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)

Iran War Topic Week

By Bruce Randolph Tizes

Most analysis of the U.S.-Iran maritime war will focus on carrier strike group positioning, IRGC small-boat tactics, Marine Corps Stand-in Forces, and the operational lessons of contested chokepoints. Those analyses are necessary. They also miss a dimension Iran has built as deliberately as its mine and drone programs, one that will outlast any ceasefire: the commercial and insurance layer through which maritime trade is priced and governed. Iran is contesting the Strait kinetically. It is also contesting the distributed commercial calculus that determines whether the Strait functions as a global energy corridor at all.

The Trump administration responded with an instrument no prior administration deployed at scale. The $40 billion DFC-Chubb maritime reinsurance facility, announced March 6 and expanded April 3, 2026, treats war-risk insurance as a strategic domain and commits sovereign capital to it within weeks of a crisis beginning. The question this article addresses is whether, at a chokepoint with no bypass and under sustained war-risk pricing pressure, sovereign intervention in the insurance layer meaningfully shifts commercial behavior. The answer is yes, conditionally. Four conditions remain open before that authority becomes fully activated and durable.

The Mechanism

On December 18, 2023, the Joint War Committee (JWC), the body of Lloyd’s Market Association and London company market underwriters, extended its listed areas to cover the southern Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. Within weeks, container ship transits through the Suez Canal collapsed by roughly 67 percent. That cascade was not driven by any single battle. It emerged from commercial decisions, reroutings, surcharges, and contract renegotiations that followed the listing.

When a corridor appears on the JWC list, standard war clauses in hull insurance policies activate cancellation-and-reinstatement mechanics, war-risk premiums reprice on a voyage-specific basis, and charterers, financiers, and flag states reassess exposure in parallel. A vessel facing a listed area does not lose the legal capacity to sail. It faces sharply higher costs and friction. When war-risk premiums rise by an order of magnitude, when charter parties invoke war clauses, and when letters of credit require renegotiation, the aggregate effect is to reroute.

This is the layer Iran’s coercive maritime architecture is built to manipulate. The March 11, 2026 attack on the Thai-flagged Mayuree Naree makes the calibration explicit: Iranian unmanned surface vessels targeted the ship’s rudder and propeller, immobilizing it rather than sinking it. Iran is not trying to fill the Strait with wreckage. It is trying to make the commercial calculus of transit prohibitive.

The Instruments

Three insurance instruments often conflated in discussion operate on distinct legal foundations.

Hull war-risk insurance covers physical damage to the vessel from war perils. Placed in specialized markets, including Lloyd’s syndicates, the London company market, Bermuda carriers, and specialty war-risk underwriters, it reprices dynamically when the JWC lists a corridor and is the layer most sensitive to kinetic risk signals.

Protection and Indemnity (P&I) cover is mutual insurance for third-party liabilities, including crew casualty, pollution, wreck removal, cargo claims, and collision liability. Within the International Group, twelve associations cover roughly 90 percent of ocean-going tonnage. P&I is bundled with certificates of financial security required under the 1992 Civil Liability Convention and the 2001 Bunkers Convention. These Blue Cards, issued by the P&I Club to the flag state, underpin the Certificate of Insurance that port-state control examines at entry. A vessel retains that certificate regardless of whether the JWC has listed the waters it transited.

The interaction among these instruments produces accumulated pressure rather than single-point failure. Hull war-risk cover becomes prohibitively expensive or subject to voyage-specific underwriting. P&I Clubs issue guidance straining cover conditions. Charterers invoke war clauses. Cargo financiers decline to fund shipments without additional guarantees. Transit volumes decline even though no single instrument has formally failed. Sanctions compliance risk, banking appetite, schedule reliability, and carrier network economics compound the pressure further.

The 2024 Red Sea Record

The United States announced Operation Prosperity Guardian on December 18, 2023, the same day the JWC extended its listing. U.S. and U.K. strikes against Houthi targets began January 11–12, 2024. Naval action degraded Houthi strike tempo. The JWC listing did not move.

War-risk premiums for Red Sea transits, which had been running near 0.05 percent of hull value before the crisis, rose into a range of 0.5 to 1.0 percent per voyage. On a $100 million hull, that is an incremental $500,000 to $1,000,000 per transit. Container ship transits through the Suez Canal dropped more than 60 percent by the fourth quarter of 2024 against 2023 levels. Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, and Hapag-Lloyd continued routing around the Cape of Good Hope through the end of 2025, even after the Houthis announced a ceasefire in November 2025, because premiums had not normalized and the JWC listing remained in force. The operational record and the commercial record bifurcated and did not rejoin on the same timeline. The Indian Ocean High Risk Area designated for Somali piracy in 2010 was not removed until January 2023, more than a decade beyond the operational peak. Pricing inertia at Hormuz will behave differently, but not more favorably.

Hormuz has no bypass comparable to the Cape of Good Hope. Approximately 20 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade and one-fifth of global LNG transit the strait. LNG arbitrage, strategic stockpile releases, and cargo reshuffling can moderate the shock on the margin. None preserves the commercial economics of the pre-crisis routing pattern at scale.

What the 1987–88 Tanker War Does Not Explain

The standard historical counterargument cites the Iran-Iraq Tanker War: sustained attacks across eight years, hundreds of merchant incidents, commerce continued. Lloyd’s priced the risk. Operation Earnest Will reflagged Kuwaiti tankers. The implicit conclusion is that determined naval presence restores commercial flow.

Three features distinguish the current situation. The first is attribution. Iraqi Exocet launches and Iranian attacks on identifiable Gulf-bound tonnage presented a priceable risk distribution. A corridor where mines of uncertain vintage sit in water that cannot be fully mapped presents underwriters with a distribution they struggle to model. Coverage does not simply become expensive; it becomes subject to exclusions, warranties, and voyage-specific reinstatement. The second is market structure. The 1988 London markets operated with broader war-risk appetite and more distributed capacity. The International Group’s reinsurance structure is now concentrated in an annual placement renewing each February 20, and syndicates that cannot price Hormuz exposure typically decline to write it rather than price through it. The third is sovereign presence. The 1987–88 system had no sovereign substitute in the war-risk layer. The United States in 2026 has deployed one.

The Development Finance Corporation Facility

On March 3, 2026, President Trump ordered the DFC to provide political risk insurance for maritime trade through the Gulf. On March 6, DFC CEO Ben Black and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a $20 billion maritime reinsurance facility coordinated with CENTCOM, covering Hull and Machinery and Cargo war risk. The facility committed federal capital on a timeline measured in weeks rather than the months typical of interagency coordination, signaling that the United States intended to act in a domain it had historically left to London.

On April 3, 2026, DFC and Chubb announced expansion to $40 billion total, with Travelers, Liberty Mutual, Berkshire Hathaway, AIG, Starr, and CNA joining as partners. The structure splits risk evenly: $20 billion backed by sovereign U.S. capital through DFC and $20 billion pooled by the consortium. Chubb was established as named lead underwriter, responsible for pricing, terms, policy issuance, and claims management across all three coverage lines: War Hull, War P&I, and War Cargo. Hull war cover protects the ship; cargo war cover protects the goods; the April 3 P&I extension reached the third-party liability layer whose constraint most compounds pressure on chartering and financing decisions.

The facility’s eligibility architecture carries a second function beyond restoring commercial flows. DFC outlined a rigorous Know Your Customer and sanctions-screening process covering IMO number, flag, crew composition, registered owner and ultimate beneficial owners with their domiciles, cargo type and value, cargo ownership, and lenders financing the vessel.

This vetting is designed to deny coverage to vessels intending to pay Iranian transit tolls or engage in sanctionable activity, aligning with OFAC FAQ 1249, issued April 28, 2026, which confirmed that payments to the Government of Iran or the IRGC for safe passage through Hormuz are not authorized for U.S. persons and create significant sanctions exposure for non-U.S. persons as well. Coverage eligibility and sanctions enforcement now operate as a single instrument.

The Convoy Conditionality

The facility carries a structural feature that neither the March 6 nor April 3 press releases made explicit but that Greenberg disclosed in Chubb’s Q1 2026 earnings call transcript on April 22, 2026: coverage is linked to U.S. naval convoy operations, and purchasing cover from the DFC-Chubb facility is required to join any U.S.-run convoy through the Strait. In Greenberg’s own words: “The government wanted to support shipping through the Gulf and open when they think that the risk environment is such that they can support with military convoys ships that would transit the Gulf and that has yet to occur.”

The convoy system materialized briefly. Project Freedom, launched May 4, 2026 by U.S. Central Command, guided a small number of vessels through an enhanced security corridor along Oman’s territorial waters before being paused by President Trump on May 6, after less than 48 hours and two confirmed transits. As of mid-June, the facility has not provided coverage at meaningful scale and is architecturally sound but not yet fully activated.

This conditionality clarifies the facility’s logic rather than exposing a weakness. The DFC-Chubb instrument is not designed to operate in a corridor that has not been assessed and cleared for routine commercial transit. It is designed to price the commercial risk for vessels transiting under military protection, converting the kinetic and financial instruments into a single package. The gap between that design intent and current operational reality is precisely what the conditions below address.

The Mine Problem

Chubb cannot price individual voyage risk into a corridor whose mine geometry is undefined. CENTCOM confirmed on March 10 that U.S. forces destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait, and Reuters reported that day, citing two U.S. government sources, that Iran had deployed approximately a dozen mines in the waterway, including rocket-propelled EM-52 rising mines designed to defeat conventional magnetic and acoustic sweeping. Open-source reporting in April, corroborated by DefenseScoop citing U.S. officials, indicated Iranian command channels lacked a complete record of mine placements and that ocean currents may have shifted them further. The source base for that specific claim warrants caution, but it confirms what underwriters already infer from the broader picture: the placement distribution cannot be modeled with confidence.

The U.S. Navy entered this crisis without the mine countermeasures (MCM) assets needed to produce a cleared-corridor picture on a commercial timeline, following implementation of the FY2025 force-structure and shipbuilding plan. The Biden administration’s decommissioning of all four Bahrain-based Avengers—formally scheduled in the FY2025 shipbuilding plan published in March 2024 and executed seven weeks before the Hormuz closure—left the United States without the specialized assets needed to clear the corridor its insurance facility requires. These vessels—their wooden, low-magnetic-signature hulls specifically engineered for mined waters—were replaced not by a proven successor but by the promise of one. They physically departed the theater aboard the M/V Seaway Hawk on January 9, 2026, before Iran began mining. The Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) designated as replacements were in Asia when the crisis began, and their MCM mission package carries documented reliability concerns: Naval News reported combat-ineffective sensor performance, lift-system single points of failure, and a runaway unmanned surface vehicle during testing. The two Avenger-class ships now being rushed to the theater, USS Chief and USS Pioneer, were homeported in Sasebo, Japan when Iran began mining.

By April 11, CENTCOM announced that guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Peterson and USS Michael Murphy had begun “setting conditions” for mine clearance—platforms not designed for the MCM mission. What MCM capacity determines is not whether any transits occur, but whether routine commercial flows resume at normalized insurance rates. The sovereign insurance facility is architecturally complete. The physical assessment on which its commercial terms depend is not.

Why the Insurance Layer Matters

When the United States assumes the role of primary provider of maritime war-risk coverage for Gulf energy flows, it acquires something prior administrations did not possess: durable positional authority in a domain through which global energy commerce must pass. Three forms of value accrue.

Economic. The war-risk insurance layer is where global energy trade is priced under crisis conditions. A sovereign providing capacity at scale in that layer sets reference terms the broader market prices against. U.S. underwriters, reinsurers, and U.S.-domiciled capital gain structural advantage in a market centered on London for a century. Facilities, expertise, and institutional relationships built for Hormuz become the default architecture when the next chokepoint crisis emerges. The United Kingdom built Lloyd’s position through sustained presence of exactly this kind. That opportunity is present now.

Political. Allies and partners whose energy security depends on Gulf transit, including Japan, South Korea, India, and most of Europe, will route their insurance, financing, and flag-state decisions through or around architecture the United States controls. That is leverage operating continuously through commercial channels, without coercive political cost.

Strategic. The insurance layer is where state actors increasingly contest maritime commerce below kinetic thresholds. Iran’s calibration of its architecture around pricing and availability rather than vessel destruction demonstrates the pattern. A sovereign capable of meeting that form of coercion with its own capacity holds a continuing instrument of statecraft. Withdrawing from the layer after the immediate crisis passes surrenders that instrument before its strategic value has been tested.

What Hormuz Teaches About Future Chokepoints

The Iranian approach is not idiosyncratic. It is a doctrine that can be exported. The Houthi campaign at Bab al-Mandab, also conducted without sinking commercial tonnage at significant scale, produced the same coercive effect through the same insurance-layer mechanics. Both campaigns achieved the consequence their sponsors sought: routing decisions made by underwriters, charterers, and banks rather than admiralty courts or naval commanders. The downstream consequences reach well beyond energy. The Hormuz closure simultaneously severed roughly one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade, with potentially severe implications for food security in import-dependent regions including Yemen, Somalia, and parts of the Sahel.

The Taiwan Strait is the most consequential next case. A PLA Navy posture producing even a credible mine threat, combined with surface or undersea action below an Article 5 threshold, would force JWC consideration of strait waters and surrounding approaches. Coverage friction and premium escalation would impose serious economic costs on Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan itself well before any kinetic confrontation reached a decisive threshold. Russia has experimented with similar logic through undersea cable incidents in the Baltic and Eastern Mediterranean, where attribution is uncertain and pricing distributions are difficult to model. The Black Sea grain corridor required a sovereign-backed war-risk facility, brokered by Marsh McLennan with the Ukrainian government and Lloyd’s underwriters, because the commercial layer would not otherwise function. The Hormuz crisis is that precedent at an order of magnitude larger scale.

State and proxy actors with limited ability to win conventional sea battles are learning to coerce through the insurance layer, where attribution is ambiguous, pricing is sticky, and military force does not directly translate into commercial reopening. The capacity the United States is building for Hormuz becomes the template for what gets deployed at the next chokepoint. Whether that template is durable, allied, and operationally connected to military assessment determines whether the United States holds the instrument or rebuilds it under pressure each time.

The Skeptical Case

The thesis places the insurance layer among the central variables in maritime coercion. A responsible version must engage the most authoritative challenges.

The most direct challenge comes from the Lloyd’s Market Association. In a March 23, 2026 market statement, the LMA clarified that war insurance remains available for Hormuz transits. Eighty-eight percent of Lloyd’s marine war syndicates surveyed retained appetite to write hull war risk, and P&I cover was described as non-cancellable. The LMA’s conclusion was plain: the reason ships are not moving is safety, not insurance availability.

This refines the argument rather than defeating it. The piece does not claim coverage has vanished. It argues that pricing friction and accumulated commercial pressure shape routing decisions. The LMA’s own traffic data confirms the effect: of 111 cargo-carrying transits recorded from the opening of hostilities through late March, over 60 percent carried an Iran nexus through Iranian ownership, flag, or negotiated Iranian consent. Western commercial shipping has largely self-excluded. Safety and insurance pricing are not competing explanations; they are compounding ones. When masters assess physical risk as prohibitive, underwriters price accordingly, and when underwriters price through exclusions and voyage-specific reinstatement, charter parties and banks amplify the friction further. The DFC-Chubb facility is not a substitute for safe passage. It is the pricing architecture for when passage becomes safe enough to resume.

A second challenge is that premium spikes are historically absorbed through surcharges, charter party renegotiation, flag changes, and selective risk acceptance. The DFC-Chubb facility could prove less a re-architecture than a well-timed capital injection that smooths an adjustment the market would have made anyway. What that view does not account for is the Red Sea record: redundant engineering did not restore Suez transit volumes after two years of naval action because the composite of premium levels, charter economics, financing friction, and reputational risk remained adverse. Hormuz presents a harder version of the same problem with no bypass.

What Determines Whether the Facility Endures

The Trump administration has recognized the insurance layer as a key strategic domain and deployed sovereign capital into it at speed. Statutory certificates continue to be issued through flag states on the basis of approved-insurer cover. Port-state control continues to examine those certificates. Treaty regimes remain in force. What has changed is the range of available pricing and coverage options within which that law operates, and who now sets the reference terms. Four conditions are likely to determine whether that change endures.

First, the convoy system must operate at meaningful scale. The DFC-Chubb facility was designed around naval escort, and the two confirmed transits under Project Freedom before its May 6 pause illustrate both the concept’s validity and its current limits. For the insurance facility to function as designed, military escort must operate at a scale and regularity that commercial operators can plan around. A facility built on convoy conditionality that cannot field convoys is underwriting architecture without an underwriting event.

Second, sufficient MCM capacity must be available to define and maintain a commercially usable corridor. The decommissioning of the Bahrain-based Avengers left the United States reliant on platforms not designed for the mission, and the concrete options are limited: fast-track the LCS MCM package to demonstrated operational reliability, invest in allied MCM capacity under burden-sharing, or expand forward basing posture for the remaining Avengers. Chubb cannot price voyage risk against a corridor whose mine geometry remains undefined, and that geometry will not be defined without purpose-built MCM assets in theater.

Third, a standing CENTCOM-DFC operational channel is likely necessary. A formal mechanism, whether named a Joint Maritime Risk Assessment cell or something equivalent, through which CENTCOM’s corridor assessment translates directly into DFC voyage eligibility determinations and Chubb policy terms, is essential. Without it, sovereign capital and private underwriting architecture operate in parallel rather than in concert. This is an interagency coordination requirement, not a budgetary one, and it can be established by executive direction. The same intelligence-to-finance channel logic that governs sanctions enforcement can govern voyage underwriting.

Fourth, the facility will likely require a durable governing structure and broader allied participation. The DFC facility as publicly described lacks the pricing discipline, allied cost-sharing, and exit optionality that would make it sustainable over time. The National Flood Insurance Program, established in 1968 as a temporary measure, carries approximately $22.5 billion in accumulated debt to Treasury not because federal insurance is strategically valueless but because its structure lacks those features. The authority in 46 U.S.C. Section 53902 permits a targeted amendment establishing a transit-count or time-based schedule after which sovereign coverage contracts toward a reinsurance role, JWC delisting as an explicit drawdown trigger, and a tie to the International Group’s February 20 annual renewal as a structured off-ramp. Japan, South Korea, and India together account for a substantial share of daily Hormuz oil flows and currently contribute nothing to the facility. India has deployed warships under Operation Urja Suraksha to escort its own flagged vessels, a bilateral response to a global problem. The G7 Leaders’ process and bilateral treaty frameworks provide the lever to formalize allied participation, distribute cost, and convert American positional authority from a unilateral expenditure into a governed alliance asset. Structured this way, the facility also signals to Iran that the pricing-pressure instrument has been permanently foreclosed, not merely paused.

The insurance layer at Hormuz now reflects American sovereign capital working alongside private actuarial judgment rather than waiting on it. The eligibility vetting process has merged sanctions enforcement with underwriting eligibility, giving Washington direct visibility into who transits and under what financial arrangements. The statutory authority, the interagency relationships, and the allied diplomatic frameworks through which these four conditions can be met already exist. Whether they are met before the facility’s structure is set by inertia rather than design will determine whether the instrument endures.

Bruce Randolph Tizes applies formal methods from dynamical systems theory and game theory to long-horizon strategic and systemic risk across law, medicine, and national security policy. He is a rostered Fulbright Specialist, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and is affiliated with the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

Featured Image: In this file photo taken on April 30, 2019, Iranian soldiers take part in the National Persian Gulf Day in the Strait of Hormuz. (Atta Kenare/AFP)