The collapse of negotiations between the US and Iran can be traced to a single point of failure, Mark Cancian (a retired Marine colonel) says, the inability of the US military to keep the Strait of Hormuz open in the face of Iranian opposition:
The challenge has been long anticipated. The Navy has been thinking about it for 45 years, ever since it escorted tankers through the Persian Gulf in the 1980s and successfully thwarted Iranian efforts to control traffic. As a junior Marine officer, I participated in amphibious planning exercises to capture islands in the Strait. Yet, when the moment came for the Navy to implement its plans, nothing happened.
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With assured passage through the Strait, the US would not need to allow a reconstruction fund, sanctions relief, or return of frozen assets. Time would be on our side.
Instead, the two sides have resumed strikes against each other and reinstated their respective blockades.
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Much criticism must also fall on the military, particularly the Navy, which has “Keep[ing] the seas open and free” in its mission statement — but has not given senior decisionmakers acceptable options because of historical, glaring gaps in capability that it has not addressed.
Specifically, the service has long ignored mine warfare and instead depends on allies for this capability. Dozens of Navy professional articles have bemoaned its weakness in mine clearance, pointing to previous failures in Korea (1951), the Persian Gulf (1985) and Desert Storm (1990-1991).
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And yet, the last of the Avenger class of mine countermeasure vessels (MCM) has retired, while the replacements (mine clearance modules on LCVs) have been few, delayed and plagued with problems.
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Ultimately, the Navy needs something like in-stride minesweeping capability, the ability to clear a channel in hours or days, not weeks or months. It’s also clear that an implication of current US policy is that the United States must retain some of these capabilities itself and cannot always rely on allies and partners.
The Navy also needs to rediscover its skills at convoy escort. During the world wars, the US Navy was a master at this. Those skills have apparently atrophied. As part of this effort, the Navy needs to test and settle on its doctrine. Traditionally, escorts have sailed with the convoy, providing close-in protection. That worked for the one small convoy that the Navy ran under Project Freedom, but the Navy’s new concept is to create a safe corridor from a distance, without tying warships to particular groups of cargo ships. That sounds great. Will it work?
Finally, the Navy, like the other services, needs to develop mechanisms to counter drones. Firing $5.3 million SM-3s at $30,000 Iranian Shahed drones is not sustainable. Ashore, adding a counter-drone battery is relatively straightforward. Integrating it into a ship’s fire control system is complicated, but necessary.
This is not just a Middle East issue. If Iran succeeds in establishing the principle that neighboring countries can control constricted waterways, other straits worldwide might come under national control, and the whole world would suffer, including the United States.
The US no longer has either the military or industrial base (and maybe not the quality of people) needed to control the Strait of Hormuz. The situation in the Gulf has changed radically since we invaded Iraq. Iran is much stronger in every way, especially in asabiyyah.
Iran covers some 600,000 sq mi, and has a population of 92 M. By comparison, Western Europe. The EU and UK combined have a population of 430 M and an area of 1.2 M sq mi. Iran has a modern industrial economy, and is capable of producing state of the art machines and weapons in selected areas.
Cancian, Keene, Hegseth are representative of the kind of war mongering incompetents who control Trump, so the worst possible result (economic collapse and nuclear war) is also the most probable.
The US is capable of completely destroying the civilian economy of Iran, but actual occupation of the Strait’s shore line, required for control, is impossible. If the attempt is made, Iran has the ability to completely destroy the entire oil and gas infrastructure (wells, pipelines, transfer stations, refineries…), plus the desalination plants that the GCC states depend on, plus any and all associated facilities, like helium, fertilizer, and aluminum plants. The Gulf states would be forcibly depopulated (by at least 90%), and Gulf oil and the entirety of its oil and gas would be taken off the world market for at least a decade. The result would be a Second Great Depression at least as bad and probably more severe than the First.