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More from @johnkonrad

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

May 9

Y’all don’t know the half of it.

I met with the recently fired Secretary of the Navy before his confirmation, and I had repeated contact with his staff. The reforms they planned were revolutionary.

The day before he was fired, he held a press conference. I was deliberately excluded.

The owner of the most-read maritime and Navy website in the world, and his most vocal supporter, frozen out. And not just from his remarks. His staff pushed me out of everything.

People who left naval journalism years ago were invited to host panels at the conference. I’m honestly surprised my press pass wasn’t canceled.

My Pentagon press pass has been rendered nearly worthless. The NYT lawsuit forced SECWAR to kick every reporter out of the press corridor.

When the pass was issued, we were told the whole point was to get reporters out of the building and onto the bases, talking to actual sailors and troops.

How many ship visits have I been able to arrange since? One. And only because I was traveling with the SECWAR himself.

I’m working on another project I can’t discuss publicly. A simple advisory gig.

I was asked in early February. It is now May, and I am still in administrative hold.

In the last few weeks I’ve spoken with Tata, Elbridge Colby, Hegseth, and the SecNav team about it. Nobody can budge “the process.”

The other people I’m supposed to be working with have been sworn to secrecy, so we can’t even compare notes.

A few months ago, I helped an active duty senior officer work through an assignment. The bureaucratic sludge got so bad he gave up. Last week, that same officer was asked to serve as assistant secretary under a different cabinet member. That was handled in days.

He has the straight up approval from the White House but, of course, his chain of command won’t approve a TDY, so he needs personal signatures from both SECWAR & SECNAV.

I am nobody. But this officer is absolutely vital to our shipbuilding effort: active duty, in good standing, top eval reports.

Times were dark for me under Biden. NCIS opened a full investigation on me. I was literally pushed off the stage at the big Navy conference.

They watched me closely. But I could still get things done. I could still help Democratic friends land appointments & push bipartisan agendas across the line.

Every corner I turn now is blocked.
I have traveled with @PeteHegseth. I have friends in very senior positions throughout the Navy & the Pentagon. Everyone takes my calls. Everyone wants to help.

There’s no shortage of admirals willing to help either, which genuinely surprised me.

But there is always “a process.” And everything I have worked on has stalled inside it.

Just entering the building or scheduling a meeting has become its own ordeal.
Meanwhile, the literal worst reporter at CNN just filed from an active exercise.

And the worst part? I can’t even complain, because the transformation is real. Hegseth, Tata, Colby, Michaels, Doge & Hung Cao are doing excellent work.

They are working their asses off to get the warfighters what they need.
The operational & procurement reforms are real. But the more I praise them for it, the more “partisan” I get labeled & the bigger the pushback from the blob.

I have been reporting on the Navy for almost twenty years. I have never seen anything like it.

It is simultaneously the most ambitious operational reform I have ever witnessed & the worst bureaucratic obstruction I have ever encountered on structural change.

And Hegseth’s team should prioritize the people on the front line. My concerns are secondary.

All I’m saying is Dort is right. The blob has been suppressing everything.

That’s their trick. They don’t say no. They don’t block you. They just take days to respond to simple requests. Someone loses your paperwork. The process eats you.

I’m dying to share more details but anything negative I say will be used against Hegseth and Cao even though they are fighting tooth & nail to solve these problems.

The problem is the blob is smart.

They know what @PeteHegseth cares about. They know he puts the warfighter first and demands operational excellence.

So they let him have that, unencumbered, while quietly strangling his secondary and tertiary priorities.

What goes unspoken is the threat underneath: push those secondary and tertiary priorities too hard, and they will start throwing wrenches into the primary ones and the warfighters will suffer.

And anyone who thinks the blob won’t screw over the warfighters to get what they want hasn’t studied the Afghanistan withdrawal or Gaza pier.

The other BIG problem is this administration follows the rules

The last one didn’t.

All these MSM reports of war crimes is total bullshit. Hegseth has JAGs review everything. Senior Trump appointees don’t leak secrets to pressure the blob. They honor NDAs and legal process.

These guys are Boy Scouts fighting a rear action war against Marxists who don’t mind shooting their own and are outright happy to destroy us.

Which is why the majority of the MSM phsyop campaign is to paint them as criminals.

The Marxists always accuse the opposition of their own most deadly sins.

Read 4 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Mar 18

https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/2034251231334457819

Let's unpack this..

What if the White House has no intention of reopening the Strait of Hormuz?

What if this war is really about ships & tariffs?

I had a long discussion with senior DOE official yesterday on background. I can’t share any details but it’s clear everyone’s Strait of Hormuz calculus is wrong.

We need to go back to the drawing boards.

That's it. That's the tweet. Now a hypothetical 🧵 with my personal thoughts.

https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/2034251231334457819

Background on the Hormuz Crisis

You can skip this long section but know this: THIS IS ALL ABOUT SHIPS, SHIPS, SHIPS... and the US Navy giving them permission to pass.

The Strait of Hormuz is twenty-one miles wide. Two shipping channels, each two miles across, separated by a two-mile buffer. The normal traffic separation scheme runs through Iranian territorial waters, past the islands of Qeshm and Larak, where the IRGC has radar stations, missile batteries, and fast-attack craft bases overlooking every transit.

Twenty million barrels of oil and petroleum products flow through this gap every day. One-fifth of global consumption. There is no alternative. Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline to Yanbu and the UAE’s pipeline to Fujairah can handle maybe 5 million barrels combined. The math doesn’t work. The bottleneck is not political. It’s geological and hydrographic.

When those seven P&I clubs belonging to the International Group issued 72-hour cancellation notices for war risk coverage in the Persian Gulf, they didn’t just raise costs. They made transit impossible.

Here’s why.

P&I clubs insure roughly 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage. Without their coverage, ships can’t sail. Port authorities won’t let them dock. Banks won’t finance the cargo. Charterers won’t book the vessel. The entire system, from loading berth to discharge terminal, is underwritten by a chain of contracts that begins with a club in London, Oslo, or Tokyo.

When the clubs pulled war risk extensions on March 5, that chain broke. Not for a few ships. For the global fleet.

War risk premiums jumped from 0.25% to 1% of hull value, renewable every seven days. VLCC charter rates quadrupled to nearly $800,000 per day. Over 1,000 vessels are now trapped in the Persian Gulf, burning charter costs with nowhere to go. By March 3, only four ships crossed the Strait, down from a seven-day average of seventy-seven.

This is the part almost nobody in the media understands. Every TV analyst is talking about minesweepers and carrier strike groups. The binding constraint on Hormuz in the first week was not a minefield. It was spreadsheet in London.

Then Trump did something remarkable.

He ordered the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to create a $20 billion maritime reinsurance facility, with Chubb as lead underwriter, making the United States government the insurer of last resort for Gulf shipping.

A sovereign nation has positioned itself as the backstop for war risk insurance on the world’s most critical maritime chokepoint. The DFC facility, coordinated with CENTCOM and Treasury, offers hull, machinery, and cargo coverage on a rolling basis to eligible vessels.

The United States now controls the on/off switch for the Strait of Hormuz. Not through naval firepower. Through insurance.

But here’s the tell.

The DFC facility covers hull, machinery, and cargo. It does not cover P&I liability: pollution, crew injury, third-party claims. Moody’s flagged this immediately. Without liability cover, most shipowners still won’t sail. The facility is deliberately incomplete.

If the White House wanted the Strait fully open tomorrow, it could expand the DFC facility to cover P&I liability with one directive. It hasn’t.

That gap is not an oversight. It’s a strike price on an option the administration is choosing not to exercise. Yet.

But now that insurance is mostly settled the ships still aren't sailing. Why?

That insurance isn't backed by the DFC, it's backed by a green light from the US Navy. A green light that hasn't appeared.

Read the latest @DOTMARAD Navy warning carefully: U.S.-flagged, owned, or crewed commercial vessels that are operating in these areas should maintain a minimum standoff of 30 nautical miles from U.S. military vessels to reduce the risk of being mistaken as a threat

They can't pass without Naval ships stepping aside to let them through.

What was clear from the DOE conversation: Europe is going to have to figure this out themselves. And the White House is not sprinting to help.

I was hesitant to post this earlier today but the latest truth social posts confirms some of my suspisions.

so here goes...

Read 22 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Mar 3

X is producing excellent Iran coverage but also lots of slop. Ninety percent of what passes for “analysis” on the platform is recycled footage, unverified claims, and engagement-farming slop. Most of mainstream media is too focused on political theater to cover the military and economic dimensions that actually matter.

As founder of the most visited naval and maritime website on earth, @gCaptain, here's who I'm tracking on X

A 🧵

OFFICIAL PENTAGON & GOVERNMENT

Primary sources. When CENTCOM or 5th Fleet posts, that's ground truth. Start here.

@RapidResponse47 @DOWResponse @WhiteHouse

★ @CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) — The combatant command running Gulf operations. Every strike, every statement starts here.
★ @US5thFleet (U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / 5th Fleet) — Headquartered in Bahrain. Daily Gulf naval operations, carrier movements, task force actions.
★ @DeptofWar (Department of Defense) — Official DoD announcements. Slower than CENTCOM but carries full institutional weight.
★ @thejointstaff (The Joint Staff / CJCS Gen. Dan Caine) — 22nd Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. First non-4-star nominee. Advising POTUS on Iran escalation risks. When CJCS speaks publicly, maximum signal.
★ @USSOCOM (U.S. Special Operations Command) — SOF strategic messaging. When SOCOM goes public on Gulf ops, signal is maximum.
@USAFCENT (U.S. Air Forces Central) — Air operations in the CENTCOM AOR. Strike packages, sortie counts, BDA.
@aircombatcmd (Air Combat Command) — All active duty fighter/bomber operations funnel through ACC.
★ @DOTMARAD (U.S. Maritime Administration) — MARAD advisories on Gulf transit safety. Official U.S. government maritime safety voice.
@US_TRANSCOM - Logisitics wins wars

OFFICIAL PENTAGON & GOVERNMENT PEOPLE

@SecWar @PeteHegseth (Secretary of Defense) — High-level policy and strategy.

@PressSecDOW (Pentagon Press Secretary) — Official DoD spokesperson. Press briefing clips and statements.

@SeanParnellASW - assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs

@USAmbUN (Mike Waltz) UN Ambassador

@USNavyCNO (CNO Adm. Daryl Caudle) — 34th Chief of Naval Operations. Took over Aug 2025 after Franchetti removal. Gulf naval operations go through CNO.

Service Secretraries - @SECNAV @SecArmy @SecAFOfficial

USCG (unofficial) Secretary - @SeanPlankey

US Merchant MArine Secretary - @SecDuffy

@DNI_GOV (Director of National Intelligence) — Strategic intelligence assessments. Rare posts but maximum signal.

@PressSec - White House Press Secretary

@StevenCheung47 - White House Director of Communications.

@JerryHendrixII - Navy Vet. White House shipbuilding

@maphumanintent - Commerce

@Kristinawong - Department of War

Read 26 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Feb 20

BREAKING: A security company run by a Navy SEAL and EOD was fired from a BAE Systems shipyard after refusing to use untested EV patrol boats to guard U.S. warships.

The replacement? A mall cop company.

Their electric boat sank two days ago. They pulled it out. It smoked all day. Then it exploded into a major conflagration.

And as I've been screaming about for five years, there's STILL no proper fireboat in San Diego. 🧵👇

After the USS Bonhomme Richard burned for FOUR DAYS in San Diego — destroying a $1.2 billion warship I wrote directly to Vice Admiral Kitchener demanding the Navy buy fireboats.

They ignored me. They ignored Congress. They ignored Dr. @mercoglianos . They ignored every maritime professional who told them the obvious.

San Diego, homeport to hundreds of billions in warships STILL doesn't have a proper fireboat. gcaptain.com/us-navy-lied-c…

Read 18 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Jan 26

Here’s the ICE watch training video @camhigby found. Let’s deconstruct the first few minutes.

Lead by Eric Ward, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left NGO with nearly a billion-dollar endowment.

His academic work is in “Stochastic terrorism,” which is “using hostile public rhetoric, repeated and amplified across media and communication platforms.”

Literally, his expertise is manipulating minds.

He’s not an expert on peaceful protests. He’s not an operational guy. His background is in psychological warfare.

Participants were told “for their safety” they must “have training,” but this training isn’t about situational awareness, first aid, or practical defense against pepper spray.

It’s, in fact, teaching you how to mentally prepare to escalate violence.

Let’s look at his tactic.

First, a meditation session. Why? To get you “out of your brain” and in “touch with feelings.”

He then explicitly tells everyone to tune out everything but their feelings.

Next… the four thousand people here are being asked to confront armed federal agents.

What is the natural reaction for anyone confronting armed men?

Nervousness. I love the police; my father-in-law was an NYPD officer, but my heart beats faster when I’m pulled over by my local PD.

He’s telling them to listen to that “heat behind the eyes, tremble in your hands,” which is fine, but then he is lying.

He’s telling you to interpret that natural panic when facing authority as moral superiority and your “conscious.”

Next, he has to dehumanize opponents and set the stage for “us vs. them,” but this is tricky because almost every American knows a Republican.

So he says “I want to be clear who they are,” and he gets very specific so the picture of your MAGA uncle or priest doesn’t enter your mind.

Then he states the obvious, which everyone (even MAGA) will agree on:

“Renee Good should be alive.
Alex Pretti should be alive.”

I agree with that statement, but the question is who’s responsible for their deaths.

IMHO, the person most responsible is Eric Ward, but of course, he’s not going to blame himself.

Then he says, “The people who died at the hands of ICE snd border patrol should be alive.”

What people?

He doesn’t say. It’s not about the people; it’s about drawing a straight line from Renee and Alex to ICE.

Then he says,

“Let’s tell the truth.”

Which any kindergartener knows is followed by lies, but his listeners are in a trance from the breathing exercise.

Listen to the sing-song nature of how he speaks. It’s literally hypnosis. Hypnosis for the BIG whopper lie:

“Federal law enforcement is not here to keep us safe.”

Really, Eric? Maybe you can make an argument that some federal law enforcement isn’t here to keep us safe… but you didn’t specify.

You didn’t exclude organizations like the US Coast Guard, which is federal immigration law enforcement and does keep us safe.

Why? Because he needs to paint with broad strokes in case other agencies are called in.

Nad now the stage is set to dehumanize: “Federal law enforcement is killing people, beating people…”

And the worst lie: “Detaining people like disposable objects.”

Once you are hypnotized. Once you trust your feelings over facts. Once you know those feelings make you morally superior. Once you know ICE thinks you are “disposable garbage,” then you are prepared to act with violence!

Just trust your feelings and don’t look at the massive endowment the Southern Poverty Law Center has to fund physiological operatives trained in Marxist theory like Eric Ward.