Iran War Topic Week

By Paul Viscovich, CDR, USN (Ret.)

After four months into the conflict, Iran is defiantly refusing to capitulate. This “four week war” now threatens to become another drawn-out conflict. Despite American tactical successes, Tehran has seized control of the Strait of Hormuz and holds the strategic upper hand. Closing the Strait has severely restricted the flow of critically needed oil and agricultural fertilizer, threatening an economic crisis and worldwide famine. Allies, friends, and opponents alike are losing confidence in American leadership and are applying increasing pressure on Washington to resolve this crisis one way or another.

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz poses formidable challenges. It is approximately 90 nautical miles long and 21 nautical miles wide across at its narrowest point. Transiting ships are exposed to mining, close-range missile, fast patrol boat and drone swarm attacks from roughly 130 degrees throughout their course. On March 10, Tehran effectively closed the Strait by announcing it had mined the shipping channels. Whether or not they did, or how extensive these minefields were, is less important than the threat itself and how effectively it shaped behavior. Iran has also fired on and damaged merchant shipping attempting to run the gauntlet.

In early May, as many as 2,000 merchant ships were reported trapped in the Persian Gulf. This number has decreased in recent weeks, reportedly because some nations are obtaining diplomatic clearance from Tehran for their ships to transit unmolested. The Trump Administration directed the Navy to assist tankers in departing the Persian Gulf, and about 200 have reportedly made the transit as of this writing. In either case, it certainly appears these transits have depended on Iranian restraint during the recent ceasefire. Any future resumptions in hostilities will prompt Tehran to close the Strait again, as happened on June 11.

Anticipating this, U.S. Central Command previously announced its intention to restore freedom of navigation through the Strait. In view of Iran’s previous attacks on vessels attempting this transit, shippers and their underwriters are unlikely to accept anything less than armed naval escorts. But this level of support is unlikely for the simple reason that the risk of losing one or more $2.5 billion guided missile destroyers to attack at close range, while restricted in their ability to maneuver, is too high. Enemy strikes would logically concentrate on the naval escorts, since without these, shippers will decline attempting the passage. Even close air support will be affected, as weapon payloads would likely have to be reduced to accommodate the additional weight in fuel required to fly from carriers stationed far out to sea – safely beyond the range of Iranian drone swarms and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs). And ultimately there are likely far too few military escorts given the volume of commercial shipping, and escort operations cannot be maintained indefinitely.

The problem is that Iran has met America’s great power forces and methods with asymmetric tactics the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were unprepared to counter. The remedy is to fight fire with fire, balancing conventional warships and aviation squadrons with inexpensive and expendable unmanned systems better adapted to the threat environment.

Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen effectively contested the Bab al-Mandab strait in 2024 and heavily influenced the flow of shipping despite repeated attacks from carrier strike groups. The Houthis subsequently denied this chokepoint to two American carrier strike groups in the Iran War, with one remaining in the northern Red Sea, and the other being forced to transit around the entire continent of Africa. This is the definition of asymmetric warfare.

To effectively impact Iran’s ability to launch similar attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. would have to seize and hold the coastline from where these strikes originate. If the landings are successful, occupation of these coastal regions would force Iran to move its drone and ASCM launch sites further inland, increasing the reaction time for forces to target and engage, while exposing Iranian weapons to ground fire enroute to their targets at sea.

However, this carries significant risks of its own. The initial landings would be confined to beaches along the Gulf of Oman, since a forced transit into the Persian Gulf is too dangerous and would forfeit the element of surprise. It would also require the landing force to maneuver north to control the coast at least as far as Bandar Abbas. And the threat posed by ASCMs, drones, and fast attack boat swarms will limit naval gunfire support against counterattack by Iran’s massive army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. These landing sites would also create major standing logistical demands to ensure their sustainment and reinforcement, especially as Iranian ground forces seek to eject landing forces back into the sea. This option demonstrates the extreme challenges the U.S. would have to accept in order to truly contest Iranian littoral anti-access area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities with existing force structure.

It is time to take a serious look at how the Navy allocates its resources in responding to the threats of both peer adversaries like China, and regional powers like Iran that control important chokepoints. Drones, whether surface, subsurface, or airborne are not “impressive” in the same way conventional warships are. But the reality is that inexpensive, mass-produced systems have closed off the Persian Gulf and checked U.S. naval forces in their attempts at reopening it. The U.S. industrial base can no longer build warships or munitions at the pace needed to quickly replace the losses that might be incurred in landing forces on the Iranian coast, forcibly transiting the Strait, and continuing the fires campaign.

None of this is meant to say the Navy should immediately focus all its resources on procurement of inexpensive, uncrewed drones. Rather, these should be introduced as a crucial complement to traditional warships with their sophisticated weapon systems, for use in asymmetric threat environments. Instead of dedicating too much new construction funding to building new battleships, the Navy should pursue an aggressive program to acquire inexpensive, expendable, but highly capable offensive platforms to challenge enemy A2/AD operations and support power projection by the traditional fleet.

In view of this and other threats, the U.S. must treat emerging re-armament paradigms with a sense of urgency. The industrial base can still mass produce simple, inexpensive yet lethal weapons at scale, and far more quickly than the years it takes to design, build, crew, and train the complement of a warship. Likewise, drone maintenance, operation and operator training requires a tiny fraction of the resources consumed in keeping warships and aviation squadrons battle ready.

The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the greater the chances of a world energy crisis and famine become. Allies and once-friendly nations are turning away from American leadership and building independent strategic and economic coalitions in matters of mutual defense and free-trade agreements. Alfred Thayer Mahan once argued that British control of the seas, and a corresponding decline in the naval strength of its European adversaries paved the way for Great Britain’s emergence as the world’s dominant military, political, and economic power. Unless the U.S. learns from today’s strategic failures and economic limitations, the inefficient development and employment of the U.S. Navy may pave the way for the emergence of a new naval power as its own declines.

Paul Viscovich is a retired Surface Warfare Officer with 20 years’ service, twelve of that on sea duty. He is a frequent contributor to CIMSEC and publishes a current events newsletter, From Center Field, on paulviscovich.substack.com.

Featured Image: An F/A-18E Super Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 14, makes an arrested landing on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in support of Operation Epic Fury, March. 4, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo)

Iran War Topic Week

By Rear Adm. Roberto Domini, Italian Navy, (Ret.)

Introduction

The Strait of Hormuz is arguably the most consequential chokepoint in the global economy. Barely thirty kilometers wide at its narrowest point, it connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and to the Indian Ocean, channeling about one-fifth of the world’s oil and one-quarter of its liquefied natural gas through two shipping lanes, each no wider than three kilometers.¹ For decades, this slender corridor has served as the vital artery of international energy trade, and treated as a given of the global order.

That assumption ended on February 28, 2026, when the joint US–Israeli operation Epic Fury was launched against Iranian territory. What had been conceived as a surgical strike to decapitate the regime and neutralize Iran’s nuclear program rapidly deteriorated into a high-intensity conflict without clearly defined political objectives or a credible exit strategy. As one analyst observed, the operation represents “a paradigmatic case of strategic overextension” in which initial tactical enthusiasm has collided with the ruthless logic of long-term strategy, producing repercussions for the Gulf’s security architecture and for the balance of power among great powers.”²

For Italy, the crisis is anything but a distant emergency. A nation historically bound to the sea and dependent on imports for more than 75 percent of its energy needs, Italy faces in Hormuz a direct challenge to its energy security, economic resilience, and strategic credibility. These stakes are best understood through the lens of the wider Mediterranean — defined as the Italian M.O.T. (Maritime Operational Theatre) of primary national interest, encompassing all countries towards which Italy pursues a unified and independent security strategy, as well as areas of concern to NATO and the European Union.³ This concept has evolved over time from a strictly geographic definition into a broader geostrategic vision that accounts for Italy’s interactions with Europe, Asia, and Africa. At its core lies the notion of strategic depth – the capacity to project influence beyond maritime borders as a precondition for national security and prosperity.⁴

The closure of Hormuz must be read through this framework — not as a regional crisis to be observed from a safe distance, but as a challenge that “cannot be delegated to others.”⁵ This analysis traces the evolution of the conflict, assesses its geopolitical and operational consequences, and highlights Italy’s maritime vulnerabilities, which if left unaddressed, could lead to the loss of its relevance in the Mediterranean.

Asymmetric Warfare in the Strait of Hormuz

The conflict unleashed a systemic crisis whose epicenter was the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and nearly a third of its liquefied natural gas flow daily.⁶ Tehran’s response was not conventional. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy quickly activated a well-rehearsed interdiction system: fast attack craft of the so-called Mosquito Fleet, swarms of aerial and surface drones, and a mine arsenal estimated at between 2,000 and 6,000 warheads, including Chinese-origin rocket-propelled devices with acoustic and magnetic triggers. Systematic GPS jamming erased AIS tracking signals across the Strait, creating a blind theatre in which nearly one million interferences were recorded in the first quarter of 2026 alone. Even before the first clashes erupted, insurance markets and logistical calculations were already heavily affected.⁷

The escalation unfolded rapidly. A U.S. destroyer intercepted an Iranian cargo vessel, opening fire after hours of unanswered warnings, with Marines eventually boarding and seizing it.⁸ Tehran labelled the action armed piracy, negotiations in Islamabad collapsed, and Brent crude surged to nearly $97 a barrel. The IMO estimated that 800 ships were soon trapped in the Gulf, with over 20,000 seafarers stranded aboard. Pasdaran gunboats fired on transiting merchant vessels, and two container ships — operated by an Italian–Swiss group with a turnover close to €90 billion — were seized outright. ⁹

Washington then attempted to force the passage with Operation Project Freedom, deploying destroyers, aircraft, and thousands of personnel to escort commercial shipping through the Strait. Only two US-flagged vessels completed the transit before Iran retaliated with missiles against a South Korean ship and drone strikes on the Emirati port of Fujairah.¹⁰ Within two days the operation was suspended, its failure acknowledged. Iran’s parliament president declared that Tehran had not even begun to fight; the foreign minister dismissed the entire American effort as Project Deadlock. Negotiations mediated by Pakistan, Oman, and Russia remained deadlocked, though Iran had earlier put forward a 14-point roadmap offering a gradual reopening of the Strait in exchange for a fifteen-year freeze on uranium enrichment — a proposal Washington received with caution.¹¹

By early May the toll was stark: 32 verified incidents, at least ten sailors dead, over 500 million barrels withheld from global markets, and an estimated cost of $72 billion in the first sixty days. IEA strategic reserves covered barely 21 percent of the physical deficit and risked technical depletion by June. Europe alone absorbed losses exceeding €27 billion — roughly €500 million per day — as gas prices doubled and Brent reached $112 a barrel. The Suez Canal registered a 48 percent collapse in traffic, and war risk insurance premiums tripled, adding $250,000 to every supertanker voyage.¹²

After 38 days of operations, the CENTCOM commander testified before the US Senate that Epic Fury had destroyed or severely degraded more than 85 percent of Iran’s military-industrial base for missiles, drones, and naval defense, eliminating 161 naval units. Yet Iran retained what he termed a disruption capability — fast boats, drones, mines and proxy networks — sufficient to keep risk levels in the Strait dangerously elevated. A forty-nation coalition led by the United Kingdom maintained patrols under Operation Sentinel, while the Trump–Xi summit in Beijing produced agreement on keeping Hormuz open but no structural breakthrough, with China preserving its characteristic pragmatic neutrality.¹³

Looking ahead, analysts caution that Iran’s leverage may prove less decisive than it appears. A prolonged blockade ultimately damages Tehran as well as its adversaries, creating space for negotiation. Even so, any physical normalization of energy markets would require six to twelve months after an agreement. The broader risk is systemic — the Iranian precedent may embolden other coastal states to impose control over strategic waterways, steadily eroding the freedom of navigation on which the global economy depends.¹⁴

Geopolitical and Strategic Consequences

Hormuz is not a regional crisis theatre, but the laboratory where the grammar of maritime power is being rewritten. The Iranian doctrine of sea denial, perfected over 40 years of A2/AD (Anti-Access/Area Denial) planning, has demonstrated an uncomfortable truth: in such a narrow corridor, a mid-tier actor can deny freedom of maneuver to the world’s most powerful navy, not by achieving physical control of the waters, but by making transit economically unsustainable. The keystone is the asymmetric cost ratio. Each Shahed drone, valued at between $20,000 and $50,000, can invite the use of a PAC-3 missile interceptor costing approximately four million dollars: an exchange ratio of 130 to 1 that has bled American stockpiles dry. In forty days, the Pentagon has expended 1,100 JASSM missiles, 1,000 Tomahawks, 1,200 Patriots and 1,000 ATACMS, incurring an expenditure of between $28 and $35 billion. Replenishing these arsenals will take at least six years at current production rates.¹⁵ Beyond the cost ratios, the mere threat of sea denial capability is enough to heavily shape the behavior of shipping companies and influence their risk calculus.

On a geopolitical level, the conflict has accelerated the transition from a unipolar order to a conflictual and fragmented multipolarity. Washington has discovered the limits of its own power projection. The naval blockade against Iranian ports has strangled global energy trade without breaking Tehran, while Russia has exploited the American distraction to grow its influence in Europe, blocking the transit of Kazakh oil to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline since May 1 and positioning itself as an indispensable mediator.¹⁶ China, which purchases 80–90 percent of Iranian oil exports, has practiced a calculated ambiguity. Without openly violating the blockade, China has contested its legitimacy and pressed for the reopening of the Strait.¹⁷ The Gulf monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have denied the use of their bases for “Project Freedom,” fearing retaliation against their energy infrastructure. On April 28, the United Arab Emirates announced its withdrawal from OPEC after 58 years. The post-war alliance architecture is showing structural cracks that no tactical move will be able to heal in the short term.¹⁸

Europe, for its part, has launched strategic initiatives but has clashed with its own operational fragmentation. The Franco-British proposal for a multinational mission with alternating command, discussed at Northwood on April 27 with over thirty countries, has remained devoid of concrete commitments. RUSI has calculated that a close blockade of Iranian ports would require approximately one hundred naval vessels to maintain twenty-two on station, a critical mass that European navies, taken individually, do not possess.^{19, 20}

Furthermore, the crisis has unveiled a hybrid dimension that transcends the strictly maritime domain. Italy has already experienced an event of this kind in one of its ports. The explosion of the oil tanker Seajewel in the port of Vado Ligure during the night between February 14-15 2025, attributed to TNT devices equipped with magnets and timers of probable Ukrainian origin (an act of hybrid warfare linked to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict), has demonstrated that European energy terminals are already the target of clandestine operations tied to hybrid warfare and the interdiction of the pro-Russian shadow fleet. The event highlights the vulnerability of Italian energy terminals, which now simultaneously face local physical threats and the blockade of global routes due to U.S.-Iran tensions.²¹

Italy’s Mediterranean strategy: Imperatives for a Maritime Nation

The Hormuz crisis has forced Italy to confront a structural truth long obscured by institutional inertia: a nation surrounded by the sea on three sides, importing more than 75 percent of its energy, and whose prosperity depends on the free flow of global trade, cannot afford a passive maritime posture. The closure of the Strait has been, in this sense, the most severe stress test of Italy’s energy and maritime model since 1973.

The immediate consequences were stark. The blockade severed supplies of Qatari LNG — accounting for 10 to 12% of national imports, approximately 6.4 billion cubic meters annually — after QatarEnergy declared force majeure.²² The IMF revised Italy’s growth forecast down to 0.4%, the worst figure in Europe, while energy surcharges have already cost households roughly 1,000 Euros each. Alternative routes have struggled to absorb the shock: urgent transit auctions at the Panama Canal surged by 185%, and only the TAP corridor from Azerbaijan — covering 16% of national gas supply — provided a degree of structural resilience. New pipelines towards the Red Sea and the IMEC corridor are being planned to bypass the bottleneck permanently, but their realization lies years away.²³

Yet the crisis has also revealed an unexpected competitive advantage. Italy’s Marina Militare possesses some of the most advanced Mine Countermeasures capabilities within NATO. Its fleet of eight Gaeta-class minehunters — built from non-magnetic fiberglass and equipped with multi-frequency VDS sonars, ROVs and autonomous marine drone integration — clears approximately 14,000 explosive devices annually.²⁴ This expertise is grounded in an operational pedigree stretching back to the Gulf 1 mission of 1987–1988, the first international minesweeping campaign ever conducted in the Strait of Hormuz. No European ally combines equivalent technical proficiency with Italy’s historical neutrality in the Gulf and its open diplomatic channels with Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi and Tokyo. Washington has explicitly recognized this, urging Rome to join clearance operations as a perhaps irreplaceable contributor. The operational plan foresees the deployment of four vessels — minehunters Crotone and Rimini, a Bergamini-class frigate and a logistics support ship — deployable within four weeks from La Spezia. The €1.6 billion CNG program will guarantee twelve next-generation platforms and sustain this primacy beyond 2035.²⁵

The legal dimension reinforces Italy’s claim to lead or co-lead the mission. As legal scholar Fabio Caffio has clarified, a bilateral US–Iran agreement is insufficient for a strait classified as common waters under UNCLOS. Any minesweeping operation requires either Omani authorization or a UN Security Council mandate.²⁶ A mission commanded by Italy — a nation that has conducted no offensive operations against Iran — is structurally more acceptable to Tehran than any US-led alternative.²⁷

The deeper lesson, however, is doctrinal. Post-Hormuz, strategic influence no longer derives from controlling vast oceanic expanses but from governing the nodes through which global flows converge: chokepoints, LNG terminals, and the subsea data cables carrying 95% of world internet traffic. Italy must therefore update its national maritime doctrine, closing critical gaps in drone countermeasures, undersea warfare, and the cyber-physical protection of offshore infrastructure. The concept of the Wider Mediterranean — Italy’s primary maritime operational theatre, spanning the interactions between Europe, Africa and Asia — demands precisely this kind of strategic depth.²⁸

Investing in MCM platforms, counter-drone architectures, and persistent subsea surveillance is not a budget choice. It is the precondition for Italy’s autonomy, resilience, and credibility as a Mediterranean power in the twenty-first century. Hormuz has made that imperative impossible to defer.

Conclusion

The Strait of Hormuz crisis, triggered by Operation Epic Fury in February 2026, is not a mere cyclical episode destined to fade away. It is an indicator of structural transformations in the global maritime order that are redefining the strategic priorities of Italy and Europe as a whole.

On an operational level, the Iranian doctrine of sea denial has demonstrated an uncomfortable truth: a mid-tier actor, armed with low-cost drones, mines, and electronic warfare, can render transit through the planet’s most strategic strait economically unsustainable. Freedom of navigation is no longer a given, but a hard-won achievement requiring specialized capabilities, diplomatic credibility, and a constant presence.

On a geopolitical level, the crisis has accelerated the transition towards a conflict-prone and fragmented multipolarity. Washington has discovered the limits of its power projection, Europe has displayed strategic ambitions devoid of critical mass, whilst Russia and China have successfully exploited the vacuum to their advantage.

Italy finds itself at a crossroads. It can passively endure the effects of the crisis—with costs already estimated in the billions of euros and a downward revision of economic growth—or assert an active role, founded upon concrete capabilities and a diplomatic credibility that no other Western actor can boast in equal measure.

The answer can only be the latter. Italy possesses the most advanced MCM capabilities within NATO, a history of neutrality in the Gulf dating back to the 1987–1988 mission, and open diplomatic channels with all key actors: Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi. This unique combination of technical excellence, legal legitimacy, and political credibility places Rome in a position not merely to participate, but to lead or co-lead the clearance mission in the Strait.

The most profound lesson of this crisis, however, is systemic in nature: energy security, digital sovereignty, and economic prosperity now converge within a single domain—the sea—and the Navy (Marina Militare) is its indispensable custodian. Investing in a modern naval force, equipped with specialized personnel and advanced platforms, is not merely a defense budget choice, it is a strategic imperative for the survival and prosperity of the nation in the 21st century. Hormuz has made this an issue that can no longer be deferred.

Rear Adm. Roberto Domini (Ret.) served 41 years as an Italian Navy Staff Officer, commanding ships and naval bases. A Royal Naval College graduate, he chaired Maritime Strategy and Naval History at the Naval Staff College in Livorno and Venezia. He worked as defense diplomat in Egypt and Croatia. Currently, he directs the CESMAR research center, lectures globally on geopolitics, and publishes widely on maritime strategy and geopolitics.

Citations

[1] Oliva P.B., “Perché si parla dello Stretto di Hormuz,” DiRE, National News Agency, 15 June 2025, https://www.dire.it/15-06-2025/1159292-perche-tutti-parlano-dello-stretto-di-hormuz-cosa-succede-davvero-e-cosa-rischia-il-mondo/.

[2] Evangelisti A., “Operation Epic Fury e l’overstretch americano: quando la guerra lampo diventa palude strategica,” Geopolitica.info, 13 March 2026, https://geopolitica.info/operation-epic-fury-e-loverstretch-americano-quando-la-guerra-lampo-diventa-palude-strategica/.

[3] Various Authors, CESMAR 004, L’Italia e la marittimità: evoluzione strategico-dottrinaria, Pathos Ed, Turin, 2023, p. 316.

[4] CESMAR Editorial Staff, “Il Mediterraneo allargato: una visione strategica per l’Italia,” Cesmar.it, Bussola no. 43, February 2025, https://cesmar.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/BUSSOLA-NR-43-MEDITERRANEO-ALLARGATO.pdf.

[5] Domini R., “L’ammiraglio Roberto Domini: per l’Italia intervenire a Hormuz è questione di interesse nazionale,” InsideOver, 28 April 2026, https://it.insideover.com/guerra/lammiraglio-roberto-domini-per-litalia-intervenire-a-hormuz-e-questione-di-interesse-nazionale.html.

[6] OHIMag Editorial Staff, “OHiMag daily global maritime geopolitical forecast,” 5 May 2026, https://www.ohimag.com/sintesi-giornaliera-di-geopolitica-e-relazioni-internazionali/sintesi-giornaliera-del-5-maggio-2026.

[7] Molteni M., “Hormuz: tempesta sullo stretto,” AnalisiDifesa, 14 March 2026, https://www.analisidifesa.it/2026/03/hormuz-tempesta-sullo-stretto/.

[8] Fabey M., “Iran conflict 2026: US destroyer disables Iranian cargo ship to enforce blockade,” Janes, 20 April 2026, https://www.janes.com/defence-intelligence-insights/defence-news/weapons/iran-conflict-2026-us-destroyer-disables-iranian-cargo-ship-to-enforce-blockade.

[9] Boccellato P., “Stretto di Hormuz, l’Iran sequestra due navi MSC. C’entra lo spoofing?,” CyberSecurity Italia, 26 April 2026, https://www.cybersecitalia.it/stretto-di-hormuz-liran-sequestra-due-navi-msc-centra-lo-spoofing/63478/.

[10] OHIMag Editorial Staff, “OHiMag daily global maritime geopolitical forecast,” ohimag.com, 7 May 2026, https://www.ohimag.com/sintesi-giornaliera-di-geopolitica-e-relazioni-internazionali/sintesi-giornaliera-del-7-maggio-2026.

[11] Ibidem.

[12] OHIMag Editorial Staff, “OHiMag daily global maritime geopolitical forecast,” ohimag.com, 12 May 2026, https://www.ohimag.com/sintesi-giornaliera-di-geopolitica-e-relazioni-internazionali/sintesi-giornaliera-del-12-maggio-2026.

[13] HIMag Editorial Staff, “OHiMag daily global maritime geopolitical forecast,” ohimag.com, 15 May 2026, https://www.ohimag.com/sintesi-giornaliera-di-geopolitica-e-relazioni-internazionali/sintesi-giornaliera-del-15-maggio-2026.

[14] OHIMag Editorial Staff, “OHiMag daily global maritime geopolitical forecast,” ohimag.com, 18 May 2026, https://www.ohimag.com/sintesi-giornaliera-di-geopolitica-e-relazioni-internazionali/sintesi-giornaliera-del-18-maggio-2026.

[15] Scott O., “US has ‘burned through’ billions of dollars’ worth of critical weapons supplies in the Iran war, report claims,” Independent, 24 April 2026, https://ca.news.yahoo.com/us-burned-billions-dollars-worth-084420530.html.

[16] Bryanski G., “Exclusive-Russia to halt Kazakhstan’s oil flows to Germany via Druzhba, sources say,” Internazionale, 21 April 2026, https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie-reuters/2026/04/21/exclusive-russia-to-halt-kazakhstan-s-oil-flows-to-germany-via-druzhba-sources-say-2.

[17] Rampini F., “La Cina e il grande trucco delle «raffinerie indipendenti» con cui sfida gli Usa: «Sul petrolio iraniano sanzioni senza valore»,” Corriere della Sera, 4 May 2026, https://www.corriere.it/oriente-occidente-federico-rampini/26_maggio_04/gioco-cina-petrolio-iraniano-113275f8-fe6d-4c5f-8302-a8dd59bddxlk.shtml.

[18] Schneider F., “The UAE’s OPEC Exit Leaves the Gulf Further Adrift,” Middle East Council on Global Affairs, 5 May 2026, https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/the-uaes-opec-exit-leaves-the-gulf-further-adrift/.

[19] idharth Kaushal and Dan Marks, “The US Blockade of Hormuz: Who Holds the Advantage?,” RUSI, 5 May 2026, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/us-blockade-hormuz-who-holds-advantage.

[20] Kyriakidis E., “Naval blockade vs. maritime interdiction operation,” Strategy International, 8 May 2026, https://strategyinternational.org/2026/05/08/publication265/.

[21] Del Frate C., “Seajewel, per l’esplosione sulla petroliera aperta a Genova inchiesta per terrorismo. Cosa sappiamo,” Corriere della Sera, 19 February 2025, https://www.corriere.it/cronache/25_febbraio_19/seajewel-per-l-esplosione-sulla-petroliera-aperta-a-genova-inchiesta-per-terrorismo-3ceee634-327d-43fc-9539-5fa800899xlk.shtml.

[22]Various Authors, “QatarEnergy extends force majeure until mid-June 2026,” Edison, 27 March 2026, https://www.edison.it/en/qatarenergy-extends-force-majeure-until-mid-june-2026.

[23] Various Authors, “Scenari geopolitici Ohimag,” cesmar.it, 20 April 2026, https://cesmar.it/scenari-geopolitici-26/.

[24] Vianello M., “L’ammiraglio Vianello: così i cacciamine italiani possono liberare lo Stretto di Hormuz,” InsideOver, 2 May 2026, https://it.insideover.com/guerra/lammiraglio-vianello-cosi-i-cacciamine-italiani-possono-liberare-lo-stretto-di-hormuz.html.

[25] Domini R., Op. cit.

[26] Caffio F., “Quale accordo per riaprire Hormuz. L’analisi di Caffio,” formiche.net, 7 May 2026.

[27] Domini R., “Sminamento dello Stretto di Hormuz: perché l’Italia ha diritto al comando della missione,” InsideOver, 5 May 2026, https://it.insideover.com/guerra/sminamento-dello-stretto-di-hormuz-perche-litalia-ha-diritto-al-comando-della-missione.html.

[28] CESMAR Editorial Staff, Il Mediterraneo allargato: una visione strategica per l’Italia, Bussola no. 43, February 2025, https://cesmar.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/BUSSOLA-NR-43-MEDITERRANEO-ALLARGATO.pdf.

Featured Image: SOUTH CHINA SEA (June 28, 2024) – The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Mobile (LCS 26), transits the South China Sea with the Italian Carrier Strike Group consisting of the aircraft carrier ITS Cavour (CVH 550), flagship of the Italian Navy’s Fleet, center, and the Carlo Bergamini-class FREMM Frigate ITS Alpino (F 594), front, while conducting bilateral operations in the South China Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Akari Yarrell)

Iran War Topic Week

By Ehud Eiran

The joint military campaign launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on February 28, 2026, was initially conceived and executed primarily as an air campaign. The opening phase of the war centered on aerial strikes against Iran’s political and military leadership and other command-and-control networks, missile infrastructure, air defenses, and military-industrial targets. In contrast, the maritime domain played only a secondary role in the initial stages of the conflict. The maritime aspects initially included the fact that many of the American attacks were conducted from planes and missiles launched from warships, as well as attacks on naval assets such as the sinking of an Iranian frigate in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka.

This situation changed dramatically once Iran moved to exploit its most significant geostrategic asset – the Strait of Hormuz. By disrupting maritime traffic through the strait, Tehran transformed the conflict from a regional military confrontation into a challenge to the global economy. As energy markets reacted and commercial shipping began to reroute, the maritime domain rapidly became a central theater of the war. The United States subsequently shifted substantial military resources toward restoring freedom of navigation and reopening the waterway to international commerce. The maritime dimension expanded further on April 13, 2026, when Washington transitioned from trying to reopen the strait to actively interdicting and restricting Iranian-related maritime traffic. What had begun as a campaign against Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities increasingly evolved into a contest over maritime access, sea control, and economic warfare.

This transition exposed a structural asymmetry within the U.S.-Israeli war effort. Although the campaign was politically and strategically joint, and the U.S. had described Israel as a “model ally,” the maritime theater was overwhelmingly an American responsibility. Israel possesses capable naval forces and extensive experience in maritime security operations in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. However, it lacks the expeditionary naval capabilities necessary to sustain large-scale operations in the Persian Gulf and the wider Indian Ocean. Only the United States possessed the carrier strike groups, amphibious forces, logistics networks, intelligence architecture, and maritime command structures necessary to contest Iranian actions in the Persian Gulf and guarantee the flow of international commerce. As the war’s center of gravity shifted from air to sea, the operational burden increasingly fell on Washington.

This operational asymmetry reflected a deeper divergence in strategic perspectives. The United States and Israel shared an immediate concern regarding Iran’s nuclear program and regional military posture. Yet the United States, as a global power, approached the conflict through a much broader strategic lens. Beyond degrading Iranian military capabilities, Washington had to consider the stability of global energy markets, the security of international shipping lanes, the interests of allies in Europe and Asia, and the credibility of the United States as the principal guarantor of freedom of navigation. A prolonged closure of Hormuz threatened not only military objectives but also the functioning of the global economy and the wider international order that successive American administrations had sought to preserve.

Israel’s perspective was different. Israeli strategic culture has historically been shaped by the country’s geography, threat environment, and military experience. Since Israel gained independence in 1948, its security establishment has focused overwhelmingly on land and air power. The country’s major wars were fought on land, and its most celebrated military achievements were achieved through armored maneuver, intelligence superiority, and air power. Although maritime issues had become more important in recent years because of a new dependence on offshore energy and desalinated water, as well as the threat of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, maritime strategy remains a relatively recent addition to Israeli strategic thinking. Consequently, Israeli policymakers tended to view the maritime domain primarily through the prism of its contribution to the campaign against Iran rather than as an arena whose stability carried intrinsic strategic value.

The American perspective was almost the reverse. Since the earliest years of the Republic, the protection of maritime commerce has occupied a central place in U.S. grand strategy. From the Barbary Wars through the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era, American policymakers have consistently regarded open sea lanes as a vital national interest. The U.S. Navy was built not merely to defeat adversaries at sea but to secure a maritime order that facilitates global trade and economic stability. Although President Trump was less clear on the issue compared to many of his predecessors, American decision-makers were inclined to evaluate military actions in Hormuz not only according to their impact on Iran, but also according to their consequences for shipping, insurance markets, energy prices, and the broader international system.

As the war increasingly revolved around the maritime domain, these differing strategic traditions generated subtle but important tensions. For Israel, continued military pressure on Iran appeared consistent with the broader objective of degrading Iranian power. For the United States, however, the restoration of maritime order gradually became an objective in its own right. This did not produce an open alliance dispute, but it did create different hierarchies of priorities. Israel viewed the sea primarily as another theater through which Iran could be weakened. The United States viewed the sea as both a theater of war and a strategic system whose disruption could undermine wider political and economic interests. In this sense, the struggle over Hormuz revealed that even in a highly coordinated coalition campaign, allies may share enemies while possessing different conceptions of what constitutes strategic success. These differences are perhaps inevitable when the de-facto alliance is between a land-oriented regional power, and a maritime-oriented global power.

Israel tried to close this gap by contributing directly to the maritime aspects of the war by using its air power against Iranian naval assets. On March 18, 2026 a day before the U.S. launched its operation to open the Strait, the Israeli air force attacked an Iranian naval base in the Caspian sea. This was seen as directed at interrupting a supply route from Russia, but was also a reminder that Israel can contribute to the maritime aspects of the war. On March 26, 2026, the Israeli air force killed the head of the IRGC’s navy, and Israel made a point in stressing that he led the blockade over the Hormuz strait. By April 2026, the Israeli Navy was proud to report that its intelligence efforts were used, presumably by the air force, to attack 95 targets in Iran.

The divergence between American and Israeli strategic priorities in the maritime domain points to a broader challenge that will likely define coalition warfare in the coming decades – the mismatch between politically unified alliances and operationally asymmetric partners. The U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran offers a rare real-world test case for what happens when a land-oriented regional power and a maritime-oriented global power fight side by side. The structural tensions that emerged are instructive precisely because they arose not from disagreement over ends, but from deeply ingrained differences in strategic culture, capability, and institutional memory.

Israel’s attempts to compensate for its maritime limitations through air power, such striking Iranian naval bases in the Caspian, eliminating the IRGC Navy commander, and providing targeting intelligence for dozens of strikes, reveal an important adaptation: a land-air power seeking maritime relevance through the tools it knows best. This is not merely a tactical improvisation but a doctrinal signal. As maritime competition grows in strategic importance globally, regional powers that lack blue-water navies may increasingly pursue sea control objectives through land-based and air-delivered means. Israel’s performance in this conflict may well accelerate that trend, offering a template for other states navigating similar capability gaps.

Yet this approach has inherent ceilings. Air power can attrite naval assets and kill commanders, but it cannot patrol chokepoints, escort convoys, or sustain the persistent presence required to restore the confidence of commercial shippers and insurance underwriters. Sea control, in the end, requires forces that live at sea. The Hormuz crisis made this distinction painfully clear: degrading Iran’s navy from the air reduced Iranian capacity to threaten. But it was the physical presence of American surface combatants and carrier aviation that ultimately played a crucial role in determining whether tankers moved, including as guarantors to the maritime aspects of the U.S.-Iran agreement.

The lesson for regional powers is that they might need to rethink traditional strengths (land/air) and develop maritime capacity. Another lesson is how chokepoints like Hormuz magnify global-local dynamics: a regional conflict can force even a land-focused state to pivot toward sea lanes and naval strategy. In Israel’s case, this would be less about building a blue-water navy capable of global dominance and more about expanding regional maritime capabilities. This could mean greater investment in securing sea lines closer to home, like in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Israel already has energy assets and strategic interests. It might also mean enhanced cooperation with navies like the U.S., more focus on protecting ports, undersea infrastructure, or even regional maritime diplomacy, ensuring that, even if not a global maritime power, it is still a player in regional maritime security.

Israel does not depend on Hormuz for its own oil supply. But the closure revealed how global maritime chokepoints can escalate a conflict far beyond the immediate actors. For Israel, the lesson is not about reopening Hormuz. It is about realizing that future conflicts could affect maritime routes closer to home, like the Suez Canal or Eastern Mediterranean energy corridors. This could push Israel to integrate maritime resilience into its strategy and work on ensuring it is not just a junior partner if a future maritime crisis unfolds in its own region.

Ehud Eiran, PhD, is the Chair, Department of international Relations, University of Haifa, Israel and a research fellow at the Haifa-based, Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy (MPS).

Featured Image: Eight Israeli Air Force F-15I Ra’am strike fighter jets of 69 Squadron “Hammers” Israel on their way to attack Iran in June 2025. (IDF photo)

Iran War Topic Week

By Rustam Taghizade

The Strategic Paradox

When the Trump administration granted India a 30-day waiver on March 5 to purchase Russian oil, the formal justification was straightforward: stabilize global energy markets after Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. Yet beneath the surface, a deeper story unfolded. The waiver revealed a tension between two pillars of contemporary U.S. strategy—the use of maritime power to secure global chokepoints and the use of economic sanctions to punish adversaries. In the spring of 2026, those two pillars collided, and Russian oil began flowing to India because Iran had shut the strait.

For 10 months before the Iran war began on February 28, Washington had pressured New Delhi to reduce its imports of Russian crude, and the campaign was partially successful. Russia’s share of Indian oil imports fell from 36 percent to 31 percent by early 2026. The United States had sanctioned Russian energy companies and made clear that continuing to buy Russian oil would jeopardize relations.

Then the war came. Within days, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 85–90 percent of India’s crude and liquefied petroleum gas normally transited. Tanker traffic plunged by 97 percent. India’s strategic petroleum reserves stood at barely one month’s supply.

Faced with an energy crisis, New Delhi looked to the only substantial source of crude still within reach: Russian oil already at sea. Approximately 65 million barrels of Russian crude were floating within a thirty-day sailing radius of Indian ports—cargoes loaded before the November 2025 sanctions but now stranded because of the war’s disruption.

The choice for Washington was stark: either insist on sanctions compliance and watch India’s economy suffer or grant a temporary waiver and allow Russian oil to flow. The administration chose the waiver. It did so not because it trusted Moscow, but because the closure of Hormuz had rendered its own sanctions architecture operationally irrelevant.

 The Numbers Behind the Decision

Indicator	Pre-war (February)	Post-Closure (March)
Daily tanker transits through Hormuz	151 vessels	4-5 vessels
Daily tanker transits through Hormuz	85-90 %	Effectively zero
Russian crude within 30 days of India	——–	65 millions barrels
Indian strategic petroleum reserves	1 month	1 month

The arithmetic was unforgiving. Without the waiver, India’s energy supplies would have faced a catastrophic gap. With the waiver, Russian oil could reach Indian refineries while Washington bought time to try to reopen the strait.

A Game Theory Perspective

The interaction among the four central actors—the United States, Iran, India, and Russia—can be illustrated with a simple payoff matrix. The two primary players are the United States and Iran. Their strategies determine the environment in which India

	Iran Keeps Strait Closed	Iran Opens Straight
US Maintains Sanctions	(-2, -2) – War drags on; India faces energy crisis; Russia gains little market access	(+4, -1) – US sanctions effective; Iran loses leverage; India returns to Gulf oil
US Grants Oil Waiver	(-1, +1) – Iran gains tactical win; Russia sells oil; US sanctions undermined	(+3, +3) – Normal trade restored; both sides avoid worst outcomes

The matrix shows why the waiver was strategically rational despite its contradictions. When Iran keeps the strait closed and the US maintains sanctions (top-left cell), both lose: the war continues, India suffers, and Russia gets no extra revenue. When the US grants a waiver while the strait remains closed (bottom-left), Iran retains its coercive leverage but Russia gains a vital market—a net positive for Moscow and Tehran, but a loss for Washington’s sanctions regime.

The only outcome that fully satisfies all actors is the bottom-right cell: an open strait and normal oil trade. That cell remains out of reach for as long as the Hormuz closure persists.

The Evolving Waiver Framework

What began as an India-specific emergency measure has since taken on a more structured form. On March 5, the Treasury issued a waiver allowing Indian refiners, IOC, BPCL, HPCL, and Reliance Industries, to purchase Russian crude cargoes that were already in transit. When the Treasury expanded the waiver on March 12–13, Indian refiners remained the only significant buyers of the authorized Russian barrels.

Crucially, the expansion continued to apply only to cargoes already on the water, did not restore formal banking channels, and did not lift underlying sanctions. As Miad Maleki, a former US Treasury official, explained, General License U authorized “the commodity transaction; it says nothing about payment.” The license permits the sale of oil but does not restore banking access or create a formal payment channel, a distinction that allows trade in physical barrels while preserving financial pressure.

On March 20, Washington applied the same waiver model to roughly 170 million barrels of Iranian crude floating offshore. Once again, India remained the only swing buyer. Reliance Industries purchased 5 million barrels of Iranian crude at a $7 premium to Brent, and other Indian refiners reportedly plan to resume purchases. The effect was immediate: India’s participation disrupted China’s near-monopsony over sanctioned Iranian crude, reshaping pricing leverage without formally lifting sanctions.

India’s Strategic Ascent

The waiver’s implications extend beyond temporary oil supply management. Before 2019, Indian refiners imported roughly 450,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude under contracts with the National Iranian Oil Company. They retain the technical configuration and commercial familiarity to scale quickly within short waiver windows—institutional memory that gives Washington a ready-made alternative buyer base whenever it chooses to recalibrate supply pressure.

India’s admission into the Pax Silica on February 20 formalized its role within the US-led supply chain initiative focused on reducing dependence on China in semiconductor and AI production. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Israel on February 25–26, where the two countries elevated ties to a “special strategic partnership.” Two days later, Operation Epic Fury began. Together, Pax Silica realigns industrial supply chains while the waiver framework redirects sanctioned energy flows, positioning India within the technological and commodity axes of great-power competition.

What the Crisis Reveals About Maritime Coercion

The episode underscores three limits of maritime coercion as a tool of statecraft.

First, naval power alone cannot guarantee passage through a contested chokepoint. The U.S. Navy maintains two carrier strike groups in the region, yet it could not prevent Iran from functionally closing the strait. Iran’s asymmetric toolkit, cheap drones, naval mines, and shore-based anti-ship missiles, imposes costs that even a superior navy cannot easily neutralize without escalating to a ground invasion, which Washington has repeatedly ruled out. As of March 26, American forces had sunk at least 60 Iranian warships and destroyed numerous fast attack boats, yet the strait remains effectively closed.

Second, economic sanctions are vulnerable to physical disruption of trade routes. Sanctions on Russian oil worked as long as alternative supplies were available. Once the Strait of Hormuz became impassable, those alternatives vanished. India’s energy needs forced a choice between sanctions enforcement and energy security. The latter won.

Third, secondary sanctions lose credibility when the primary chokepoint is closed. The United States spent years building a coalition to enforce sanctions on Russian energy. That coalition expected that compliant states would have access to reliable energy markets. When those markets were cut off by an adversary, the sanctions architecture buckled. India’s waiver was not a sign of policy reversal but a consequence of strategic interdependence.

The New Russia-India Energy Axis

India’s calculus changed rapidly after the war began. By March 19, Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin and Indian Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had reached a “verbal agreement” to negotiate a liquefied natural gas deal, the first such direct supply since the start of the Ukraine war. The two officials also agreed to further increase crude oil sales to India, which could double from January’s levels to at least 40 percent of India’s total imports in about a month.

Indian refiners have already purchased approximately 60 million barrels of Russian oil for April delivery, which is more than double February’s volumes. The purchases are priced at $5–15 per barrel above Brent, reflecting the shift to a seller’s market.

Some Indian policymakers have lamented that New Delhi cut Russian crude imports as a concession to the U.S. before the war. A government briefing note prepared for the cabinet secretariat on March 20 warned that a prolonged disruption of oil flows from the Middle East would prompt a cascade of economic challenges: higher inflation, a weaker currency, and rising foreign debt. Export growth could take a hit of between 2 and 4 percent, and wholesale inflation could rise by 0.3 to 0.7 percent.

As Ajai Malhotra, a former Indian ambassador to Moscow, put it: “India chose the course that best served its national interests, anchored in a long-standing and trusted partnership with Russia.”

The Iranian Calculation

Iran, for its part, has calibrated its control over the strait with precision. Satellite data and marine traffic analysis show that between four and five vessels now transit the strait daily, down from 151 before the war. Most of those getting through are linked to Pakistan, China, and India—countries Iran does not consider “aggressors.”

Vessels seeking passage have reportedly stopped at Qeshm Island, where Iranian authorities check ownership, insurance, and crew connections to ensure no link to the U.S. or Israel. Some ships have also navigated outside normal shipping channels, hugging the Iranian coastline to avoid the most contested waters.

Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler, noted that Iranian crude often remains unsold until reaching Asian discharge zones such as Singapore or Malaysia. By releasing cargoes under the waiver, Washington created immediate supply effects. “Now that India has entered as a competitor, the price in China will most likely increase,” Falakshahi said.

Long-Term Implications

If the Hormuz closure persists, Washington will face increasingly difficult trade-offs. The most immediate is whether to extend the waiver beyond the current framework, expand it to cover future cargoes, or allow the sanctions regime to collapse entirely. The second is whether to invest in alternative supply chains that bypass the Gulf—a process that would take years. The third is whether to accept that the era of frictionless maritime sanctions is over.

The United States is also preparing to launch a new insurance program for ships moving through the strait, providing government-backed guarantees along with naval support. First announced on March 3, the program is expected to begin soon, but there is no clear evidence that any ships have yet used it. Insurance remains available from commercial markets including Lloyd’s of London, but the cost has increased sharply. This suggests that the main concern for shipowners is not insurance, but the risk of attacks.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed confidence that traffic will increase. “We have seen more ships coming in and out of the Gulf today than we saw yesterday, and that’s just the beginning,” he said on March 26. Whether that confidence is justified remains to be seen.

This structural contradiction is now colliding with a second, even more politically charged layer: the public discussion of how the war might end. Leaks from the administration, deliberately planted, suggest two possible “victory” scenarios: seizing Kharg Island or removing Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile from Isfahan. Neither withstands basic scrutiny. Kharg is a single pipeline fed by one onshore pumping station. A single bomb could disable it without risking a Marine expeditionary unit. Isfahan’s nuclear site is buried under hundreds of tons of rubble from previous strikes and lies 400 miles inland. No amphibious force could realistically excavate and extract anything. What these narratives reveal is not a military strategy but a political one. The administration is looking for a way to manufacture a success. The hardware moving into the Gulf and the carefully leaked conversations do not match the facts on the ground. They match the need for a story.

Conclusion

The March 5 oil waiver was not an anomaly. It was the inevitable result of a collision between two core elements of U.S. strategy: using maritime power to secure chokepoints and using economic sanctions to isolate adversaries. When those elements come into conflict, the more immediate one, physical access to energy, will usually prevail.

The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Until it opens, the contradictions will persist. In those contradictions, Russia has found an unexpected opportunity to sell its oil, India has secured a necessary supply, and the United States has been reminded that even the most powerful navy cannot always enforce a sanctions regime without a secure strait. What began as a temporary wartime measure is now shaping a broader realignment, with India positioned at the center of both the technological and commodity axes of great-power competition. As a result of this complex historic moment, Russia has regained market access at a critical moment, while the United States has discovered that maritime coercion, however potent, cannot substitute for a functioning global energy architecture—one that its own sanctions policies helped dismantle.

 Rustam Taghizade is a geopolitical risk analyst specializing in maritime security, energy geopolitics, and the Caspian-Middle East corridor. He has contributed to Al Jazeera and is currently co-authoring a study on Iran’s post-war trajectory.

References

[1] Iran International. “US may deploy up to 17,000 troops near Iran as war enters new phase — WSJ.” March 26, 2026.

[2] The Jerusalem Post. “Voices from the Arab press: Iran threatens global shipping in Strait of Hormuz.” March 21, 2026.

[3] News On AIR. “United Arab Emirates on heightened alert amid rising West Asia tensions.” March 14, 2026.

[4] Central News Agency (Taiwan). “Bessent: Insurance program for Strait of Hormuz shipping to launch soon.” March 27, 2026.

[5] Hindustan Times. “Trump’s Iran war pushes India to rekindle old friendship with Russia.” March 26, 2026.

[6] Radio-Canada International. “How some ships are still getting through the Strait of Hormuz as Iran war drags on.” March 26, 2026.

[7] China Energy News. “India purchases 60 million barrels of Russian oil for April supply.” March 26, 2026.

[8] Hellenic Shipping News. “Container Shipping: Iran war amplifies outlook uncertainty.” March 26, 2026.

[9] SETN News. “US considers seizing Kharg Island.” March 26, 2026.

[10] Marine Insight. “U.S. Set To Launch Insurance Program To Revive Shipping Through Strait Of Hormuz.” March 26, 2026.

Featured Image: Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115) enforces a maritime blockade against an Iranian-flagged vessel. (U.S. Central Command photo)