U.S. Navy turns down Hormuz escort requests because of high risk

https://maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-navy-turns-down-strait-of-hormuz-escort-requests-because-of-high-risk

by mytailorisrich • 4 months ago

134 140 4 months ago

gnfargbl• 4 months ago

What are the factors influencing the US Navy's position here? Not enough small/cheap ships for this work? Too hard to defend against guerilla speedboat attacks?

IAmBroom• 4 months ago

Not wanting to lose USN ships as a de facto mercenary force is reason enough.

jasomill• 4 months ago

Protecting the economic interests of the US and allies by defending commercial shipping is well within the remit of the US Navy. This is a risk management decision with a side of optics, not one of scope.

lokar3• 4 months ago

It would take far more ships (ideally destroyers and frigates ) than we can muster to the gulf.

Also, it exposes the ships to easy attack in a constrained body of water

Also, the ships would need to exit the gulf and travel a long distance to re-arm their defensive weapons, requiring even more ships.

cpursley2• 4 months ago

While Iran still has fire control, these ships can be hit by shore-launched anti-shipping missiles, one way drones of even old fashioned shelling. Their "navy" was never even a factor.

enraged_camel• 4 months ago

Too risky, and doesn't make sense from a cost-benefit perspective. Iran uses cheap and disposable weapons that are also effective. If you think about how much a single US ship costs, and the political price of US service members dying, I think the picture becomes clear.

adrian_b• 4 months ago

I agree with you.

The decision of the US Navy to not provide escort services makes perfect sense and it is no surprise.

The only thing that is newsworthy about it is that this has exposed yet another lie of Trump, who at some point has promised that the traffic will not be affected, because USA will provide such escort services.

EcommerceFlow2• 4 months ago

This isn't a military decision but more a public opinion one. Should an American ship take a hit, have casualties, become disabled, etc it would put immense pressure on the administration to settle/end the war, even though on a military objective level it makes a lot of sense. This is a reality of the instant informational world we live in.

gzread3• 4 months ago

I read the tone of this comment to be as if that's a bad thing, even though it's a good thing?

butILoveLife• 4 months ago

Armchair here:

Its like the issue with the Vietnam war. You need 100% perfect security, or its not worth it. If you are only 98% successful, you arent going to have oil tankers or any cargo ships even attempting it. A single failure every 2 months was a massive waste of resources.

pm90• 4 months ago

Imagine the optics of a single destroyer/cruiser being on fire. It would shatter the myth of American naval power (some are arguing that this war already did that, which I tend to agree with).

arpinum• 4 months ago

You could hit anything going through the straight with artillery and rockets from the shore. Escort won't do much.

Caius-Cosades2• 4 months ago

Let's see

No minetrawlers, the four US had were scheduled to be scrapped earlier this year. So if there's even a single mine you're playing russian roulette with hundreds of people on board

Probably heaps of various anti ship missiles that have been squirreled away with ranges reaching from few nautical miles to few hundred, just for this exact scenario, please keep in mind that you only need one missile to get through to cause dozens if not hundreds of fatalities.

Unmanned naval drones of various kind, not exactly ultra-high tech in this day and age.

And then there's the guerrilla speedboat attacks which means more missiles

Did I mention that one ship has possibly hundreds of people on board? The political system of the US probably cannot tolerate a military mass casualty event of that scale and spectacle. It's therefore just too risky to get anywhere nearby with a ship so all US navy can do is just lob missiles from as far away as possible, while hoping that this whole mess ends before US runs out of standoff weapons. And between Ukraine, Yemen and now this, the armament stocks aren't probably looking too good considering the meager production numbers.

comrade1234• 4 months ago

It seems like Iran has a lot of options for attacking ships. So far theyve used speedboats to attack tankers in Iraqi waters and they used "unknown projectiles" to attack ships in the strait. The ships are on fire and crew have died with the remaining rescued by Oman's and Iraq's navies. I don't know what a us navy ship is going to do as an escort other than be a sponge for incoming projectiles.

bwestergard• 4 months ago

Here are two of the weapons mounted on U.S. ships that would fire upon small boats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf8RExzMdfg

ge96• 4 months ago

Like the tracers bouncing off the water

dmix3• 4 months ago

It seems like Iran has a lot of options for attacking ships.

I wonder if the recent USV shipping attacks came Iraqi militias. Maybe Iran set them up with some drone boats like how they send them missiles/drones to hit US bases with. Meanwhile the US was focused on surveilling the Iranian coast. I wouldn't be surprised if Iraq remains the hardest part of maintaining security in the region.

Gravityloss• 4 months ago

There's at least missile, gun, laser and electromagnetic countermeasures for air threats. It has been a mainstream subject for long, for example against aircraft and missiles. But also lots of startups also in this space, especially against cheap drones or UAV:s.

srean• 4 months ago

Are these speed boats manned ? Like with kamikaze pilots ?

wood_spirit3• 4 months ago

Typically man-optional.

Best source on all this stuff is a classic proper OSINT blogger (who does awesome pics too): https://www.hisutton.com/

mrtksn2• 4 months ago

Ukraine sunk half of the Russian Black sea fleet, the other half is hiding in safe ports and still get hit occasionally. Remember when there were talks about grain corridors? There are no more such talks because Ukraine actually managed to deny Russia the control of the Black sea and the Bosphorus straits are held by the Turks anyway.

It's just a different world now. Large powerful ships aren't that useful anymore, USA and Israel destroyed some of the largest and the most advanced Iranian ships in the first day of the war they started and yet can't sail their own ships in the region either.

CapricornNoble2• 4 months ago

One of my peers sent me a discussion from the Council on Foreign Relations and it was a difficult listen. Within the first 5 minutes of the hour-long vid, one of the "experts" was opining that Iran had no ability to close the Strait because "all of their ships are destroyed". These DC swamp creatures are CLUELESS. As you said, I dunno how any national security professional can watch Ukraine bully the Russian Black Sea Fleet with Starlink-equipped kamikaze USVs and not understand the implications for other theatres of war. Especially involving an adversary that has rehearsed and even pioneered asymmetric capabilities for decades.

0xR1CK• 4 months ago

At least they're thinking cautiously about it in some ways and not completely forgetting lessons learned w/ Gen Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge (2002). Worth a read. The sim had the USA lose even with superior weapons.

1970-01-013• 4 months ago

Fear keeping our naval power in check is ironic given the "peace through strength" mantra. Turns out Iran has always held the long tactical advantage. How long does it take to build a desert road to the other side of the ocean? I think we're going to find out.

ethagknight2• 4 months ago

It’s not fear, it’s cost-benefit, and it would take all the trucks in the middle east to move a tiny portion of the export that typically goes via ship. It would be easier and more aligned for Qatar, UAE, Saudis to pay mercs to keep the strait clear.

sebastiennight4• 4 months ago

it would take all the trucks in the middle east to move a tiny portion of the export that typically goes via ship

May I suggest an alternative mode of freight that pre-dates trucks and can move much larger volumes at a much lower CO2 cost, namely... a transcontinental train line?

(obviously not going to happen, and might even trigger a few PR cycles about a "hyperloop", but if you were going to try to build large-volume freight, that's where I'd start)

beshur• 4 months ago

Is there a real merc naval power that can support operations against ground based anti-ship missiles?

onlyrealcuzzo2• 4 months ago

KSA can get most of their oil to the Red Sea in 2-3 years (like 90%+). By the end of the year, they should be able to get >50% there.

UAE can get ~30% through Oman now, and probably ~75% in 3-4 years.

Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar are screwed without the straight. Qatar could probably work a deal with KSA to get all of their oil through its pipes to the Red Sea if need be in 2-3 years, but they'd pay a premium.

If I had to guess, I think this will structurally push KSA and UAE to move out of the straight, and for anyone in the straight to be tied to China and India.

I imagine Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran are all going to become Chinese and Indian client states.

North & South America now have a major oil & natural gas surplus. Their total usage is declining and production is increasing.

Meanwhile, the EU, Japan, SK, etc are moving towards renewables & nuclear as fast as they can.

China's probably reached peak fossil fuel imports already.

joe_mamba3• 4 months ago

Meanwhile, the EU, Japan, SK, etc are moving towards renewables & nuclear as fast as they can.

Yeah, but current EU energy prices are as high as they ever been, so that doesn't help the EU manufacturing industry that in 10 years we'll be fossil fuel free, if they have to close shop in 12 months from the energy price hikes.

youngtaff• 4 months ago

Isn't Qatar's main export gas?

thisislife26• 4 months ago

The Houthis offer a similar threat in the Red Sea though. And we've seen how successfully they managed to disrupt shipping there.

moralestapia3• 4 months ago

The problem is not the road.

It is prohibitely expensive to move things using trailers vs. freight.

1970-01-013• 4 months ago

If they're literally shipping just fuel, wouldn't the transporting cost almost be free?

phil214• 4 months ago

US Naval power has been drastically hollowed out - other than for strategic force projection for low intensity conflicts involving air strikes. Even for that, it's a shadow of what it once was.

This isn't the 1980's where we can surge 100 warships to an area of the world to deny the area or perform escort missions.

If we decided to 10x the Navy budget today and start building ships we'd be a couple decades out since we'd have to start from "train the ship building workforce" first principles to begin with.

Other than air power, the US has been operating off military (reputation) inertia for decades now.

D13Fd• 4 months ago

There is also the question of whether ships even make sense right now, when a multi-billion-dollar ship full of sailors is at huge risk from a swarm of drones costing 1/1000th as much, and we have not yet mastered drone defenses.

ethagknight2• 4 months ago

My thoughts. The escorts serve little benefit to the US given the risk. US doesn’t “need” the Persian gulf exports as much as other countries (who could run their own minesweeping operations). Iran mining Hormuz is a feature not a bug for US effort in a “proxy war” against Iran (hint: it’s all about China)

dnemmers• 4 months ago

What do you think happens when China starts increasing prices on goods sold worldwide, due to oil shortages?

Global supply chain impacts have global ramifications.

alephnerd2• 4 months ago

Both China [0] and India [1] are getting safe passage via the Straits of Hormuz from Iran.

Additionally, Russia is redirecting LNG from Europe (the ongoing Hungary-Ukraine spat) to Asia [2].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-talks-with-ira...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/iran-allow-india-flagged...

[2] https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/116517/

libertine2• 4 months ago

So once again, this operation seems to just benefit Russia, and no one else.

China still gets access to Iranian oil, though with high risk and a much slower pace.

India is getting access to Russian oil without sanctions now, but they're in a really tricky situation - one Iranian ship was torpedoed coming from an event promoted by India where there was safety requirements in place. This isn't good.

Many countries are tapping into reserves, and being severely affected by higher prices.

All while Russia gets sanctions removed and a oil price hike, when they were in a critical situation economically. Even the USA shrugging off of the reports of Intel shared with Iran is insane.

amelius2• 4 months ago

All while Russia gets sanctions removed and a oil price hike

Yes, CNN has an analysis:

"How Trump’s Iran exposure could hand Putin a lottery win"

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/12/politics/trump-iran-war-r...

ViewTrick10022• 4 months ago

There's two sides to it. Russia of course wants the war to become a quagmire for everyone supporting Ukraine.

But the reason the US and Israel is even able to do what they are doing is because Russia is spending all its resources fighting Ukraine.

Russia is too weak to do anything to meddle in the conflict. Five years ago Russia would have its navy in the area, private militias on the ground and been an all around nuisance. Today they are non-existant outside of Ukraine.

A sound analysis on it:

Trump, Putin, and the war in Iran

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQfGM1IidoA

cpursley2• 4 months ago

Pretty interesting paper/presentation:

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

softwaredoug• 4 months ago

What I worry about is the shot in the arm Russian finances are about to get due to oil revenue at a point they seemed to weaken strategically. Not to mention pressure to weaken oil sanctions.

toomuchtodo5• 4 months ago

The cover of war is a great use for targeting fossil fuel infrastructure Russia relies on for exports. Sufficiently inhibiting their ability to export will force them to shut in wells (as we're seeing with major Middle Eastern oil exporters as shore storage reaches capacity), which will potentially take years to restart.

thisislife26• 4 months ago

Come again - what Russian fuel infrastructure is being targeted, with the Iranian war as a cover?

dmix3• 4 months ago

Russia's oil revenue was down but it was far from being game changing even with stricter sanctions. The oil sector hit has always been more of a big incentive to end the war then something than will impact it militarily on the ground.

demosito666• 4 months ago

Really? Cost of extraction in Russia is about $30/barrel, sanctions introduced discount of about $20/barrel in 2025 which means 70% profit drop at market price of $60. Sounds pretty game changing to me.

amelius2• 4 months ago

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/12/politics/trump-iran-war-r...

reactordev• 4 months ago

I was just going to post this. You don’t have to wait long to know their thoughts…

burkaman2• 4 months ago

Not to mention pressure to weaken oil sanctions.

The Trump administration instantly folded under that pressure and has already removed some sanctions: https://xcancel.com/SecScottBessent/status/20297142537252622...

partiallypro• 4 months ago

Maybe a short financial shot in the arm, but destroying their ability to get Shahed drones is substantial.

wood_spirit3• 4 months ago

Russia has been mass producing its own copies or the drones - the Russian version is called Geran 2 - for several years now. They use a lot of western and sanctioned components and they assemble them in big factories eg Kupol plant in the Russian city of Izhevsk

m4rtink2• 4 months ago

AFAIK by this point they are now building them all themselves in the big Yelabuga factory.

thisislife26• 4 months ago

From the American perspective it's a plus - If Russia is getting richer (when it desperately needs the cash) it has an incentive to not get involved in the Iran war (at least in the short-term). (Remember that just before the Iran invasion, US and some of its European allies were suddenly capturing Russian "shadow fleet" oil tankers and increasing pressure on India to cut down Russian oil, and its oil revenues dropped drastically). If Iran can be conquered, Americans gets richer, gain more influence in the middle-east and the Europe (to whom they'll sell the gas) while the Russians will lose much of their influence in the middle-east.

As for Ukraine, nobody in the west really cares for it - that proxy war has given all the dividends it can for the west (EU has cut off all economic ties with Russia, EU is now dependent again on the US for its energy thus making the US richer, EU's next generation have now been brainwashed to hate the Russians again, Finland and Sweden have been successfully pressurised to give up neutrality and join NATO, Finland and Sweden joining NATO means the Arctic Council is now dominated by NATO - Arctic is where the west will next try to cut off Russian influence, Ukraine - which had a large territory and the one of the largest military in Europe - has been cut down in size and is now totally economically and military dependent on the west in effect a vassal state) and the Ukraine war is a stalemate now, where Russians will make slow gains as their army grinds down and keeps losing soldiers - and that's a plus too. As Russia becomes weaker, another proxy war or even a direct attack against it can be waged later in the future (maybe after Putin?). American deep state always plans long term - Death by a 1000 cuts ...

readthenotes1• 4 months ago

EU has cut off economic ties? Sure, if 2027 is in the past and you believe they will stay the course

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...

throwaway274485• 4 months ago

at a point they seemed to weaken strategically

They can hold out for many years. Oil prices going up just means a slightly gentler market for russians.

euroderf• 4 months ago

They can hold out for many years.

They are running down cash, gold, and cannon fodder.

BurningFrog3• 4 months ago

Alternative scenario:

Iran should be militarily defeated in a few weeks, so that's a brief shot in the arm.

If Iran gets a half decent government and sanctions on Iran are lifted, that would lower oil prices and hit the Russian economy.

roryirvine• 4 months ago

By way of comparison, Iraq's oil production didn't return to the pre-war level until mid 2012.

It's probably reasonable to expect several years of disruption to Iranian oil even if sanctions were to be completely lifted in the very near term.

shadowgovt• 4 months ago

This seems in-line with modern US military doctrine.

The US generally only wages wars of aggression against a nation as well-organized and well-armed as Iran when it can do them at arm's length with remote weapons and air superiority. Since the US has a volunteer army, actual risk to soldiers for something not perceived by the public as an existential threat jeopardizes future fighting efficacy.

The US public will tolerate missiles launched in its name; it is far less likely to tolerate video of entire Navy ships going down or sailors (not) coming home in body bags by the shipload for a cause that the administration didn't even try to sell them on as necessary.

roughly3• 4 months ago

There’s a reason no prior administration did this - Iran’s had 40 years to plan for this war.

burkaman2• 4 months ago

Also because prior administrations were successful with diplomacy and/or nonviolent sabotage.

weregiraffe2• 4 months ago

So? USA and Israel had the same 40 years.

gzread3• 4 months ago

They didn't spend it planning for this war.

lokar3• 4 months ago

There is a good chance they are trying to bait the US navy to enter the strait

m4rtink2• 4 months ago

US was escorting tankers during the 1980s in the Persian Gulf:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war

DeRock• 4 months ago

And right in line with the OP you responded to, that was 40 years ago

roughly3• 4 months ago

As a note on this: it only worked because neither party wanted to start a war with the US. US naval escort during times of war - especially modern drone- and missile-based war - is just putting more eggs in the basket.

burnt-resistor2• 4 months ago

That was a completely different time when the US Navy had around 600 ships.

valcker• 4 months ago

There were no drones back then and it's a real game-changer for asymmetric warfare.

fallkp• 4 months ago

They do not seem to have a plan for Hormuz at all. Realistically, it takes Russia to supply 10 high precision drones per day to keep up the fear with pinprick operations. This can go on forever.

The winners are Russia and Trump's LNG fracking friends. The losers are the EU, who had their pipeline blown up and now had their Qatari suppliers blown up. But EU politicians sit still and leave it all to Trump and Putin.

margalabargala2• 4 months ago

Realistically, it takes Russia to supply 10 high precision drones per day to keep up the fear with pinprick operations.

Considering Iran supplies Russia with a lot of its high precision drones, I don't think it even takes this. Iran can do it all on their own.

thisislife26• 4 months ago

Russia no longer buys Iranian drones. Russia tied up with Iran to setup drone manufacturing in Russia instead, so that both can benefit ( https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/08/europe/russia-drone-facto... ).

papyrus9244• 4 months ago

Europe's first mistake was abandoning nuclear energy, and their second mistake was not going all in on renewables.

drgo• 4 months ago

Apparently, Trump was told that the Iran war is 10 to 1 (politically) winning for him. What do you think are the real odds now?

Rapzid• 4 months ago

The reporting is the Trump administration was told NOT to attack Iran by the military and intelligence agencies but they did it anyway.

morpheuskafka• 4 months ago

Don't you need an escort from a neutral country? Being escorted by a party to the conflict is just putting your non-military, non-target really close to a military, legitimate target?

CommanderData• 4 months ago

Now the world suffers because of intel and pressure from Israel.

It's like we never learnt from Iraq, Syria, Libya.

Gagarin1917• 4 months ago

At least there’s a major silver lining:

Higher oil prices and more volatility in the oil market makes renewables even better of an investment.

Climate change has somewhat faded from popular culture, but the problem still persists. The faster everyone gets off oil the better the less the world will suffer in the future for many different reasons.

PowerElectronix• 4 months ago

Yeah, they didn't expect iran to fuck everything up and now the dudes that sell oil in dollars because of security guarantees and their ships are being bombarded and running out of air defenses.

thisislife26• 4 months ago

Iran has no choice. They've been observing how US destroyed and / or co-opted all their neighbours, one by one, over the decades and have been preparing for their turn for a long time. The undeclared US-Israeli strategy against Iran, and Tehran’s counter-strategy - https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-undecla...

ukblewis3• 4 months ago

I’m honestly shocked by the support for the Islamic regime of Iran (I refuse to call it Iran since it and the IRGC and the Basij does not represent the Iranian people who showed us this January in their millions that they don’t support it) on this platform. Honestly, any sick human being who supports them, well they are either deeply ignorant or deeply evil and inhumane. I am awaiting the response comments from tens of Iranian bots and hundreds of idiots who ignored the Iranians demanding help in this January

thisislife26• 4 months ago

Sure, Iran (its regime) is bad.

Iran's neighbour, Israel currently has a genocidal regime (where Netanyahu is trying to become the Jewish Ayatollah by crippling its democracy with the help of his right-wing buddies) that has already massacred and injured more than 50,000 children ( https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unimaginable-horrors-m... ). (The Palestinian genocide is still ongoing). The start of the Iranian war with a massacre of 100+ children suggest that an Iranian genocide too is planned.

America is today run by a President who believes that the rise of India, China, Brazil, South Korea, EU etc, means that American might will be challenged soon, and thus America needs to drop its facade of respect for international law and order and use its full economic and military might to strengthen itself. The Attack on Venezuela and Iran has no politically moral goodwill behind it and is a pure resource grab - it's just a return of imperialism not even trying to pretend otherwise, which none of us in the Global South (former colonies) wish to experience again.

So, tell me again, how is Israel and US morally better than Iran?

tartoran• 4 months ago

I live in the US, and I have no idea what support you’re talking about. Is saying this attack on Iran was a massive fuck-up now considered support for the regime? Is pointing out that this chaotic, badly planned conflict looks terrible, and likely will not weaken the regime much at all, now considered support? If anything, it risks giving them exactly what they want: a younger Ayatollah, fresh grievances, and more national unity. Or is any criticism automatically support now?

JojoFatsani• 4 months ago

Agree. Need to see the grey between the black and white of the discourse.

And I’ll add on a friendly reminder to anyone who needs it that only 22% of the USA population voted for the current administration.

Caius-Cosades2• 4 months ago

Gaza was already a demonstration of what will be done to you and your people if you "unconditionally surrender" to Israel/US. Genocide is what you'll get. And please do keep in mind that Israel is no stranger to lying about it's neighbours as was seen with Saddam Hussein and the mythical weapons of mass destruction back in 2002-2003.

burnt-resistor2• 4 months ago

The modern US Navy lacks the number of ships it once had. And the destroyers it has in the area are already doing too many other jobs like defending carriers from unmanned drone vessels, firing million dollar missiles at 50k drones, and shooting Tomahawks to blow up little girls at school.

yubblegum• 4 months ago

I am certain this entire misadventure was war gamed in Israel by AI. What is certain that regardless of what happens to IRI, United States of America will no longer have a welcome home in Middle East. GCC countries are also toast - gone is tourism, global air travel hubs, and techno hubs of the Arabs. Someone must have been rather jealous.

None of what has happened to date was even remotely unforeseeable. It really took a special kind of stupid (that would be the commander in chief of our military) to get drawn in to this fiasco.

We really need to get rid of dual citizens in corridors of power and influence in this nation. ASAP.

U.S. Navy turns down Hormuz escort requests because of high risk

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