Oh honestly.

Someone please tell Iran to quit fucking with my research papers? Everytime I nail something down, and get it tight-n-proper, they go and completely screw with it. Oh yes, lets better our relations with Iran! Let's do some investing! Oh - oh, no, just kidding, fuck you guys. You aint gettin' shit.

Really, i miss the old royal navy days. A nice proper invasion into Iran would be a sight to see. Who wants to bring back grog and sail? It'd be fun, guys, I promise; we'll even give you Katyushas. Well, we wont, but im sure we could direct you to a dealer at your leisure.

Although, now that I think about it, maybe if I ask nice enough, Ahmadinejad will grin at my paper, and the damned thing will write itself.

To be fair, this is a serious problem not only in the writing of my final paper for this Geopolitics of Energy class, but in more real-world terms issues of sovereignty and the murky world of marine navigation, territorial waters, and busy small waterways.

The article linked above mentions that the British naval vessel was operating 1.7 nm within Iraqi waters, while the Iranians claim they were 0.3nm within Iranian waters. This isn't the first (and most likely not the last) time that the Brits have found themselves breaching Iran's sovereignty by going into their waters, but the real situation is entirely a matter of admiralty court ruling.

That vessel being in Iranian waters is technically an act of war. However, the capture of British military personel is ALSO an act of war, especially if they were in Iraqi waters. What makes it difficult is that those waters are still highly contested, and there is, to my knowledge, official MOU on the agreed upon line.

The problem, in my opinion, is one of my favourite IR issues - breach of sovereignty. I love this stuff, and i can't think of a problem in IR that doesnt relate to it in some way or form. With the exception of civil wars, i think most conflicts really boil down to sovereignty concerns at the core. and in a conventional sense, the easiest way to breach sovereignty is to invade territorial waters or airspace. As some of my military buddies might mention, getting close enough to make the other guy nervous is half the fun, but when you cross their line, you usually get shot at.

Generally, the international standard for territorial waters is 12nm, however, in waterways which are less than 12nm, there must be agreement between the states connected to the waterways on how much of the SLOC belongs to whom - and it isn't always half and half.

I'll let you guys know what the UN says on this once i find the info.