that has made them insurable. The Iranians knocking out one or two tankers will make the Strait of Hormuz an uninsurable passage or it will make that insurance so costly that commercial entities will not be willing to undertake that journey. Right now, Donald Trump has said the United States will act as the insurer. I know, man. Like, it will be a lot of tankers for us to buy if the Iranians keep, you know, they've knocked

out two large vessels overnight. It seems unlikely. Donald Trump has said a lot of things, right? Not all of them are true. Even in the last few weeks, Donald Trump said a lot of things about the Strait of Hormuz that were not true. So we will see. But I wanted to explain some of those threats.

Let's have to talk about the specific naval threat now, that IRGC Navy. Canadian women are looking for more. more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tomorrow night, our 2026 IHeart podcast awards are happening live at South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeart Radio.

Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at vips. or the Veeps app. I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final Rose rejected.

The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center, of a very strange paternity scandal.

The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.

This season, an epic battle of He Said She Said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.

Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy.

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wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so let's move on to discussing what exactly this means in the current era, right? When the United States is saying the Strait of Hormuz is open except for Iran shooting at ships, and Iran is radioing ships right now and telling them that they're not allowed to enter the Strait of Hormuz, and then obviously threatening them if they do. So what we will see right now in the Strait of Hormuz is this situation where Iran has a few mechanisms for attacking. these ships, right? The one that's being talked about

the most are mines. And the mines that Iran has, to my understanding, and just straight up World War II, like sea mines. Have you ever played Mine Sweeper Garrison? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they look like that, right? They have these big contact fuses on them. That is what they are, right?

The way the current works in a straight-of-homuz if they can kind of circulate around, which will make them, you know, you can't be like, okay, this area is mine. We're just going to avoid the mines, yeah. Right, like this whole straight is mine now. And as we covered in ED on Friday, the US doesn't have a great capacity to remove those mines. But the thing which has been less discussed is that the IRGC has tons.

And if they don't have, if they run out, it's very easy to make more, right? Of like civilian fast boats, think of a little boat with a motor on the back and a belt fed machine gun in the front, right? Like, very easy to take those boats and swarm a large vessel, right? Like, even if that vessel has private security on board, the straightforward moves is 21 miles across. Like, you could harass people if you had a jet ski. Yeah. You could have a little jet ski technical, but just a...

Yeah, yeah, with an RPG on the back. Yeah. Yeah. The most dudes rock vessel that has ever taken to the seas. Yeah, I might have to hand it to that. How do you see if they did that? Under very few circumstances. Under no circumstances, yeah, do you have to hand it to the Iranian state in any capacity?

No, I'm shitting around. I think the state of Iran is a terrible, misogynist, violent, and oppressive entity and shouldn't exist, just to be like super duper clear. They also have what are called uncrewed surface vessels. I'm sure they use the gender neutral framing. but they are think of a large think of a boat that doesn't have anyone

driving it right and it was uncrewed surface vessels that they used last night at the time of recording to explode a tanker in the port in Basra right? Okay. Very hard for the United States to stop

these uncrewd surface vessels right? They are like the shihed drone of the ocean. This boat's not coming home. It's designed to eliminate another boat, but it can be it could be steered, right? It's not just like a torpedo. So what exactly are the options, I guess, for the United States? Trump has offered to secure shipping through the Strait of Formoos, right? He offered to accompany ships. The Navy doesn't have the capacity to do that,

to accompany the amount of the world's shipping that goes through the straight of form moves would require masses of ships to accompany them, right? They'd have to travel. at the same speed as these ships. Some of these ships are flagged to countries all over the world, right? Including countries the US doesn't have the best relationship with, especially right now. The companies could hire more private maritime security, and I'm sure they will. But also, like, part of the role of private maritime security companies is to be, like, don't do that.

It's too dangerous. And going through a straightforward move right now is probably too dangerous, right? Sure. So I don't know how you would quickly equip a ship in a way that you could be like cast iron secure that it will be able to fend off like a little swarm of little boats trying to attack it, right?

I don't think an RPG could sink one of these ships but it could really fucking give it a bad day. Oh yeah. Like it's not a good situation when there's a hole in your boat from what I understand. So like the other option would be for the US to put personnel on these ships which would be problematic from a number of approaches, right?

It is a Liberian flagship, and now you're asking, like, what, U.S. Marines to risk their lives to defend the Liberian flagship, so everyone can get their TEMU purchases and, like, we can not slow down global trade. Like, there is not a good option here. Like, the state, the states of the world couldn't find a good option when we were dealing with piracy in 2009, 10, 11, and 12, right? They felt better outsourcing the accountability for that to private companies. The states didn't want to have to wear the reputation damage for like, this boat once again opened up with a belt fed on what turned out to be a fishing vessel or they felt like that liability was too much for them, right? So they didn't want to do it and they would much rather

have private companies do it. I don't really see an option here that, like, makes the shipping safe going through this area. You could not start a war with Iran. Yeah, yeah, that is a really good option, actually. One that, sadly, that ship has sailed, as they say, Garrison. But yeah, it is, this industry is already problematic. Like, even before the United States started bombing Venezuelan and Colombian fishing vessels or vessels that are accused of being drug traffickers,

there has been a long history of a lack of accountability for. people being killed at sea and for people being abused at sea through labor violations. I don't really see a way we come out of this without more damage to innocent lives, right? Like either the United States just decides that it's going to go like scorched earth on any boat it sees in the straight of Hormuz that isn't like a big tanker. But even then these these vessels, they're not all U.S. flagged, right? the US doesn't have a means to be like, okay, you can go now, you can't go now. Like, the straightforward moves is not in the United States.

It can't, it doesn't control that water. And so I don't really see a solution for this. Now, like, one thing that the world of private maritime security shows us is that neoliberal globalism is willing to look the other way a great deal and allow a great deal of violence. On behalf of corporations, not on behalf of the state, right? Like when people are getting engaged by these vessels, it is to protect property. Granted, sometimes it is also to protect life, right? Like these pirates have killed people and kidnap people and such.

But the state has been willing to cede its monopoly on violence at the high seas because it could find a good solution to this. And it's been willing to overlook a lot of loss of life. And I just don't see a way that this doesn't lead to more loss of life. And that is probably what we have to look forward to. It may have already begun happening in the straight of Hormoos between when we record this and when you hear it. But it is deeply concerning and pretty shit, given that there are so many people just trying to make their way and live their lives in that area. Yeah, it's a happy one. Shout out to Greenpeace for also for also patronizing these companies.

Yeah, you told me this was going to be a recording about pirates. There were pirates in it. There was some big, yeah. I don't know if you're a pirate and you're listening, I would love to hear from more pirates. Between the pirates, the private maritime contractors and the governments, it's like everyone here has their own issues. Yeah. And all these issues are getting massively intensified by the conflict in Iran, obviously.

Yeah, before we even talk about the ecological crisis that we will see in the Gulf, right? Like, you start putting holes in oil tankers that is going to be absolutely horrific for the environment, again, in an area where people are ready to struggling to make it by. I mean, why don't they just pull a, pull a Fitzcaroldo? Why don't they just pull those ships up? Oh, God. Just avoid the mass of land. Just avoid this straight altogether.

Maybe people haven't seen this. And this surfaces like every three days right now on Twitter. Like, why don't they just go across land? It turns out that mountains big, mountains hard, water doesn't like going uphill, quite a challenging terrain to transit. I think maybe people don't realize that 80%, I believe it's 80% of global trade still travels by boat. Yeah. Like, it is still the way that most things get to most places.

And I think we are about to find out that the boat ignores are about to find out. If this continues for weeks or months, then it will be incredibly detrimental. Is this a good or a bad time to enter the private maritime contracting business? How much are you enjoying your life? decently well. Okay, yeah. Probably stay out of it if I was you. Because they've got to be getting a lot of money,

but also they're in one of the most high-risk positions they've probably ever been in. So... Yeah, this was already an area of military contracting that people looked to get into and get out of, I would say. Okay. Like, the bulk of these folks now will be, the ones I've met have been Colombians.

The Colombians provide a lot of military contractors around the world now. The people who are able to get out of it will do business in other areas, right? Like they'll do the private close protection and stuff like that. There are protective details for journalists I know in who are operating in Iraq right now. Sure. Yeah, these people will be making a lot of money, I think especially like probably consulting right now with global shipping.

I was reading about the East India company this morning. I was learning, for instance, that the value of a T-ship leave in China would be a billion dollars in 2024 money, which is how like these private marriage. maritime security companies in another age were able to develop, right, because it was worth boat jacking that boat, pirating, whatever that's called, because of the value of tea at that time. So, like, it's not a new problem, but there was a relatively short period of time in global trade history in which a state attempted to advance any form of hegemony over the high seas. And it is completely retreated from that in the 21st century. And it will be

very difficult for any state to try and regain that now. I don't see, even the United States doesn't really have the capacity to do that. Garrison looks ponderous. Yeah, well, I guess I'll cancel my T-Moo orders. They'll come. Someone right now is strapping a belt-fed machine gun to a boat to make sure that you get your team-moo orders. It is like really kind of fucked that we're asking like people to run a minefield. Right, like, and I understand global trade, it's not just T-Moo orders, but certainly a lot of stuff is

consumed in the global north, it doesn't need to be consumed. And it is wild that right now, the solution of the global shipping industry seems to be some of these people will die, but we will keep the oil moving and the treats moving. But that has been, as I hope I've illustrated here, right, like some people will die, but we will keep the treats moving, has been pretty much the status of the shipping industry for most of the 21st century. Yeah, yeah, it's the status of the entire world at this point. Yeah, yeah, that is the capitalist logic, right? It's just, it's like particularly, I think particularly naked here. Yeah, highly recommend the Outlaw Ocean podcast if you're interested in learning more about this.

I will link to some of the J-Store Deep Dive that I went on this morning. If you are able to get past a J-Store paywall and would like to read that, I think that's about all we got. Anything else you want to say about boats, garrison? Now is the age of pirates. Yeah. Our flag means a complete lack of accountability. What could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow night, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards

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You guys are awesome. Watch live tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific, free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn.

A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jay Chetty. podcast, my latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. You desire in family like this picture, and that's not reality. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life, and I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Roll Doll. Willie Wonka and the BFG.

But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.

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