SINK ‘EM ALL: CDR Salamander: The Sinking of the Dena Was Textbook …the chart don’t lie.

Take a look at the chart above that I yanked from NYT.

What it represents are the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) out of the Persian Gulf/Arabian Gulf. Each of those dots is a tanker delivering the hydrocarbons that enable modern civilization to exist and keep three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the stable.

The one center-screen? That is the SLOC our warships and their logistics chain use to move from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean and on to our fleet.

See the city of Colombo? That is the main commercial hub on the island nation of Sri Lanka. The very center of the SLOC that flows south of Sri Lanka lies about 40 nautical miles south of the island.

Until you understand the above, you really should not be even starting a conversation about the sinking of the Iranian frigate, IRIS Dena, by a US Navy SSN. . . . No naval leader in the last three thousand years would have looked at this scenario and said, “No, leave that warship alone.”

This was probably one of the most justifiable sinkings of a warship in recent history.

Read the whole thing.