What the US Navy Can Learn from Iran

National Interest  |  Christopher Preble, Marie-Louise Westermann

Iranian forces continue to obstruct commercial shipping and US Navy vessels through the Strait of Hormuz despite an intense United States and Israeli campaign that destroyed Tehran’s conventional fleet. This disruption demonstrates how weaker actors exploit low-cost anti-access/area denial capabilities to paralyze maritime chokepoints and project leverage.

The operational standoff directly challenges doctrine derived from 19th-century strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, which prioritizes force structures optimized for peer competition. Similar to Ukrainian strikes constraining Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and Houthi interdictions in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Tehran leverages uncrewed systems, missiles, and mines to weaponize commercial attrition. By transforming an expected three-week operation into a five-month conflict, the regime proves that damaging merchant trade defines sea power as effectively as fleet displacement. Accounting for such asymmetric denial methods remains essential for Pentagon planners to accurately evaluate force requirements, conflict durations, and regional risks.

Comment

Tactical blockades in narrow chokepoints expose fundamental flaws in classical maritime doctrine rooted in Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783. Mahanian theory tied command of the sea directly to battle fleet concentration and capital ship tonnage designed to destroy opposing navies. Land-based anti-ship missiles, uncrewed surface vessels, and naval mines decouple commerce disruption from fleet survival, allowing land-oriented powers to assert sea denial without maintaining surface combatants. This structural decoupling invalidates force structure assessments that measure naval dominance solely through displacement and capital ship counts.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which framework better accounts for prolonged maritime blockades in contested chokepoints — Alfred Thayer Mahan’s focus on fleet concentration and capital ship tonnage, or a model that measures sea power primarily by commercial disruption capabilities?

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