Foreign Policy > Warfare

Mines: Weapons That Wait

The U.S. is ignoring one of the most serious threats to its naval dominance -- the naval mine. 

Barrett Tillman | March 27, 2026

Leading his fleet into Mobile Bay in 1864, Admiral David Farragut voiced the famous line, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

Actually, the Confederates had no torpedoes as we know them today. Farragut used the contemporary term for mines, which sank the 2,100-ton monitor Tecumseh and damaged several other Union vessels.

Since then, mines have been a constant in naval warfare, recognized as “weapons that wait.” Often they are used offensively and defensively by both sides in a war, threatening passage of enemy vessels or deterring them from entering friendly waters.

In 1945 the U.S. Navy and Army Air Force bottled up Japan’s remaining naval and merchant ships by mining home island waters. The once all-conquering Imperial Navy was reduced to rusting in place.

Frequently months to years are required to remove mines after peace returns. In five months of 1919, the U.S. Navy helped sweep 70,000 Allied mines from the 240-mile stretch of the North Sea between Norway and Scotland. The extensive mine “barrage” was an effective counter to German U-boats but required removal for commerce to proceed.

One of the best-known examples of postwar mine removal was Operation End Sweep after the Vietnam War. With the signing of the Paris accords in January 1973, the U.S. deployed surface vessels and aircraft to meet the requirement for removing thousands of mines from North Vietnamese coastal and riverine waters. Though many mines has gone “sterile” by then, the process took six months, with the task completed in July.

Little known is that the officer directing End Sweep, Rear Admiral Brian McCauley, turned his attention to clearing the Suez Canal the next year. The vital waterway had been blocked for eight years with sunken or stranded ships, wreckage, and mines on both banks.

Mines re-entered the public consciousness during the 1980s when Iran launched “the tanker war,” particularly targeting Kuwaiti shipping in the Persian Gulf. Because 20 percent of the world’s oil supply originates there, the 21-mile chokepoint at the Gulf of Hormuz and adjacent waters had to be cleared.

A worldwide maritime survey noted, “Strait of Hormuz to be on the alert for possible terrorist activities.” Therefore, Lloyds of London identified the Gulf as a war zone requiring additional insurance and raising the cost of petroleum products.

Iran’s methods were not limited to mines. Fast small craft often attacked merchant shipping, which were defenseless against such threats. Meanwhile, at least 35 international vessels struck mines in 1986-87 alone, some being sunk.

In 1987 President Ronald Reagan authorized Operation Earnest Will, with American warships escorting Kuwaiti vessels in the Gulf. Third-party operators hastened to reflag vessels under Kuwait registry to qualify for American largess.

But that year the U.S. was caught terribly short. The Navy had just twenty-two mine warfare vessels but only three active-duty minesweepers, all based in the U.S. They were the Korean War vintage USS Illusive (MSO-448), USS Leader (MSO-490), and USS Fidelity (MSO-443). The ocean-going vessels left the East Coast in September, transiting the Suez Canal to arrive on station in early November.

Subsequently three U.S. Navy ships suffered mine damage in the Gulf: the destroyer USS Samuel B. Roberts in April 1988, plus the helicopter carrier Tripoli (LPH-10) and the cruiser Princeton (CG-59) on the same day in February 1991.

The Mine Threat Today

From Vietnam through 2024, mines inflicted 78 percent of the damage to U.S. naval vessels: fifteen versus one each for combined aircraft/torpedo, missile, and small craft.

Frequently the United States relies on NATO and other allied navies to provide minesweepers. This month President Donald Trump wrote, “Hopefully, China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated.”

But deploying the vessels from far afield in sufficient quantity, especially from Asia, is likely to remain a challenge.

During President Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, launched on February 28, air strikes often targeted Iran’s navy, which has largely been destroyed or immobilized. On March 10 the Department of War announced destruction of 16 mine-capable vessels, including speedboats that can carry multiple weapons.

Epic Fury has targeted all aspects of Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure, including plants that manufacture components. Given the exceptionally detailed intelligence exhibited by the U.S. and Israel, presumably the same policy could apply to mine production. But the allies should consider the likelihood that Tehran will disperse its manufacturing and storage facilities, especially since the mine option is paramount in the wake of Epic Fury.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, the smoldering situation involving Taiwan requires attention to mine warfare. Again, the weapons that wait pose offensive and defensive threats with the communist Peoples Republic of China and the nationalist Republic of China facing one another across the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. The ROC Navy owns about ten mine craft, mostly foreign built. In vivid contrast, the PLA(N) disposes of dozens of minelayers and sweepers that would be essential to an amphibious invasion of the island.

But a 2025 survey by the Center for Maritime Strategy concluded, “The current state of American minesweeping capability is grim. The Avenger class of mine countermeasures ships are nearly 40 years old. Of the 14 vessels originally built, only eight remain -- all forward-deployed in Manama, Bahrain and Sasebo, Japan. In a Taiwan crisis, the four Sasebo-based MCMs would take nearly two days to reach Taiwan at top speed and under ideal conditions.

“The Navy plans to retire four of the remaining Avenger class hulls this fiscal year, reducing the fleet’s mine countermeasures ships to just four platforms, which themselves are scheduled to be retired by 2027.”

“The Navy plans to retire four of the remaining Avenger class hulls this fiscal year, reducing the fleet’s mine countermeasures ships to just four platforms, which themselves are scheduled to be retired by 2027.”

Whatever any specific situation, globally those who rely on maritime commerce will remain aware of the weapons that wait.

Barrett Tillman is a professional author, historian, and commentator. His next book is ‘Execute, repeat Execute’: Operation Pocket Money and the End of the Vietnam War due from Bloomsbury-Osprey next year.

Image: Australian War Memorial

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