A row of US-flagged oil tankers participate in Operation Earnest Will, the US Navy’s tanker escort mission, during the Iran-Iraq War in August 1987. For a variety of reasons, a similar mission is infeasible for the US Navy today. (US Navy/Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Tolliver)

Why Can’t the US Escort Oil Tankers Through the Strait of Hormuz?

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There are six compelling reasons the US Navy cannot repeat its tanker escort campaign of the 1980s against Iran today—most of them highlighting broader deficiencies in its warfighting ability.

Here’s a puzzling aspect of the Iran war: why hasn’t the US Navy reprised its convoy strategy from the “tanker war” almost 40 years ago in order to force open the Strait of Hormuz?

The tanker war was a subplot to the Iran-Iraq War, wherein the chief combatants, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic of Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq assailed each other’s hydrocarbon infrastructure, including oil rigs, along with tankers traversing the Persian Gulf. Iranian targets included tankers sailing under the Kuwaiti flag. In response, the Reagan administration arranged to “reflag” Kuwaiti tankers under the Stars and Stripes to provide legal cover for the Navy to escort tankers through the embattled waterway. The administration dubbed the escort endeavor Operation Earnest Will.

And it worked—eventually. Naval warfare is intrinsically slow-moving. In fact, Julian Corbett, arguably the GOAT among maritime strategists, maintains that strategies like blockades only work through gradual exhaustion. And he seems skeptical, even about that. Sea power is an enabler for success on dry earth—not a decisive force in itself.

So one might think that convoys would be a logical solution during Operation Epic Fury, today’s campaign against the Islamic Republic. Instead, US Navy warships have stayed out of the Gulf altogether, taking station in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea to mount a distant blockade of Iranian seaports while Navy and Air Force warplanes pummel Iranian sites in hopes of suppressing threats to mercantile shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

I am not privy to decision-making at the Pentagon or the US Central Command, the superintendent of operations against the Islamic Republic, but four differences between the 1980s and now stand out.

#1: The US Wasn’t at War with Iran Then—It Is Now

The politics and strategy are different than they were during Earnest Will. The United States was not a participant in the Iran-Iraq War, so the US Navy assumed a defensive stance vis-à-vis Iranian attacks on mercantile shipping. The Iranian Navy already had enough on its hands fighting against Iraq; it made no strategic sense to draw the United States into the war by attacking its vessels.

This time around, the United States is a direct participant, and in fact the leading combatant. The US military has gone on offense in concert with Israel, placing the Islamic Republic regime on what Sun Tzu, ancient China’s martial sage, dubs “death ground.” Death ground connotes a battle for survival. A combatant bestriding death ground fights to its utmost, knowing that it will perish with a loss. It expends all resources available to it in order to survive, and it keeps up the expenditure for as long as it takes.

Hence the stubborn stance Tehran has taken during this year’s fighting,........

© The National Interest