Summarizer

Yes, winning a war means achieving your political objectives. For example Iran wins this war even if they maintain the status quo. And they are on track to get even more, like obtaining ownership over the strait.

US can pull out and probably should. The impetus for the blockade on the Strait goes away when the US pulls out. Even the UAE said as much as which is why they are currently trying to pass a UN Security Council Resolution stating as much and get the RoW to show enough teeth to get Iran to back down.

Don't forget the coastal geography. Iran's coastline in the Persian gulf is longer than California's coastline, and they can do drone attacks anywhere in the Gulf, not just the narrow strait portion that everyone seems to focus on. Cuba allying with Iran is pure fantasy though. There's no logistical connection between the two nations. It would be as irrelevant as Greenland allying with Antarctica.

Iran also knows that Americans don't want high gas prices so they targeted Americans' wallets from the outset. If even a half-assed invasion attempt existed that so much as involved a single dock being damaged, the psychological damage to America would be intense. America hasn't really been invading in, what, 2 centuries? War is a thing that happens "over there", never at home. It's easy to dissociate and pretend it doesn't affect you. Once people realize they've poked a bear, regret sinks in fast.

> The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree Is that really true? Just claim that Iran's Nuclear ambitions have been destroyed, and anyone who needs oil can "Buy it from the US or get it themselves from Hormuz" - mission accomplished! With the US withdrawing (or atleast not attacking), Iran can stop the drone attacks and open Hormuz - collecting fees from passing ships, call it reparations and a win!

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. There is value in much of what you're saying in your post, even though I don't necessarily agree 100% with all of it. However, no one involved in planning or starting this attack, underestimated the size of Iran at all. All of that would have been covered by all briefings. The US admin and military knew all of this, and frankly has planned all of this. The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet. And yes, even the current admin takes advantage of this. So the real question is, what is the end goal? None of the noise we hear from mouthpieces is really it. I suspect that causing trillions in damage to Iran is likely simply it. A bloody nose. I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this. The US military, and daily briefings have all covered every aspect of what's been happening in the Ukraine war. They know. They've been studying it. They're not surprised by it. They 100% knew that Iran has been supplying drones to Russia in vast quantities. What I strongly suspect is that Iran is being given a message. One it didn't listen to when it was bombed months ago. Don't help Russia. Don't align with China. Don't sell oil to China. And also? Right now, all those drones made-in-Iran? All the munitions. All the missiles. All the tech they've been shipping Russia? It's ground to a complete halt. So whether or not Iran was stubbornly going to continue to export these things to Russia, it can't , as it needs them domestically now. Russia is now cut off from that supply chain, because Iran needs it for itself. If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage. The Ukraine war is serving its purpose. The West and the US are only supplying enough weaponry to keep Russia bleeding. Never enough weaponry for the Ukraine to win, never enough support, the US just trickles weaponry to them. The Ukraine just serves one purpose -- keep Russia fighting, keep it off the world stage, keep it bleeding all its power and might until it's a complete empty husk. Yet as Russia has pulled back, China has attempted to moved to fill that vacuum. It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this". Cutting Russia and China off, each for different reasons, could be viewed as a good success for the US. My thoughts are -- what's next? What other thing does the US want to cut off from China, and Russia? Because I suspect that's where things will pivot to. -- (One thought here is, about exit strategies, is that just walking away and leaving the straight Hormuz a mess, will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies. The US has been pulling back from policing shipping lanes world wide over the last 20 years, and unhappy with its allies for not taking up the slack, or what it deems a "fair share". With Hormuz, US allies will be forced to take up the slack, an interesting outcome. This too would be an immense success for the US.)

> will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies If it can't be done by the US navy, it can't be done by Western navies either. What will actually happen is the Eastern countries (including Australia for this purpose!) will just pay the toll. Much cheaper than a military operation. Iran has already achieved an important objective: getting un-sanctioned. All this "message" stuff? That's not coming in the public messaging. > If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage. This has certainly happened, but Russia can stop at any time. It's their Afghanistan (again) or Vietnam. Your analysis also completely leaves out the EU and rNATO role. > It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this". Intercepting international trade on the seas is just piracy. China may get the message but they're under no obligation to respect it.

The US didn't refill it's own strategic oil reserve before it attacked and raised its own oil prices, there is no foreseeable exit strategy where Iran doesn't now effectively own and charge usage for the straight, and Russia (and Iran but I digress) are now more able to sell their oil than before, bolstering their economy and helping them continue to attack Ukraine.

Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this. Isn't this just wishfull thinking? I mean, more mature administrations than Trump's have blundered into Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan without real exit strategies... Re: Iranian drones to Russia: Russians now (for quite some time) have their own production and development of Shahed derivatives, I doubt there are shipments from Iran to Russia. Re: policing Hormuz: Europe won't do it, for the same reason US is not doing it (it is an impossible task). Re: the overall aim: deny China the access to the Gulf oil, succeeding so far, but ultimately pointless (China will be lifted by greatly increased demand for its renewables and battery tech, as well as their electric cars)

It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter. It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however? In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear. I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.

> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. > Is this accurate, however? Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.) Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat. How do you propose to stop such a threat? Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk? We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians? I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW? Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?

> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however? There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.

What this current administration is doing speaks much more of a lack of strategy than what the Khans did in the 13th century. Not having any sort of counterplay to Iran's one big move (the blocking of the straight), in a nation of some of the brighest minds on the planet, speaks volumes of how advisors are clearly not being listened to. The powers of the once mighty Republic have seemingly been vested in the hands of a bunch of incompetent nepo babies.

that wasn't my argument. My argument is that the US has enough intelligent people to wargame what would happen in response to their initial strikes on Iran. That they seemingly have no available counter-play to the blocking of the straight of hormuz implies that they have dismissed any experts from the decision making process and are just winging it. Because... why would you start a war when you're weak to your opponent's first obvious countermove? So yea, you misread that to assume that I was making some quasi-racist statement about Iran. So my question to you, is why do you think you made that intentional misinterpretation?

> Trump is choosing to get it over with the easy way for America at least if they won't negotiate That is… not the easy way. That’s how you get a nightmare for decades to come, endless waves of refugees and a limitless supply of terrorists. Though, to be fair, there is no easy way of doing what Trump claims he wants to do. Which is why it’s spectacularly stupid to do it in the first place. I mean, they did not expect retaliation in the strait of Hormuz . Amateur hour does not even begin to describe it. Spectacularly stupid is probably way too kind. If you must learn from the Khans, you’ll find that decapitation is not enough. You need people to put in place of the former leadership, and enforcers so that the underlying power structure stays in place to serve the new masters. The reason why is that, as the US learnt in Iraq and Afghanistan, it takes a bloody lot of soldiers to keep a whole population in check. Trump does not want to do the former and does not have the latter.

>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not. is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power controls the shores is not a new thing. The Bosphophorous has been closed on and off by the Ottomans or Turks since 1453 and the allies couldn't break through in WW1. They can send raiding ships, use canons, artillery, naval mines etc. You don't need the new tech.

I think the point being made is that before Iranian drone doctrine (they were the originators of the long range drones, the FPV drones and sea drone which have dominated the Ukraine way too). A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open. Right now the US has 3 CSG in the middle east and nearly 50000 troops. After weeks of intensive bombing the strait remains closed and any associated asset in the region is at risk the loss of the E3 to drones is particularly shocking.

This is delusional. Iran has thousands of ASM on the coastline. They need 1 to make it through to take out a tanker. Even the best anti missile systems we have aren’t 99.99% reliable. It was always a losing proposition. Iran has always been able to close the strait. What I don’t get is why we need to take Kharg island. Can’t we just blockade ships selling Iranian oil?

I think the collective take might be too focused on the kinetic picture to see the underlying issue(s). 1) we want Iranian oil flowing and being bought elsewhere for the economy and to avoid hard decisions in Beijing, and as we’ve recently heard ad nausea money is fungible so… if one hasn’t thought to invade, dominate and occupy mountainous terrain filled with holy people, then ‘open’ means money to The Baddies. 2) it’ll only take a few wrecks to create navigation hazards, tankers are huge and that strait is shallow and narrow. The cleanup crews are slower, they also need massive ships. 3) let’s take a 0.01% reliability of missile attacks… drones, rpgs, suicide attacks, artillery, kamikaze plane attacks, mines, and trebuchets are also out there. So, again, unless we’re invading… fuhgeddabout 100% And, fatally: 4) it’s not the missiles, it’s the threat, and who is insuring the massive money-boats. If your insurance company thought your car would, 0.01% of the time, be blown up resulting in a total wreck and complete loss of cargo and future revenue, your policy would not be what it is. You insure your oil boat for trips, and if not you don’t move it. Trump doesn’t decide this, BigBoat Insurance brokers decide this, with their wallets and vibes. 0.01% x An Oil Tanker (slow, giant, vulnerable, + oil leak cleanup and ecosystem damage, loss of life) x totally foreseeable circumstances = a ‘closed’ straight on demand. Unless, again, the plan is invado-conquering.

> USN can still do whatever it was made for One of the primary functions of navies historically has been to secure vital shipping lanes. It’s a big deal that USN can’t seem to fulfill that function anymore.

I'm not sure that the USN would have been any more effective 30 years ago if it tried to make a narrow waterway that is off-shore from a medium-strength world power accessible for safe commercial ship traffic. Effective anti-ship missiles have been around for a long time. Given how understandably sensitive commercial ship crews and owners are to even slight danger, there's just no way to reduce the risk to the necessary near-zero without a prolonged air campaign and/or land invasion to support the naval effort.

The problem is that nowadays essentially nothing can really secure vital shipping lines ...

I agree in general, but I quibble with the "noticeable dent" part. I think that Iran is doing well given the enormous difference in power between it and the US/Israeli/Gulf Arab coalition, but the only way in which it is putting a noticeable dent in that coalition's assets is economical. And it is only capable of doing that because it is next to a vital narrow waterway and not far from some of the Gulf Arabs' fossil fuel facilities. So I don't think the situation generalizes.

The issues the US faces are political and humanitarian (and economic) rather than military. I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war. And of course, once you open the strait, you have to keep it open. The whole thing is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. It should probably also be pointed out that doing nothing has a cost too, and it's probable that the bill for doing nothing over a long period of time has come due. I, like most people, never bought the WMD claims leading up to Iraq. I'm not sure what to think here. I certainly don't buy that Iran wasn't working towards getting the bomb after how well it worked out for North Korea. I can't claim to know the calculus involved in determining whether or not it's worth going to war with Iran to stop them from getting the bomb.

The cost of doing nothing is going to be large. Apart from the oil, there is the fertiliser that isn't being shipped. That means that august crops are going to be down. Assuming its a good year. prices go up, which means we can expect a wave of overthrown governments (similar to the arab spring) in 12-24 months time. For the USA that means inflation, along with a credit crunch (probably)

> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war The US invaded Iraq and toppled its government; Iraqi militias are still firing drones and missiles at US bases. Tankers and oil infra are much softer targets… all it takes is hitting one or two tankers and folks will stop shipping.

> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war. The second half of that sentence is literally explaining why the "impossible" you reject in the first part.

I get the feeling you haven't read the article. The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason. The reason so many tankers have been lost and that E3 sentry is that the carriers are having to stay out of the preferred range and rely on refueling for the bombing campaign. If the CSG could move to the Iranian coast they wouldn't have to maintain a constant chain of refueling tankers which have become so vulnerable.

>The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason. umm, you have no idea what you are talking about. the Iranian Shahed drones typically have an operational travel distance of approximately 1,200 to 2,000 kilometers (roughly 750 to 1,250 miles). and >USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) CSG: As of March 30, 2026, this strike group is operating in the Arabian Sea supporting Operation Epic Fury. Satellite imagery from mid-February and March 2026 placed the Lincoln roughly 700 kilometers (approx. 430 miles) off the coast of Iran and Oman.

Yeah I don’t find this article particularly insightful. If we don’t have troops on the ground to prevent attacks in the straight, it would be always be vulnerable despite superiority. Shit if we don’t control the land, they could drop a bunch jet skis with bombs in the water in the middle of the night. The straight is only 21 miles wide at some points

Trita Parsi of RS had been saying weeks in advance that the Iranians would retaliate against gulf states collaborating with/supporting the US & Israel, would close the Strait of Hormuz, and would continue fighting until it established a pain threshold had been reached and acknowledged by its enemies, in order to prevent yet more "short wars". Iran's previous retaliations that were well choreographed and coordinated in advance with US & Israel would not be repeated. He was not alone in saying this, but he was one of the most prominent, connected, and learned people saying so. Much of the administration and news media are only catching up to all of this long after the fact. Many still cling to the idea that this was unforeseen, or irrational on the part of the Iranians.

You can't. Iran only needs to be credible in their threats to make crossing the strait too risky. And for that you only need a few missiles, drones and mines every so often. Asymetric warfare is a hell of a hole to dig oneself into, ain't it?

This gives drones way too much credit. The USN knew that Iran could block the strait of Hormuz back in the 80s. Anti-ship missiles were already effective and plentiful enough to do it then and they’ve only gotten more lethal since. The long term solution here is to build pipelines that eliminate the need to sail up the strait. Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me.

Yes, but they are much cheaper and quicker to repair when damaged than large cargo ships are and they don't need crews, so with pipelines you don't face the situation you do with ships, where even a small chance of the ship being hit results in almost all companies deciding to not risk sending the ships into danger.

Do the Iranians have to win against a Navy ship or an oil tanker? Asymmetric warfare suggests they would ignore the well fortified ship and wreak havoc on commercial shipping to get the same result. The Strait of Hormuz is so shallow and narrow that they only really need to sink two or three tankers to shut the whole thing down.

> You can't win with stand-off strike capability. You can't seize and control territory, you can't keep strategic choke-points open, you can't change regimes To be clear, there is zero historic evidence—going back to the Blitz—that strategic bombing has ever been able to do any of these things. Except the one about choke points. That isn’t strategic. It’s tactical. And using artillery or airpower for shaping operations absolutely works. > you can definitely lose by spending two or three multi-million dollar air defense interceptors per incoming projectile that costs 10x to 100x less Agree. Fortunately, the MIC seems to have recognized this. None of it fundamentally changes the value of carriers. It just means they need to be defended differently from before. Sort of how you can’t sent lone carriers out into the ocean, they have to be escorted.

Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait... Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers. The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack, precisely the kind of advantage that parties that put carrier groups in distance places to project power tend to be looking for. The ability to destroy lots of stuff in a relatively short time without losing a lot of personnel or exposing yourself. And that capability is now to a large extent available to states that before would not have been able to do meaningful damage to coastal cities and coastal infrastructure (think refineries and large scale shipping ports). And you can't even be sure that whoever operates the vessel is in on it. It's not going to help you to stop China from invading Taiwan if they decide to. But it could put a very large dent in the economic capability of any country or bloc that came under a concerted attack. Also note that 'drone' is a pretty wide label that crosses over into what previously was territory reserved for cruise missiles and ICBMs for air power and on the water there are many developments as well. So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it. And long term that just makes more enemies, it doesn't really solve anything.

Why might the US be using air power to strike targets which are inland in Iran? What characteristics of a submarine might be considerably problematic to doing that? Would these problems perhaps also effect a defensive mission to prevent air strikes on ships in the Strait of Hormuz?

you don't have to do a lot of damage to have a dramatic effect either. Imagine an airport near the coast, you don't have to destroy the airport but if one drone flattens the tires on one out of ever 50 planes on a runway the airport might as well be a smoldering crater. It's like a ddos attack and similar to what's happening in Iran today. All it takes is one drone to hit one tanker and a > 0% of it happening again and no one is sailing because their payload is uninsurable. In the same way, all it takes is one drone to disable one airliner and a credible threat it could happen again and no plane is taking off from that airport ever again.

> perturbed to see people talk of mass killings so casually I'm almost perturbed to not see it discussed at all. What are the casualty estimates of blasting open the Strait?

I'm just going to throw some napkin pointers and rough guesstimate-arithmetics here. -At the very minimum you would have to search and secure 130 000 square kilometers in a mountainous region, in a hostile country where you have no popular support, and where most of the male population has had somewhere around two years of military training. To be sure that Iranians couldn't lob anti-ship missiles into the strait, you'd probably need to double or triple that area. -And that's because of anti-ship missiles, with distances ranging from few hundred kilometers to thousand or more. And only one missile needs to get through to cause a mass casualty event onboard of a warship involving hundreds of people. So, assuming that troops get to the shore, then there's the slight peculiarity of modern warfighting. Drones. Cheap and plentiful, with FPV drones having the range varying from 30 to 60+km, you can be assured that visitors stay on shore or island(s) will be filled with plenty of activities such as listening to never ending buzzing of drones or trying to find cover from those drones. As good as US electronic warfare efforts might be, wire-guided FPV drones don't really care. So unless the US incursion is going to be anything but a short 30 minute visit to a largely meaningless Tump island we're probably going to be looking at hundreds of casualties if we are extremely lucky. If they really want to open and "secure" the Strait, I think we're going to be looking at Russo-Ukrainian war-tier butcher's bill. And since that would be perfectly fine for Israel, I think that's exactly what we'll be getting. I hope I'm wrong though.

Why can’t we bomb the missile bunkers that guard the strait?

hopefully this will all start to settle down around the end of this year if congress gets its teeth back and hopefully by the end of 2028. If it doesn't.... well then I despair, as the world I once knew is over. Already within the subreddits of my nation there is an increasingly dismissive attitude to the historic alliances that kept us safe for around the last hundred years and I can't blame them. Especially if Hormuz remains blocked and the US just walks away leaving this pile of sick of its own creation on the floor. I imagine a new rather loose coalition might rise of such a status quo and its possible that China becomes a major player in that, given its likely desire as a major manufacturer to keep trade open and shipping flowing, which is the opposite of what the US has been doing since 2025.

to quote: "in the Persian Gulf today, the Navy grasps the reality of the circumstances, recognizing that it simply can’t sail into the strait without risk getting blown to smithereens by Iran’s missiles. Today, its carriers are stationed well outside the Gulf and the ranges of Iranian missiles."

> And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam. And just like the Vietnamese, Iran doesn’t have to win against the US. They only have to not lose. They control the straight, and at $1 per barrel toll, they’ll be making $1 Billion a week. Trump owned himself. This is going to suck.

Brute forcing by spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on a military is not analogous at all to brute forcing in a game of chess, whatever that means. Regardless of the analogies, the reality is that even with all the resources the US spent on its military, after a whole month, it cannot guarantee safe passage through a body of water adjacent to a small time adversary. Which, as an American, is embarrassing in terms of ROI on tax dollars spent.

Iran does not 'control the waters', it is denying access; this is an importance difference. Lacking control means that Iran cannot make use of many of its naval assets, which they have invested in.

In pure amoral military terms, the US military has barely suffered a scratch in this war, losing only a few soldiers and pieces of equipment. It has failed to subdue Iran, so in that sense so far at least it has not achieved a victory. However, it has also not suffered a defeat. If the Iranian government ends the war still in power and with the ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed whenever they want to, I will consider that a a US defeat. However, the defeat would not have been caused by any serious damage that Iran has done to the US military, it would have been caused by the combination of Iranian resilience to damage and its geographic advantage of being right next to the Strait of Hormuz.

The position of the article seems to me to be it 'won't' because it can't. And that is an accurate assessment. It would take much more than the forces in the region, to secure the "strait". To actually secure the strait, you have to secure the entire Persian Gulf. It doesn't matter if tankers can pass through the strait only to be blown up just of Qatar. At it's widest the Gulf is about 360 kilometers, well within the range of most drones, aerial, surface and underwater. So they would have to protect every ship in the gulf, intercept all the drones all the time, or secure the entire coastline. It's simply a task air-power and naval power can't perform. Not without major casualties and without attacks going through. The US navies ships are good for real wars, but for casualties to be accepted, there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it.

Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way. The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can't imagine a way they could have performed better.

Right and also mines that could be (maybe have already been) dropped off by small craft.

> there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it. While I agree with you in principle, if I have learned anything about politics it is that under whatever political system you care to invent, the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.

The issue though is that this won't get us maritime supremacy. To get civilian tankers through the strait you need that. Iran will still take the occasional shot at these ships and who in their right mind would put their ship into a situation where there is even a 1 in 2000 chance you will be struck? At the end we will have boots on the ground, with real casualties, potentially a ship or two actually damaged and Iran unleashed and attacking everyone's critical oil infrastructure and water infrastructure. They will even probably find a way to hit a ship or two in the red sea just to spread the panic. My original point was that we could 'just blow things up' and get in there, not that we would succeed in achieving a great military objective.

Yes, i think the Trump admin has escalated itself into a situation that either involves ground troops or leaving without opening the strait. The first is bad due to the losses that will be incurred and the difficulty of holding territory.. for unclear strategic reasons (I thought we destroyed their nuclear program last summer / what was the urgency / is this even our war?). The second is bad because the strait was open before this started, so things are worse than starting conditions. That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior).

Correct - we can send in ground troops and fail to open the strait

In fact, that's the most likely outcome.

>That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior). As of right now, Iran looks likely to end the war with permanent control of the strait of Hormutz. They'll tax the gulf countries in perpetuity. Gulf countries can't reasonably afford to go to war with Iran over this either, and it's even less likely that they could prevail in such a conflict. Gulf countries can't even afford to go to war with Iran now, with the US actively fighting there. Iran can suffer terrible short-term and medium-term economic consequences while still establishing a whole new kind of dominance over the region.

Straights have been impossible to force since Churchill tried to force the Bosphorus in 1915. Placing ships in a narrow target area that can be pre-sighted is a losing proposition, a single artillery gun could mission-kill a destroyer in hormuz - mines/torpedos/drones could sink a ship in a place where rescue may not be possible.

This is the guy that ignored warnings that Iran would respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz. He was briefed on exactly this scenario and decided he knew better. That is to say he's been proved capable of making incredibly bad decisions, it's just a matter of who speaks to him directly before. One of these days it might be the wrong person.

The US military did exactly that two weeks ago: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5789279-strait-hormuz-oil... If it was as effective as you presume, the strait would have been open by now.

That was step one. The article doesn't even state the results of the bombing

isn't it obvious? some rearranged concrete, maybe mixed with missile parts does not change anything unless you know you have eliminated ALL threads which you would never know and probably never achieve anyway

Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government. Where I live - we face a severe shortage of LPG fuel due to this. Quite a few restaurants have shut down temporarily. Migrant workers around the parts who have no access to a kitchen because they live in tiny quarters with a bedding and a common toilet are struggling to find sustainable food. Acquaintances who own workshop are running around trying to figure out food arrangements for their employees. And we are not even party to this shitty war! We are making do with electric alternatives but thats also because we are in the top 5%. Our household staff are struggling to figure out the situation. Induction gas stoves are either stocked our or selling for 3-4x their regular price. Even if they get access to one - electric supply is unreliable and they are not sure how to pay the bill. Electricity usage is subsidized (its free upto 200 Kwh / month) but if it exceeds that they will have to pay full price which hurts their budget quite a lot.

> If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles If you want to secure the entire Strait, sure. My understanding is you'd only seek to hold the area around the Musandam Peninsula, along with a couple of the islands near it.

The entire gulf is at risk. Iran can interdict and cause problems from almost anywhere. Granted it may not have to be 'the whole thing' but something like it.

> entire gulf is at risk. Iran can interdict and cause problems from almost anywhere Sure, but its effect is far more dilute. In the Strait–in particular, around the Musandam Peninsula–it has unique geostrategic leverage.

'matsup' is correct. Iran only needs to score 'one point' to win the whole game. If they can threaten tankers, then the gulf will remain closed, and that's that. It's really debatable if the US really has the capability to play 'whack a mole' and get all the moles.

And then what? Find any insurance company that is willing to insure your ship while it tries to travel the Strait. Or the gulf. Twice for each cargo.

However dilute the effect is, if they are able to hit a few gas/oil carriers with drones there, nobody is going to use that body of water.

> if they are able to hit a few gas/oil carriers with drones there, nobody is going to use that body of water It’s a lot more feasible to escort tankers after the Strait than it is before, when American warships have to come close to shore. Iran doesn’t have the resources to deny access to the entire Indian Ocean.

> if drug dealers can do that, surely Iran (and basically everyone with a GDP at least the size of something like Andorra's) should be able to make credible threats to disrupt approximately as much non-military shipping as they want to worldwide? Sure. Do you think that means worldwide shipping would shut down? And the point isn't to take the risk to zero. But to a level where military escorts can feel safe.

> Do you think that means worldwide shipping would shut down? I think there's a danger of that, at least if countermeasures are not easily available for normal shipping. Even 1-on-1 rather than 1-v-everyone, there's too many players (not all of them nations) with too many conflicting goals and interests. If Cuba tried to do it, could they credibly threaten to sink all sea-based trade involving the USA? If not Cuba, who would be the smallest nation that could? And the same applies to Taiwan and China, in both directions, either of which would be fairly dramatic on the world stage, even though China also has land options. Or North Korea putting up an effective anti-shipping blockade against Japan. > But to a level where military escorts can feel safe. Are there enough military ships to do the escorting?

> I think there's a danger of that, at least if countermeasures are not easily available Note that the era of free navigation is recent and short. Countermeasures would certainly emerge. But shipping wouldn’t stop. > Are there enough military ships to do the escorting? For critical passage, yes. If Iran is just taking pot shots at any ships anywhere, you basically have to actually blockade it.

The current situation is very dangerous. A global disruption in shipping would lead to an economic crisis that could start WW3 (imo). Also the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more. China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained. Also China and Russia want to break the us hegemony.

> the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more. China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained America would be fine. We have the Americas and Asia to trade with, and Iran can’t restrict those oceans in any meaningful way. Europe, the Middle East, Africa and non-China Asia would get screwed.

They meant the Gulf. You cross the straight into the Gulf, then what? Iran hit an E-3's antenna in an airport in Riyadh with a precision strike. Was it not worth defending? How many tankers inside the Gulf do they need to hit before the rest of the world decides it's a bad idea to send new tankers to the Gulf? And if new tankers don't go into the Gulf, then it's simply not open for business. That's their leverage.

> the "blockade" will probably continue The part that makes the Strait weird is no belligerent wants it entirely closed. (Maybe Israel.) Iran wants to export. And America wants exports. So you get this weird stalemate where America doesn’t want to actually blockade Iran, while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.

> while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait. Uhm, why would America shut the strait?

> why would America shut the strait? To deny Iran oil revenue.

What are you talking about? Better missiles dont stop Iran from closing a tiny waterway in their border. US weapons are pretty damn good for the most part. But trade protection is just not something fancy advanced weapons can solve. Military planners have known this for a long time. If anything, if you were serious you would say that the US didnt pay enough tradesmen and technician to build enough of the needed weapons.

I have seen the same from other sources https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ > This is the second sudden bombing campaign the country has suffered in as many years – they do not want there to be a third next year and a fourth the year after that. But promises not to bomb them don’t mean a whole lot: establishing deterrence here means inflicting quite a lot of pain. In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is "attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake." And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done. Can they do that: yes, keep Hormuz shut until much closer to November, and "the economic and political fallout will be too big."

> I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now. That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and Iran taxes every barrel that goes through the straight. There is no return to normal.

I don't get that "Strait" discussion. Where does the Strait begin and end? If somehow the US Navy "opens" the Strait, what stops Iran to attack every ship moving in the direction of the Strait? Where does the "protection zone" start and end?

That's exactly why the tanker escort promises were quickly abandoned.

> Where does the Strait begin and end? Practically speaking, the Musandam Peninsula [1]. Open that to the sea and you make everyone except Iraq and Kuwait happy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musandam_Peninsula

Is a no-fishing-boat zone feasible? Like a no-fly zone? Or do you need a partner to pot innocent fishermen?

How many innocent fishermen are you willing to murder? And of course, the famine in Balochistan that would follow. Maybe not a great idea if you want an uprising of the Balochi against the Persians. Oman is a regional ally, but they would not stand idly by while their citizens are killed.

at a range where short-range anti-ship missiles can reach ships from Iranian territory.

So, the entire gulf? Actual short-range weapons can't cross the strait. The ones that can don't care much about the difference on the rest of the place.

And boats, amd submerged drones, and mines...

Also Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces under United States Joint Forces Command in mid-2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, Red utilized old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network: Van Riper simulated using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications in the model. Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

With the strait being that narrow, missiles aren't even needed. Just artillery is enough. That's the main problem here. Forcible reopening is possible but it involves a lot of airpower, not ships. Make anything unable to approach Iranian shoreline and stay alive, to man even a tiniest rubber boat - including emptying all cities on the coast of people.

I don't understand why Trump doesn't simply mine the strait of Hormuz, and make a simple statement - "no ships get through unless all ships get through". Sure, it would disrupt the world oil supply, but seems hard for Iran to counter.

Because as the article explains the US ships cannot even approach the straits due to the threat of anti-ship missiles.

Trying to protect the strait is a fools errand. Instead, you give them an ultimatum, like trump has done (twice now?). You don't just try to blow up the things that are attacking the strait, you blow up things that let the Iranians build and launch the stuff attacking the strait. Power plants, railroads, airports, highways, industrial sites, etc.

Iran's deep investment in asymmetric warfare is paying serious dividends. You wouldn't expect a nation that's being bombed day and night, essentially at will, to still hold so many cards. Not only is the US completely incapable of strong-arming the straight open, but the rate of missile and drone attacks out of Iran and its proxies has been accelerating the last few days, as has the rate of successful hits.

My Iranian ex colleague shares very interesting opinion. They trained during his army time to blow everything in the region up. So if things escalate badly the oil and gas importing countries will stay with a fraction of needed oil and gas for years. There is no backup infrastructure anywhere in the world. It will take years to rebuild the infrastructure. It will destroy world’s economy better than nukes.

"Why the the US Navy Can't Blast the Iranians and 'Open' the Strait of Hormuz"

> Could that work? It didn’t end well in Vietnam We can't carpet bomb to regime change. But we can probably depopulate critical areas around the coasts while ships transit. It's stupidly expensive, both in materiel and collateral cost. But it's feasible. Whether we have the bomb-production is a separate question to which I don't have the answer.

> Depopulation won't stop the IRGC from digging up a Shahed buried in the sand Carpet bombing. You don’t get to bury things in the sand, much less unbury them. It’s an old tactic—shaping movement with artillery—except done with remote pieces. > range is so great you would have to pacify the entire east of Iran West. Also, I don’t think so. Just critical zones. Worst case, only U.S. escorted and Iran toll-paying ships get through. (Worst case for the world. Not the belligerents. Which…that might be the solution.)

Carpet bombing doesn't cover a large area. Besides which there is nowhere to stage so an enormous campaign that isn't also in reach of one way drones. The vast areas in the East are where you can strike shipping. You would only strike the West if your intention was to kill Iranians rather than end the war.

> can't deny access to a coast that large with carpet bombing, especially in a mountainous terrain. It has never worked. You'd need tens to hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground to do that I think this is more an open question than “it has never worked.” Nobody has tried to area deny FPV-drone navigators. Bases on lines of sight and line channels, one could probably back out from transit paths to the places one would need to be to hit that target, and then ensure anything there is turned from psychology to biology before a critical moment. You couldn’t do this with smart munitions, and couldn’t along the entire Hormuz coast. But for critical junctures that our closest allies (minus Kuwait) need to export? The math seems feasible, if fundamentally untackled.

There has been (I think) relatively minor hits. And Iran has retaliated in kind (see the latest hit on Kuwaiti desalination plant). The thing is that while Iran's water infrastructure is vulnerable, the Gulf states are much more reliant on desalination ... and hitting them hard there would be a total disaster ... which Iran is capable of doing, but has so far refrained.

TLDR: not going to put the navy within range of shore attacks + have not yet been able to degrade the Iranian strike capabilites.

I think Newt had the right idea, albeit in a more targeted fashion instead of just ‘nuking the Strait’. Given that Iran has now taken to directly threatening non-military US commercial and civilian enterprises and assets I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to justify using them in this instance.