The Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed — US Central Command protestations notwithstanding — with traffic running at about 10 percent of prewar levels. That strategic fact pushed President Donald Trump to rescind orders for what he described as a massive military strike amid talks to fully reopen the key waterway.
In a recent op-ed in these pages, Stephen Wills argues in response to an opinion piece of my own that this is not a Navy failure. While I greatly respect Wills’ expertise on naval affairs, we don’t agree here.
Our analyses do overlap in several respects, however, even if the conclusions we draw remain leagues apart. Let’s go piece by piece:
The war is not over yet. This is a fair observation, and the president could yet order a major military operation to open the Strait. I believe such an operation would likely succeed, though with some casualties. However, the war has gone on for nearly five months, and such an operation has not occurred. The strategic and economic damage has already been immense, even if the war ends soon.
The blockade has been effective. This is absolutely true. The blockade of Iranian shipping through the Strait adds stress to an already faltering Iranian economy. The Navy can take credit for this well executed operation. However, the blockade has not neutralized Iran’s control. The effect has been that any shipping transiting the Strait must now get permission from both the United States and Iran.
The failure reflects a political judgment. Civilian decision makers bear some, or perhaps much, of the blame, as I argue in the original article. It’s unclear what expectations about the Strait were in the original war planning, but the fact that Marine amphibious forces were not sent until several weeks after the beginning of hostilities indicates some lack of preparation.
Nevertheless, it’s too easy for the military to argue that they did everything right, and the civilians screwed it up. The Navy has apparently not provided the civilian leadership with the needed capabilities to conduct such an operation at acceptable risk. This happened despite large recent budgets and knowing for 45 years that this critical mission might occur.
The Navy may believe it did enough to open the Strait, but it does not get to decide. That decision rests in the hands of the shipping industry—owners, insurers, and crews. If they decide that passage is too risky—as they have—then traffic doesn’t flow, and the world economy is at risk. The industry has voted by its actions that US efforts are inadequate.
Any failure is a joint failure, not just the Navy’s. It’s a fair point that all modern US operations are joint, not single service. The joint force shares in the failure. Nevertheless, the Navy has keeping the seaways open in its mission statement, and no other service does. That gives it a level of responsibility above that of other services.
The Strait is not truly closed. Trackers show that some ships do get through, in part because the companies or the nations have made a deal with Iran. The number of ships transiting, however, is only 10 percent or so of the normal traffic, and about 500 merchant ships are stranded in the Gulf.
The Navy can handle drones, speedboats, and sea mines. The Navy does have mechanisms to handle these threats, and so far no warships have sustained damage. However, drones and speedboats have damaged commercial shipping, and mines have forced transits into a small number of cleared channels. To be successful in opening the waterway, the Navy must translate its defensive capabilities into protection for commercial shipping at a level the shipping industry judges acceptable. Self-protection is not enough.
Close escort of convoys is obsolete. The Navy did escort one small convoy during Project Freedom: two cargo ships and two destroyers. CENTCOM had apparently planned to shift tactics and create a safe corridor through the Strait using standoff assets rather than convoys. Project Freedom was canceled before that concept could be tested. It might work, but the fact is that, thus far, only a close escort has succeeded.
Although the Navy, with the joint force, has contested Iranian control of the Strait, those efforts have failed to stop enough attacks against shipping to convince most shipowners to make the run. In World War I, the British were slow to adopt convoys, as was the United States in World War II. In both cases, the navies preferred to go after the threat rather than be tied down to convoys. Both approaches failed catastrophically, and the respective navies shifted to protected convoys. The burden is on the Navy to show that the new concept will succeed.
This is just the beginning. Despite the disagreements in our respective commentaries, we do agree that this is a discussion that the Navy, armed forces, and nation need to have. Closure of the Strait has been an immense strategic and economic setback that the United States and the entire world will want to avoid in the future. That requires diagnosing the problem, which will get easier as more information becomes available, then identifying a solution, and finally implementing that solution. In the past, programs for these kinds of operations have not fared well during internal budget discussions.
Five months into this conflict and with no end in sight, I come back to my original point: A blocked Strait is a naval failure. How else can it be characterized? The Navy, with its $248 billion FY 2026 budget, 345,000 active-duty sailors, and 290 ships, can do better.
Mark Cancian is a retired Marine colonel now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).