Benjamin Jensen
While air strikes in Iran have captured the headlines, the naval campaign offers a harbinger of future battles likely to unfold at sea. Iran lost the majority of its naval capability in less than 10 days, as pulsed operations in the first 48 hours disrupted Tehran’s ability to disperse its submarines and ships to wage the asymmetric maritime campaign it had planned for decades. As of March 11, the United States and Israel had hit and taken out more than 60 Iranian ships, according to U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) Commander Admiral Brad Cooper. As a result, Iran can still threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz but will struggle to counter U.S. convoys in the weeks ahead. Looking further ahead, the campaign carries a cautionary tale for Taiwan, the United States, and Japan about how to survive the initial salvo likely in any Pacific war.
What We Know About the Naval Campaign
Based on open-source reporting and official announcements, the United States appears to have prioritized destroying Iran’s ability to counterattack by sea in the opening hours of its combined strikes with Israel. With sorties by both states averaging more than 1,000 a day—combined with information warfare commingling effects in space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum—Washington and Tel Aviv struck command-and-control systems, degraded air defenses, and targeted Iran’s ballistic missiles. These dramatic attacks, which included an opening decapitation strike, set conditions for an equally audacious series of naval strikes. As shown in the table below, the strikes reflect a distinct targeting logic indicative of a clear campaign: a sequence of tactical actions designed to disrupt Tehran’s plan and deny the regime the ability to launch a coordinated naval campaign in the Persian Gulf.
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