RESEARCH PAPER
An easy target?
Types of attack on oil tankers by state actors
| 1 | Faculty of National Security, War Studies University, Poland |
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Submission date: 2019-07-09
Final revision date: 2019-10-22
Acceptance date: 2020-02-11
Online publication date: 2020-03-17
Publication date: 2020-03-26
Security and Defence Quarterly 2020;28(1):54–69
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
There was a huge reaction to the attacks that took place in the Gulf of Oman in May and June 2019 but, in fact, attacks on
oil tankers are a century old problem. Oil tankers appear to be easy targets because of their size and cargo. The main objective
of this paper is to analyse the effectiveness of different types of attack on oil tankers that have been undertaken since widespread
use of oil began. A comparative case-study approach was adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of attack on oil
tankers over the long-term, namely the last century. It briefly reviews the destructiveness of three anti-tanker campaigns during
the two World Wars. They are subsequently compared with two post-1945 sets of attacks in the Persian Gulf region – the Tanker
War of the 1980s and the 2019 attacks. The scale of damages inflicted by attacks on oil tankers is varied. The experience of both
World Wars shows their effectiveness. However, post-1945 events do not provide confirmatory evidence. The main difference is the
scale of hostile activities. It is not the characteristics of tankers that make them easy targets but political conditions (war/peace
state of international system) that enable the application of weapons and tactics that bring about a different scale of destruction.
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