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.