Trump's Kharg Island Threat Collapses as USS Boxer Breaks Down

A mysterious rumor circulates through Washington's political and business circles as we speak. The ace warship Donald Trump originally intended to use for a major assault on Iran's oil lifeline mysteriously disappeared midway through its journey for over a hundred days. This bizarre vanishing act has left even Pentagon insiders tight-lipped.

The drama began in March of this year. Trump repeatedly threatened to "completely obliterating" Kharg Island if Iran refused to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and sign a new agreement. This island serves as Iran's economic lifeline and handles about 90 percent of the country's crude oil exports. If captured by the US military, it would trigger an immediate financial collapse for the Iranian regime.

Kharg Island: Iran’s strategic crude oil export lifeline.

The US Navy responded on March 19 with a high-profile deployment of its most powerful island-capturing ace. The USS Boxer amphibious assault ship departed from the San Diego naval base in California with 2,500 fully armed Marines and sped toward the Middle East. Global media naturally speculated that a genuine amphibious landing was imminent.

This warship is no ordinary vessel. The USS Boxer measures over 250 meters in length with a displacement exceeding 40,000 tons, making it comparable to a light aircraft carrier. It can rapidly deploy M1A2 main battle tanks alongside heavy armored vehicles when fully loaded with 2,500 Marines. The ship also features a field hospital and an ocean-going command center.

It remains the only main surface combatant in the US military's beach landing system capable of executing heavy-duty island-capturing missions. Aircraft carriers merely drop bombs, while destroyers only fire shells. The entire US military relies on this single ship to actually deploy troops onto foreign shores and occupy territory. Iran had anticipated this move early on and stood in strict readiness for a direct confrontation with the USS Boxer.

The reality is far less intimidating. Sources close to the military recently leaked information revealing that the USS Boxer went completely silent after passing through the Strait of Malacca. The massive warship repeatedly delayed its appearance in the combat zone. Whispers within small circles suggested that the ship's core propulsion system was completely crippled.

USS Boxer: US military’s core island-capturing warship.

Its speed reportedly dropped below that of a common fishing boat. The catastrophic failure forced the vessel to undergo on-site repairs on an isolated island in the Indian Ocean. The ensuing delay stretched for over 100 days and rendered the original landing timetable completely obsolete.

The US military's only frontline ship capable of executing an island-capturing mission practically evaporated at the most critical moment. Trump's bold claim to destroy Kharg Island was likely doomed to fail from the very beginning.

The truth finally emerged on July 9. The American news website Newsmax published an exclusive report citing three officials that confirmed the USS Boxer did indeed experience a malfunction. A problem with the main circulation pump of the engine cooling system forced the ship to undergo repairs and await spare parts at the joint US-UK base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The official version naturally avoided verifying the specific number of days rumored by the public. However, US officials themselves confirmed the malfunction, removing any doubt of unilateral speculation. The US has yet to provide a complete timeline detailing the exact delay or the true severity of the breakdown. Washington offered only a relatively downplayed explanation, keeping the exact truth closely guarded.

The Delay: Propulsion failure strands USS Boxer in June, delaying mission.

The ordeal of the USS Boxer is hardly an isolated incident. Higher-level official documents had already sounded the alarm well in advance. A 2024 report by the US Government Accountability Office explicitly pointed out that half of the 32 large amphibious ships currently active in the US military are in a state of poor readiness. Five out of the seven Wasp-class amphibious assault ships are actively experiencing issues.

General Eric Smith, Commandant of the US Marine Corps, previously admitted to Congress that the shortage of amphibious ships has reached a crisis level. He estimated it would take at least 10 years to resolve this systemic decline. The aging and low readiness rates of the US amphibious fleet are fully confirmed by the highest levels of the US military.

The Challenge: Complex maintenance heavily delays open-sea deployments.

The timing of these events is particularly intriguing. Trump suddenly acted out of character on June 11, right around the time the USS Boxer reportedly broke down. He announced the cancellation of a bombing operation against Iran scheduled for that very evening. He claimed that Iran's supreme leadership had approved the final terms of a new agreement, temporarily resolving the Strait of Hormuz crisis.

Less than three months passed between his bold claims to destroy Kharg Island and his hasty cancellation of military action. This pivot perfectly overlaps with the USS Boxer's maintenance cycle while stranded in the Indian Ocean. Trump likely knew he had no available forces left and resorted to diplomatic rhetoric to save face.

The key point is that an aging warship with over 30 years of service became the last straw for the US military's amphibious island-capturing capabilities. This fragile straw snapped at the most critical moment, suggesting the underlying truth is far more complex than the public narrative.

Washington remains eager to drop threatening rhetoric on social media to intimidate its adversaries. Yet, its actual execution capabilities fall dramatically short of even the most basic deployments. American hegemonic confidence is simply no longer what it used to be, a reality the Pentagon dares not answer directly.

Deep Throat

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

The future belongs to artificial general intelligence (AGI). China and the United States are pursuing different strategies in the contest for global leadership.

But one US national security think tank wants to take the rivalry to an extreme. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has gone so far as to suggest that Washington consider extreme measures to stop China from achieving AGI first.

CNAS released “Superpowers and AGI” report late last month.

Jacob Stokes, one of the report's authors and a former White House official, called on the US to prepare itself. He listed possible extreme measures, from diplomacy and espionage to cyberattacks and coercive steps. Among them: military strikes on Chinese data centers.

Stokes, one of the authors of the report urged extreme steps, even strikes on Chinese data centers.

CNAS is headquartered in Washington and was founded in 2007. It has long advised the US government on defense, Indo-Pacific and China strategy. Its lean is hawkish.

Late last month, CNAS released a report titled “Superpowers and AGI”. The document reeks of gunpowder. It argues that the race for AGI, and the technology's potential emergence, could profoundly affect US-China competition. It could also heighten the risk of military conflict or catastrophe on multiple fronts.

The Containment Checklist

To that end, the report urges US policymakers to act on several fronts. First, ensure that American resources and technology do not aid China's AI development. Second, establish AI-focused diplomatic channels with allies and with China, so that the potential emergence of AGI is placed on the agenda. Third, develop a technically sophisticated method to track the inputs into AGI and the key performance thresholds of frontier AI systems.

The list goes on. Washington should conduct scenario exercises testing when and how the US should intervene to halt China's AGI development. It should prepare to reverse-engineer or steal the technology should China obtain AGI first. And it should limit and contain the reach of authoritarian digital infrastructure.

The most extreme proposal of all is military strikes. The South China Morning Post reported on 4 September that Stokes, deputy director of CNAS's Indo-Pacific Security Program, addressed an online event on Thursday.

His message was blunt. The US Department of Defense, the National Security Agency and other agencies should begin assessing what intelligence would be needed to justify such operations. That would pave the way for the "hard action" to follow.

The Cold War Playbook

Stokes served as a national security staffer under former US president Barack Obama. In the report he unabashedly lays out a menu of what he calls "diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kinetic measures." Among them are military strikes on the data centers that train and run China's AGI systems. He even touts preventive strikes before China develops AGI at all.

Stokes goes so far as to compare the undertaking to the way "in a past era, policymakers would learn about nuclear weapons." His declared method is to "work backwards from the science to the policy implications."

Citing assessments by research outfit Epoch AI, the report notes that the US currently leads China in advanced AI models by only "months." But it warns that China could pull off an "unexpected technological breakthrough" in fields such as robotics and "embodied AI."

Citing research institute Epoch AI data, the report sees China pulling off surprise breakthroughs.

Notably, Stokes also concedes a gap on the American side. The US government and its intelligence agencies have "not been organised for espionage to gather technological secrets for decades."

"The Height of Recklessness"

Stokes' extreme remarks have drawn questioning within the United States itself. William Hartung, a senior arms and defense budget expert at the Washington-based non-profit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), publicly slammed the report as "the height of recklessness."

Hartung warned that any strike on Chinese data centers would "risk starting a shooting war between two nuclear-armed powers". Such a war could bring tragic consequences for all concerned.

China has consistently maintained that AI should be people-centered and that intelligence should serve the good. Military applications must remain under human control. Beijing opposes turning technological issues into bloc confrontation or weaponry.

Make no mistake: technological competition is no casus belli. When individual American politicians and think-tank figures reach for threats of "military strikes" and "espionage" at every turn, they gravely violate the basic norms of international relations. They also expose a dangerous bid to politicize and militarize technology.