The math is brutal. Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz with a handful of $50,000 drones. Reopening it may require weeks of minesweeping, round-the-clock naval escorts, and a commitment of warships that the US Navy does not currently have available — all while Iranian coastal batteries, fast-attack boats, and underwater drones continue to threaten every vessel that moves. Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the strait that carries 20% of the world’s oil has become the war’s center of gravity, and nobody in Washington has a plan to unlock it.
Senator Chris Murphy emerged from a classified Pentagon briefing on Wednesday and posted on X: “On the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN. I can’t go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice to say, right now, they don’t know how to get it safely back open.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed the same day that all military assets were focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities — not on escort duty. Naval escorts, he said, would “quite likely” begin by the end of the month. That is at least two more weeks of a shut waterway.
The Three-Layer Problem
Iran’s ability to shut the strait rests on three overlapping threats, each requiring a different military response. The first is anti-ship missiles and drones launched from Iran’s southern coastline. The second is fast-attack boats — small, cheap, and expendable vessels that swarm in packs and are difficult to engage without risking collateral damage to commercial traffic. The third, and potentially most time-consuming, is mines.
US Central Command said Tuesday it had destroyed 16 Iranian minelaying vessels near the strait. But the damage may already be done. Iran’s naval mine stockpile is estimated at between 2,000 and 5,000 — and even a small number of mines can paralyze commercial shipping, because the threat alone is enough to keep insurers from underwriting passage. The US Navy’s dedicated mine countermeasures fleet has shrunk dramatically in recent decades. Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said America’s limited minesweeping resources in the region could clear the strait “over significant numbers of weeks.” Europe’s more capable minesweepers are “months away from showing up.”
Bryan Clark, a former assistant to the US chief of naval operations and now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said drones remain the most persistent threat. “Antidrone capacity is beginning to catch up, but some are always going to get through.” Pairing unmanned aerial systems with military escorts could reduce the risk — but cannot eliminate it. If even a few drones penetrate defenses and destroy a supertanker, the insurance market will seize up again overnight.
The Insurance Wall
The physical threat is only half the problem. The other half sits in the offices of maritime insurers in London, Hamburg, and Singapore. War-risk premiums for vessels transiting the Gulf have soared to levels that make most commercial voyages economically unviable. Several major underwriters have simply stopped writing policies for the zone entirely.
The Trump administration’s response has been creative but untested. The US International Development Finance Corporation announced a $20 billion reinsurance program to backstop maritime insurers who suffer losses from attacks in the Gulf. Details remain sparse — and shipping executives say the coverage is meaningless without credible military protection to match it.
Daily transits through the strait have collapsed from an average of 129 before the war to single digits. The International Energy Agency (IEA) declared the disruption “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” estimating that global supplies would drop by 8 million barrels per day this month. Even the historic release of 400 million barrels from strategic reserves — the largest emergency drawdown ever authorized — has failed to push Brent crude sustainably below $100.
Iran’s “Use It or Lose It” Dilemma
The longer the strait stays closed, the more pressure builds on both sides — but not symmetrically. For Washington, every day of closure drives gas prices higher, erodes public support for the war, and strengthens Iran’s hand at any future negotiating table. For Tehran, closure also blocks its own oil exports, but the regime has calculated that the economic pain it inflicts on the global economy — and on American consumers in particular — outweighs the cost to itself.
Clayton Seigle of CSIS warned before the war that Iran faced a “use it or lose it” dilemma: as US strikes degrade its conventional capabilities, Tehran may be tempted to play its biggest remaining card — direct attacks on Gulf oil infrastructure — before it loses the ability to do so. Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery has already been hit. Qatar’s LNG exports were shut down. Any further escalation against Gulf energy assets would send prices into uncharted territory, but it would also almost certainly trigger US retaliation against Iran’s own oil facilities, particularly Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iranian crude exports flow.
Oil analyst Anas Alhajji captured the long tail of the crisis: “Ending the war does not mean ending the crisis.” Even after the strait reopens, production facilities shut during the fighting will need to restart, supply chains will need to rebuild, and insurance markets will need to recalibrate. American gas prices, which have risen from $2.94 to $3.60 a gallon in two weeks, are unlikely to return to pre-war levels for months.
The administration promised a war that would be swift, decisive, and cost-free for American consumers. The strait’s closure has made a mockery of all three promises. Trump can destroy every Iranian warship, submarine, and coastal battery — and the mines will still be there, the drones will still launch from pickup trucks, and the insurers will still refuse to write policies. Some problems cannot be bombed into submission. The Strait of Hormuz is one of them.
Original analysis inspired by Laurent Belsie from The Christian Science Monitor. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
By ThinkTanksMonitor
