The US is considering Hormuz naval escorts. There are risks and it could go disastrously wrong

2026-03-17 - 09:44

As US President Donald Trump pressures American allies to contribute naval forces to protect shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, naval experts say such an endeavor presents a huge risk that, even if successful, might restore only about 10 percent of the pre-war traffic through the waterway. Commercial traffic through the maritime chokepoint has virtually ceased since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, with Iran vowing to strike any vessels associated with the two countries or their partners. About 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, plus similar or even larger amounts of liquefied natural gas and fertilizer products, must pass through the narrow strait to reach world markets. Its closure has sent prices for the commodities skyrocketing. To alleviate the economic pressures, Trump and US government officials have said plans are being made for the US Navy to escort commercial ships through the strait. And the US president has asked allies like Japan, South Korea and NATO members – and even rivals like China – to contribute military vessels for escort duties. No offers of help have come through yet. And naval analysts say that’s reflective of the risks involved. Naval escort operations are complex, requiring close coordination of sea and air assets to protect both tankers and merchant ships and the naval vessels themselves. Making that all work together in what one analyst called the “death valley” of the Strait of Hormuz is a daunting task. Tight quarters First: There’s the space problem. The strait is only about 10 miles across at its narrowest point. Navigable space is even less, especially for massive oil tankers – some of over three football fields in length. That leaves little room for the tankers or the naval ships escorting them to maneuver, said Jennifer Parker, adjunct fellow in naval studies at UNSW Canberra and a former Australian naval officer with experience in the Persian Gulf. Warships, likely destroyers in the case of the US Navy, need to have space to move around the giant tankers to get correct fire solutions on incoming targets like air or sea drones or missiles, she said. Essentially, the tankers could create blind spots for the warships. Then there’s limited reaction time because Iranian weapons are so close on the shores of its side of the strait. “From the moment of detection of a threat, to the moment of having to respond to the threat, is very, very limited,” Parker said. Analysts say escorting cannot be done by destroyers alone. Helicopters or attack aircraft would have to fly in the vicinity, ready to take on air or sea drones, said analyst Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain. Airborne warning and control (AWACS) planes and reconnaissance drones would have to be scouring farther inland in Iran for missile launches that could target the tankers or the warships, he said. Meanwhile, Iranian forces that could threaten escort missions in the strait are dispersed and mostly mobile. Drones and missiles mounted on trucks or mines could be deployed from untold numbers of small fishing boats, dhows or even pleasure craft, experts said. “Are you going to be able to destroy all those vessels to eradicate the threats?” asked Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “To me, it’s not very feasible,” Koh said. Threats to escort missions can be reduced through air power or ground incursions to seize territory from where they might be launched, but that presents new problems, including many casualties among US ground troops, the analysts said. Stretched to the limit Then, there’s just a problem with warship numbers, they said. A US destroyer might be able to escort one or two oil tankers through the strait at one time, Parker said. Others say it might take more than one naval escort per tanker. “A basic naval escort operation would need between eight to 10 destroyers to protect convoys of between five to 10 commercial vessels in each transit,” editor-in-chief Richard Meade wrote in a report for Lloyds List Intelligence last week. Those ratios might mean escorts could restore Hormuz traffic back to 10 percent of its pre-war levels, Meade wrote. But few believe the US Navy can do it alone. The US has 73 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers on active duty, the Congressional Research Service reports. But only about 68 percent of US surface ships are combat-ready at any one time, accounting for training and maintenance, according to Navy officials. That amounts to about 50 destroyers. And those are dispersed around the globe. So if 10 of those are needed for just one escort mission through the Strait of Hormuz, it gives an idea of how the US alone would be stretched to maintain escort missions for an extended time. “My question is whether the US Navy is prepared for that kind of intense campaign,” which stresses hardware, logistics and sailors themselves, Koh said. That suggests why Trump is calling for other nations to chip in. And that’s not just with destroyers to escort the vessels. Detecting and destroying mines in the strait are another problem the US is not well equipped to deal with alone. Last year, the US Navy decommissioned its four dedicated minesweepers that were stationed in the Persian Gulf. Those ships were moved back to the States on a heavy-lift vessel in January for eventual scrapping. The Navy said four littoral combat ships (LCS) with the mine-countermeasure mission module would take over those duties. But before the war, only three LCS were in the Persian Gulf region. Seen in a water puddle reflection, the USS Tulsa (LCS 16) was commissioned during a ceremony at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California, on February 16, 2019. Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst/Getty Images Ideally, said Schuster, one or two minesweepers would move through the strait ahead of the tankers to ensure a clear path. He also noted the large variety of mines Iran could deploy in the strait – spiked contact mines like those seen in World War II movies; mines moored to the sea bottom that detonate by acoustic signals or magnetic sensing; even mines with counting devices, that let a certain amount of ships pass before blowing up under another. “Identifying mines is always a challenge,” Schuster said. Analysts say allies like Japan and South Korea could offer dedicated minesweepers to help deal with the mine threats, although both those countries have so far not committed to do so. But they’d be far from a panacea even if the offers came, said Koh, the analyst in Singapore. The minesweepers are lightly armed compared with destroyers, he said, and alone they could be vulnerable to Iranian attack. “You don’t just send the mine-countermeasures force, you need to send a protection force as well,” Koh said. “So that could mean a much wider commitment.” Yu Ji-hoon, research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said in Seoul’s case, the South Korean navy’s minesweepers just aren’t made for this kind of mission. “There are limitations to deploy them for a far sea for a long period to a high-threat area such as the Strait of Hormuz in terms of tolerance, self-defense capability, and logistical support,” Yu told CNN. Despite all the hurdles, Schuster said the mission can be accomplished. The US Navy has dealt with these types of Iranian threats before in the 1980s and ‘90s, he said. “Iran has been using drones (remotely piloted vehicles in the ‘90s), fast attack boats and suicide boats (precursors to the current unmanned surface vessels or surface drones) since the late ‘80s,” he said. “They exercised them in every naval exercise from about 1988 to this century. So, their tactics are not a surprise,” Schuster said. Others are not as sanguine. “The capabilities depth among countries is simply not where it was in the 1980s,” said Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy at King’s College London. “Fleets and their support structure are a fraction of those of four decades ago,” calling in question whether any collective effort in Hormuz can succeed in the short and long term, he said. Koh notes the problems Iran-allied, Yemen-based Houthi rebels presented in the Red Sea over the past few years. Despite escorts from the US and European Union nations, the Houthis have hit commercial ships. And at one point, a Houthi missile came within seconds of hitting a US destroyer. “There was already some difficulty in dealing with the Houthi threat,” Koh said. “Now the force is going to face a much bigger enemy, Iran, which likely has a much greater arsenal of drones and missiles,” he said. Patalano said the US and its partners have simply not recognized that shipping is “the lifeblood artery of modern economies.” “For far too long we assumed it would not be contested, or if (it was), Western democracies would be able to meet the challenge,” he said. “That is simply not the case.” CNN’s Yoonjung Seo and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.