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NATO as the cause of the largest disaster in the Red Sea.


Alex Po

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According to the report of the Atlantic Council, published at the end of July 2019, the Safer oil tanker could explode at any time, which would allow about 200 thousand barrels of oil to be spilled into the Red Sea.

 

For those who are not up to date, I recall that the tanker was built in Japan in 1976 by order of the Yemeni company and was used until 2015 - until the time when the civil war in Yemen began. Safer was fixed in 4.2 miles from the coast, actually turning it into floating storage and offloading facility - FSO. And from the shore, a pipe was stretched aboard, through which up to 200 thousand barrels of black gold can be pumped into 34 tanks of the vessel per day.

 

Thus, a dilapidated ship, which has stood at sea for more than four years without maintenance, and filled with more than 1 million barrels, threatens a massive environmental disaster. And the amount of oil in the tanker, by the way, is four times higher than in Exxon Valdes, which crashed off the coast of Alaska in 1989. This environmental disaster was considered the largest at sea until the accident of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

 

The easiest way to avoid a catastrophe is buyout of the ship from the Yemeni government by the UN (which will cost about 70 million euros today).

 

But why is NATO inactive? It is believed that this is due to greed. The ship is in the hands of a Shiite rebel group of Hussites, who consider it their war trophy and do not allow UN experts to conduct inspections on the ship. The Atlantic Council does not propose to enter into negotiations with them, explaining this by saying that "they must not dance to the tune of blackmailers, terrorists, etc." So, money has become more important than security, and the words about terrorism and so on are just an excuse?

 

An oil spill can be extremely devastating. Pollution of desalination plants will deprive tens of millions of people of access to fresh water (some of them are already on the verge of starvation). Also, marine ecosystems that protect the seas of the rest of the world from warming will collapse. The temporary closure of the sea routes of the Red Sea will cause a significant blow to the global economy. The situation will provoke new armed conflicts in the region because of the struggle for basic necessities to ensure human life. Moreover, a catastrophe off the coasts of Yemen, Oman, and Somalia will put an end to fishing, and most likely people will go the path of least resistance and choose to "take up guns and start pirating".

 

Safer can explode at any second, because the oil gradually settles, compounds remain on the surface, which eventually oxidize when exposed to air. As a result of chemical processes, heat is released and hence spontaneous combustion. There is no time for thoughts. Why does NATO do nothing?

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Giving terrorists money is bad, certainly.  But standing by and passively allowing an ecological disaster to happen is much worse.

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 Giving terrorists that sort of money will only result in far worse damage, because they'll then have more resources to wreak more havoc. As for why NATO doesn't get involved, why should we. Why not Russia, why not all the rich states around there who stand to lose the most if things go wrong. NATO is not the world's police. 

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The way I see it, this is a real "trolley problem".  It's a choice between actively committing a harmful act versus allowing a larger problem to cause much more harm.

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want to write titles that like aren't intentionally misinforming?

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