The Iran War's Lessons for the Navy

Hey Paul!

Here is a more reliable link to the article, for anyone else who wants to read it without a Yahoo login: https://cimsec.org/the-iran-war-highlights-new-realities-and-changing-paradigms/

In general, I agree with your assessment that reopening Hormuz would be a major undertaking that would likely require the occupation of portions of the Iranian coastline and, invariably, would result in significant fatalities and loss of materiel on the American side. The events of the past few weeks have shown that Trump is unwilling to risk mass casualties of US soldiers to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians have definitely cottoned on to this, as shown by their intransigence in recent "negotiations."

I also agree with your recommendation that the Navy focus on the development and procurement of lethal, cheap, and reliable unmanned systems to mitigate the Iranian advantage in asymmetric drone warfare. Yet I have a major concern as it relates to our production capacity. Although we may still have a residual industrial base here at home that hasn't been fully outsourced to the Chinese, we do not have the capacity (yet) to procure basic components and key minerals, such as rare earths, that the Chinese have largely cornered. What's the use of a large drone factory if it sits idle because we are crippled by lack of access to Chinese components? We need a whole of industry rethink on our current vulnerabilities to the Chinese specifically, as I don't think that the threat they pose is fully appreciated. I think there was a company (Skydio) that recently lost access to key components for its US made drones due to Chinese export restrictions, so this is not an idle concern.

Also, I'd like to point out another track the US could take with respect to Hormuz, namely, rendering it less valuable to the Iranians. By supporting pipeline extensions that bypass Hormuz and encouraging Gulf countries to reduce their reliance on the Strait, the Iranians may one day find that there's no one left to pay the tolls they wish to levy.

Been looking forward to reading this piece for a while, so thank you again for posting!

-Ben