If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles, or an area bigger than more than half the countries on earth, including North and South Korea,
Iran is the 18th largest country in the world
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.
Granted it may not have to be 'the whole thing' but something like it.
Sure, but its effect is far more dilute. In the Strait–in particular, around the Musandam Peninsula–it has unique geostrategic leverage.
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.
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.
I have what may be a scale issue in my imagination, so bear with me if this is silly.
There are reports of international drug transport via seaborne drones in the 0.5-5 tonne range, and of these crossing the Pacific, and the cost of the vehicles is estimated to be around 2-4 million USD each. 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I think the main limit on them interfering with that shipping would be that China becomes unhappy with them, not that this is infeasible?
(Also, at these prices I don't think it will be limited to Iran, or even to nations, so countermeasures will need to be invented).
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.
Hard to see it any other way.
(Edit: highly professional I might add. There are quirks, and obvious hints of 'nationalist bias' - but that's to be expected. They are not the 'cultural problem' we see on the news - at least not for now. They lean 'normal')
The current Joint Chiefs is a bit obsequious but he's not crazy.
These are very sane people, for the most part.
They may be pressed to do something risky, like land troops at Kharg island, but not completely suicidal.
That 'risk' may entail getting a number of soldiers captured, but that's not on the extreme side of military failure, it's mostly geopolitical failure. It would certainly end DJT as a popular movement.
Having a ship hit, or a few soldiers captured - and this sounds morose - is normal. That's why they exist. It's the political fallout that's deadly.
They won't do anything to crazy. The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that. It's very unpopular and DJT has populist instinct as well - he's trying to 'find a way out'.
I don't know, they've been talking up a lot of crazy stuff, like strikes on desalination facilities and the power grid.
> The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that.
Genuninely unclear to me whether Congress has control here; don't they currently have a Republican majority who will agree to anything anyway?
- Congress is in charge. First - they need budget, and the GOP majority has zero appetiate for approving this.
Remember that most of the GOP dislike Trump, and they also don't like this war, it's risky to the US - and - their own jobs.
So the GOP finds ways to 'resit' Trump without sticking their neck out. They do this collectively by grumbling and not passing legislation.
The majority leaders tell Trump 'We just don't have the votes for it!' thereby not taking a position against Trump, more or less 'blaming the ghosts in the party' kind of thing.
That's very different than passing legislation that reels Trump in, that's 'active defiance'.
So by 'passive defiance' and not approving $, the majority holds the Admin back.
Remember that nobody wants this, not the VP, not Rubio. Hegseth is a 'TV Entertainer'. The Defence Establishment and Intelligence Establishment knows this is stupid. 80% of Congress wants it over now.
If DJT has 65% poularity and 75% for the war, the equation would tilt, but as it stands, there is not enough political momentum.
But anything could happen ...
The death or capture of US soldiers could strongly evoke people to move one way or the other.
THE rest of your screed follows from inattentive disorder.
I'm paying relatively close attention.
Just FYI, US forces are enormous, and with a very long and institutionalized history, and it would take at least decade to tilt them in such a manner, moreover, it's not even happening in the way you're insinuating.
Removing certain DEI polices will have a very marginal affect on anything but senior officer promotions, as US forces are very meritocratic in most ways already.
Removing transgender personnel etc. is arguably unfair in many ways - but will have absolutely zero effect on those institutions overall. None.
Nobody is getting 'retired' for not being sufficiently MAGA, other than a few select positions in Washington.
Your comment is uninformed and unwelcome; you'll have to do a bit better than consume Reddit in order to gain actual knowledge and perspective, and save yourself the embarrassment.
Civilian leadership takes a few forms, there is a division between the powers of Executive and Congress. The military won't pursue anything long term without the backing of both.
There are a lot of legal thresholds, Congressional approval being just one of them.
There is institutional incumbency, and the military will push back extremely hard on things that it deems impossible, or excessively risky.
Populism etc. etc..
There are so many factors.
If they want to mount a risky 500 000 person invasion of Iran, they'll have to do a lot of 'convincing' and get a lot of buy in from stake holders. There is no chance that the Executive count mount that kind of operation without a lot of institutional buy in.