Posted on 04/13/2026 5:43:58 AM PDT by daniel1212
Iran does not need to secure the Strait of Hormuz. It only needs to make sure that no one else can, either.
Despite the sorry condition of its naval forces,.. Iran still maintains selective control of the Strait of Hormuz—resulting in 80 to 90 percent of the traffic being halted. How? Not through naval dominance, but rather through asymmetric disruption, which Iran uses to make travel through the Strait too dangerous to risk.
Iran Doesn’t Need to Close the Strait to Cut Off Shipping
Iran’s strategy is not to implement a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, it raises the risks and costs of passage, encouraging most to simply stay away. Through a combination of cheap weapons, geography, and cultivated uncertainty, Iran is able to achieve sufficient disruption to functionally close the strait.
Iran is aided in its efforts by the structure of the shipping business. Most seaborne commerce—particularly in hydrocarbons...—takes place on enormous tankers, which often cost upwards of $100 million, not including the value of their cargo...and have virtually no defenses against missile and drone attacks. Given the vast cost involved in losing a tanker, no party involved is willing to take the risk of running the blockade. Indeed, seaborne insurance companies will often charge extremely high insurance rates—or refuse insurance altogether...
How Iran Can Punch Above Its Weight in the Persian Gulf
Naval Mines: One of the primary asymmetric tools.. is naval mines. Iran is thought to possess an inventory of 3,000 to 4,000 mines, including contact, acoustic, and influence-triggered types. These mines are hard to detect and harder to clear,..
Submarines: Iran also deploys midget submarines, like the Ghadir class,.. Iran has a vast arsenal of land-based anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs)..
Drones: Shahed-type drones are launched from deeper inland
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Risk management is what it comes down to. Aka money.
No shipper wants to risk losing people, a ship or cargo.
Militarily they have drones, maybe shore to ship missiles, and mines, which mines will shortly be a non-issue.
Our ASW platforms can detect and prosecute any ministry subs.
Out from under a rock?
“Cultivated uncertainty”
A rock on another planet maybe, because they sure aren’t on planet earth.
A mine here or a rocket launcher there isn’t much but it can do some damage to an oil tanker and my understanding is that the insurance doesn’t want the boats to go through
About 60 million barrels of oil produced outside of the USA are bought daily.
At a markup of $30/barrel above pre-war pricing, the cost to Asia, Europe, etc. is $1.8 billion/day.
If a tanker costs $100 million, maybe about 15 tankers a day would have to be lost to Iranian mischief to justify not risking tanker passage.
Countries might simply buy tankers stranded in the Gulf off their owners, fill them up with oil, and sail them out under US Navy protection. US Navy helicopters might fly above to rescue crew members if necessary.
The tanker owners have debt payments and would be willing to sell at a fair price.
Truck mounted rockets can hit a ship.
The United States needs to blockade another superpower of its energy supply on behalf of Netanyahu. That will solve the current crisis-you’ll see. Am I getting that about right??
Besides being hyperbolic, this is factually stupid.
This is old news. The US now runs the show.
I love the fact that you commie Canucks are butthurt.
There are 7 to 8 million military age men willing to fight to the death for the current government. Any CIA created “government in exile” or boots on the ground would be recognized as the enemy and fought as a attritional war, dragging out over decades. (see Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and on and on). That’s why we don’t do it I’m guessing.
To the MSM, “decimated” is a word with emotional impact. It suggests devastation. It carries a wallop. It’s like removing 90%.
Decimate means removal of one tenth. That’s not that much.
The headline is a stupid headline from a stupid author or editor. If anyone at MSN knew better, they were probably assured that readers are too stupid to notice.
The dictionary definition also relies on people having no knowledge or not valuing precision. Definitions for dummies.
“...47% of China’s oil passes through the strait of Hormuz...a naval blockade of another superpower’s energy supply?....”
I’m opposed to the blockade as it will needlessly anger China.
Iran’s craziness and IRGC extortion already make for a pretty effective blockade.
Iran is probably selling more hydrocarbons domestically than it is exporting. I favor taking out the refineries and inland storage tanks in Ukrainian style.
Iran would then have to buy gasoline and diesel fuel from Iraq, at premium prices, and then truck it hundreds of miles.
How so? Boarding a sovereign nation ships and taking them over on the high seat is the definition of piracy. Promising to do that to China’s tankers that currently pass through the strait constitutes a naval blockade of a nuclear armed superpower. (that could crush the US with its own embargoes). Is this hard?
Sort of related, when I see/hear “decimated” I know the exact opposite occurred.
“Am I getting that about right??”
Not even close.
L
The Roman Legions practiced decimation.
If a unit was cowardly or didn’t fight well - they would kill every tenth man.
When we say we completely decimated Iran’s navy- that means we
destroyed 10%.
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq turned into generational wars not because we couldn’t have won them, but rather because we were not prepared to do what was necessary to win.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the core problem ultimately was Iran, and we were never willing to do the necessary. That was apparently seriously discussed in the Bush administration at the time, but the dems had conniption fits and the support in Congress would have been lacking.
Bush was followed by Obama, who did his groveling tour and basically went pro-mullah.
There is a long precedent for what Trump is doing now. It has become the American Way of War. Start something we’re not prepared to finish and hope we get lucky.
Every potential adversary knows this. And they all know the democrats will become a fifth column the moment a Republican is in the White House. Outlast the Americans is on the first page of the official bad guy handbook.
Of course no one in the US wants to consider the Chinese or Russian solutions to the “problem of Iran.”
Russia, for example, has partnered with the Iranian government to create the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-kilometer network linking the Indian Ocean to northern Europe through Iran and Russia. That mutually beneficial infrastructure project enriches both countries by tens of billions of dollars and enhances security and cooperation.
China and Iran have inked 25-Year $400 billion infrastructure project that encompasses energy, transportation, technology, and high speed rail.
These are “deals” Mr. Art of the Deal should have been signing for the benefit of American citizens and security of the region.
The only reason this project is greenlighted it is because Israel can’t do anything about it. It’s a shame America is required to dismiss Russia, China and Iran as enemies from which nothing can be learned. You should ask yourself which strategy has a greater chance of long-term success.
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