The United States is no longer warning its adversaries. It is physically denying them resources.

In late 2025, Washington crossed a doctrinal threshold. Sanctions—long treated as financial abstractions—are now being enforced at sea, in real time. Ships are seized. Cargo is destroyed. Supply chains are disrupted mid-route.

Clearly, this marks a shift from deterrence-by-threat to deterrence-by-denial, aimed not at signaling displeasure but at preventing power from materializing.

For decades, sanctions relied on compliance and fear of future punishment. That model collapsed under adaptation.

Evidently, sanctioned states learned to reroute oil, launder ownership, spoof AIS signals, and exploit maritime insurance gaps. The result: an unaccountable rise of the shadow fleet.

By 2024, an estimated 15–20% of the global oil tanker fleet was operating in gray or illicit markets, moving sanctioned crude from Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. Enforcement became sporadic; evasion became routine. Time favored the sanctioned.

Accordingly, Washington has chosen to upend that dynamic.

Meanwhile, off Venezuela’s coast, U.S. authorities intercepted the tanker Skipper just as a........

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