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PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   272 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 11, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I would like to know what makes this different than piracy, if anything.

Piracy is illegal under international law; sanction enforcement with the ascent of the flagged country is not.

The US says it had a "seizure warrant" for it. What does that mean?

It means it went through the procedural process to receive a warrant for seizure, the exact jurisdictions of which apply depends on the case- but which often includes the country under whose flag the vessel was under.

Was the vessel subject to US laws at any point, violated them, and this is the result?

Not just US laws, but the laws of other states- such as those it is seeking the flag protection of. Who, themselves, have interests that are subject to US law, which is why US sanctions have so much international influence.

The US says that the tanker is sanctioned. What does this mean? Economic sanctions usually mean, "I won't do business with you," can a sanction mean, "I won't let you do business with someone else, and if you do I'll seize your vessel in your waters?" At what point is a sanction a war with fancier language?

Not here, since your analogy breaks down in two places- 'your waters,' which gets into the degrees of territoriality at sea which do not prohibit various actions, and 'your vessel,' which goes to the country of flagging, not the nation of proximity or travel.

The most relevant factor in play, and most common in cases of of sanction enforcement against ships that try to seek protection of the sovereignty of other states, is if / when the nation whose flag a vessel is sailing under agrees to rescind protection / allow a seizure. This can be the formal permission of a seizure warrant, and can happen when the flag-state whose sovereignty would be infringed is provided with evidence / reason to rescind protection.

This is where sanctions law comes into play. International law not only recognizes the sovereign right of states to say 'I won't do business with you,' but also 'I won't do business with people who do business with you.' Many states, in contexts where their own significant interests are not on the line, will happily give their own sovereign ascent to sanction enforcement at sea rather than fall afoul of the sanctioner's sanctions.

"Guyana's maritime authority said Skipper was falsely flying the country's flag." Does this impact the legal calculation?

Massively. Ships don't have legal rights to sail the seas unmolested under international law, states have legal rights to sail ships unmolested at sea. This distinction has two effects.

First, if a ship is falsely flying under a country's flag, it has no actual legal protection. The legal protection derives from the sovereignty of the flagged nation, not the ship itself. There is no sovereign infringement to Guyana if Guyana never extended its sovereignty to the ship.

Second, if a ship is recognized as falsely flying the flag of a country, that country is far less likely to try and to provide political cover to it, and far more likely to agree to the political actions of a requesting power. Such as acceding to a request to support seizure, whether through supporting a warrant or otherwise.

Outside of the numerous questions, I'm getting Iraq war vibes from this. "They support terrorism! They have weapons of mass intoxication! The people will thank us, the leader is a dictator, etc etc."

'Trump is being a neocon' is the latest Trump Bad take, and Jon Steward recently spread it further (although he didn't start it- that's been the Venezuelan and associated angle since this started).

Will the US have boots on the ground in Venezuela in a year?

Maybe. I wouldn't advise betting one way or the other.

It seems so contrary to Trump's MO, what is going on here?

Did you read the US national security strategy that released last week? That is the second Trump Administration setting out it's MO.

While most of the media has fixated on the European dynamic, one of the more significant parts is the strategy's elevating of the Western Hemisphere in the order of administration priorities. There's a fair deal of subtext and background context as to why and what purpose and how Venezuela stands in there.

The more relevant point for your question is that Venezuela is one of the personal priorities of Marco Rubio, who is not only the Secretary of State but also Trump's National Security Advisor. He is the first person to hold both positions in the Presidential cabinet since Kissinger, and both positions give him substantial influence over American strategy such as the NSS. They also give him substantial influence over American policy, since Trump prefers the pageantry of being President to actually managing the bureaucracy, and Rubio is able to present his desires as aligning with Trump's stated goals (which Rubio helps write into stated policy).

Marco Rubio, who is not only the Secretary of State but also Trump's National Security Strategy

Somehow still yes.

Ha, feudian slip.

One of those was deliberate. ;-)

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