International Commerce & Smuggling

Just a short note on this issue since it’s directly related to the drone strikes on the Russian airfields and the drone strikes on Tehran that eliminated key officials. One of the main factors in commerce is the speed of a product’s delivery. Every Gym reader ought to be familiar with the large cargo shipping containers pictured in the header photo. Searching each container would take many people and lots of time thus driving up transport costs and vastly slowing the speed of delivery. One key complaint from 2023 was the lack of enough border crossings between Russia and China for their current level of commerce which has close to doubled since then. Not just more crossing points but more customs portals and warehouses surrounding those portals along with personnel to staff it all were required. And the issue while improved was again mentioned in 2024. And the issue isn’t just related to Russia-China trade, but all of Russia’s international trade terminals despite the sanctions.

Now for Iran, Pepe Escobar recently toured some of Iran’s trade portals in which he made no mention of security screening of all those containers being offloaded. That’s how Mossad was able to infiltrate the vehicle mounted drones into both Iran while a combination of parties was likely responsible for the Russian operation. I recall back when Russia introduced its Kaliber cruise missile there were pictures showing them hidden inside a standard shipping container.

The types of weapon systems that could be hidden within a shipping container are as many as one might imagine—a drone swarm launcher is just one of several. Some were said to be emplaced in false tops of containers. Here’s a short 3-minute video of Shanghai’s port operations that shows the immensity of the operation and lack of human contact with what’s being transported. Now, neither Russian or Iranian port operations are that voluminous, what happens is still very similar—very few if any containers have their contents scrutinized. This makes it easy to smuggle. Yes, there are some large detectors aimed at “sniffing” for radioactive things, but little more is done. Once the container lands, it gets shipped via rail or road to its destination. It’s entirely possible for the Ukrainian drones to have landed at Vladivostok and shipped via rail then road to a destination where they were then driven to a location near to the ultimate target without the drivers being aware of what they were delivering. It appears that something in that delivery system didn’t work which is why some were exposed and detonated. In the Iranian case, IMO it would be possible for soldiers and their weapons to be transported inside a container.

It’s just as possible for similar systems to have been smuggled into the Outlaw US Empire. IMO, something will be done to increase shipping security, but whatever gets done will impact its cost. Some will opine that the risk is small; I would say the lessons already taught speak for themselves.

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