Recommend studying the public comments of General MacKenzie who was the previous CENTCOM commander, comments from Admiral Cooper before he was appointed to current CENTCOM commander, or previous Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They've all given public interviews about Hormuz during the current war or before it over the last decade saying the same thing about what's required and whether it can be done.
That “we could do it, we just don’t want to” argument will face its acid test later in the year when the midterms are closer, but certainly if I were in charge of Iran I’d be feeling pretty good about the current situation.
So the US Navy is unable to achieve the objective in a reasonable timeframe and cost. That's the same as failure.
Hell there's an argument to be made that the US should downsize its military because there's no universe in which exercising its full capability is not either the end of the world as we know it or absolute political suicide.
Second, you are basing your assessment that they could open it whenever on some statements what the US could do - again not taking into consideration what Iran what respond with. It's like with all the other goals of this war, the US telling us what they could be doing (which boils down to "more bombing"). Admiral Cooper that brought us the famous 24h "Project Freedom"? Pardon our skepticism, some of their plans maybe sound nice to them, they just expect the other side to not react appropriately, that has been the biggest mistake with Iran.
At least some form of it secretly continued until now.
Yeah, shocking there's no political will for that.
There is no way to keep the straight open without cooperation from Iran, or a near destruction of all their military assets.
This is not true.
There is too much coastline to guard to protect from coastal drone launches.
There are too many cheap drones and not enough cheap drone counters.
There are still a LOT of working ballistic missile launchers.
There are still a lot of anti-air threats, including medium and short range anti air, and combination infared+electro-optical MANPADS capable of shooting down true 5th gen stealth fighters.
They don't need to hit 999 of their drone or missile launches, they need to hit 1 or 2 to make insurance companies unwilling to take the risk of allowing movement through the straight.
Not to mention the cost of this... military excursion has been extensive in both depletion of competent military officers, depletion of strategic use precision guided weapons, we have lost some very expensive and critical airframes, and politically and around the world, have shown to be somewhat of a very expensive paper tiger in modern large scale operations that is clearly not yet ready for the realities of a modern conflict that isn't being fought by a state in the middle of a civil war.
I could go on and on from both a tactical and strategic angle about why this was awful, but I don't think I'd sway the minds of anyone already set in their perspective.
About half or so have been destroyed if one averages various estimates. The continuation of combat operations was the sensible option: not finishing off a wounded but aggressive animal is always a mistake. Iran will put whatever sanctions relief they get out of a "deal" towards rearming and rebuilding their nuclear facilities, and we will be back to square one in a decade or so, only against a more emboldened enemy.
There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarrassingly incompetent as this.
The US navy was unable to keep hormuz secure for civilian traffic but was able to blockade it themselves. I think that's exactly the outcome you'd expect in this scenario.
Did the military advise the administration it would take a lengthy ground war to control the strait? Or was it pitched as something the Navy could do without a ground occupation?
It's pure greed. The IRGC relies heavily on oil money for funding the massive militia (hundreds of thousands of Basij) that allows it to stay in power; if that income collapsed then it would eventually lose control. Trump however not only refused to bomb Iran's oil infrastructure but even stopped the IDF from doing so, just because he thinks he'll somehow be able to take that oil for himself and his cronies in future like he did in Venezuela.
Imho the regime was made stronger because of this war. It was really a bad moment to strike. Khomeini had a cancer, and waiting for his death and the succession crisis that would have ensued would have been a better choice. Now the regime is stronger than ever.
Although my real thoughts is that this strength the Khomeini project is temporary, in the sense that the only reason the regime lasted this long before was because the power was shared. If they keep pushing for more control, without sharing, they will end up loosing everything.
That’s why Trump has allowed Iranian oil already outside the gulf to be sold, was willing to drop oil sanctions on further Iranian shipments, and was so panicked when Israel hit an Iranian oil facility.
That means effectively taking out 25℅ of global oil supply -> oil at 150-200 a barrel -> Trump and the Republicans lose the midterms badly -> Trump gets impeached. I'm sure somebody explained it to him that this is exactly what would get happened, which is why he did not overextend or let Israel do so.
Now you can use a drone that costs a few thousand dollars to take out a hundred million dollar ship.
It's a pricing issue. Whereas before, you had to use expensive guided missiles or your own naval or air force assets, now you can send a bunch of cheap drones.
Everything we know about war is going to change.
What is new is Irans willingness to use them. Which skyrocketed after a few missiles assassinated their supreme leader.
In 2026 we have swarms of cheap drones that are fire and forget and they are cheap for mass production.
That’s totally different game.
FTFY
Ten years down the line it may be the case that India will sail up and enforce toll-free waterways instead. That will never happen as long as the US puts up the resources for it. The American taxpayer will be better off if the burden of global free trade is borne more equitably.
If the US citizen think being a super power is to expensive, that's fine for the world. No empire lasts forever. The US can become an important regional power, having its destiny more influenced by the upcoming super powers that fill the vacuum.
And there are no "upcoming super powers" that are remotely able to "fill the vacuum".
The U.S. has been secretly moving ships for months. And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out. What is difficult to completely stop, short of glassing the entire country, is harassment by drones or other forms of "asymmetric warfare."
A naval force isn't required to control the Strait. Artillery, drones and missiles fired from inland can do that quite easily.
this function is outdated since u-boat appearance, and now cruise missiles and drones. More important modern function of navy is projecting power.
The military objective can be achieved, it would just require the 'No New Wars' party to implode from having 272 seats to having ~150 seats after the midterms.
That 'political reason' is that US is war-weary, and the electorate will flip their shit when their kids get sent into the meatgrinder of a pointless war that none of them wanted, ran by TV stars, where the stated objective changes every 30 minutes.
No matter how much military we put into the strait, Iran was just going to blow up UAE and Qatari refineries.
And despite all the madman theory of our current President, there's just too many bribes in those countries who have the attention of the President. So Total War is unacceptable to USA leaders.
-------
That being said: I'm still amused that the ship we needed in this fight was the long cancelled Littoral Combat Ship
I mean, buildings and hardened targets do care. But ships can just move and the missile will miss.
But yes, defenses vs Drones and Cruise missiles is more than sufficient vs Iran. And navigating narrow waters with higher degrees of mobility is better than our other ships.
Sorry, it's a video but it does a fabulous job explaining this: https://youtu.be/khtWPycU-PA
It was never gonna work, but not because of the navy being weak.
How much of it would you attribute to bad planning? (The full plan of which the Navy will be part.)
It has long been clear for any analyst that securing the straight without boots on the ground would be materially impossible. Air power isn't enough to stop the very modest force of the Houthis from closing the Bab-el-mandeb straight, it was clear from the beginning that it wouldn't work better against a much more capable Iran.
Trump launched a war without any plan, and absolutely no willingness to launch an full-scale invasion of Iran (rightly so, because it would have been unlikely to work well with regards to the polical goals), so it's not exactly surprising that it didn't work.
Starting a war is always a bad idea, even when you have bipartisan support for it at home, but starting a war you don't want to fight is absolutely dumb.
