Middle East

A Temporary Corridor Strategy for Hormuz

11 Comments

By Frank Bell

The Strait of Hormuz does not need to be made safe to reopen global shipping. It only needs to be made governable. Even as the United States has begun striking selected Iranian military targets—including recent operations against military facilities on Kharg Island—the fundamental challenge in the Gulf remains unchanged: restoring predictable commercial transit through a contested maritime chokepoint without triggering a broader regional war. Attempts to eliminate every Iranian capability that could threaten shipping would require a prolonged campaign across the Persian Gulf. A more practical approach is to establish a temporary defended transit corridor, concentrating naval escort, airborne surveillance, shipborne helicopter protection, and a limited southern-shore defensive node into a narrow and defensible passage through the strait.

For months, analysts have treated the Strait of Hormuz as if it were either completely safe or completely impassable. In reality, maritime chokepoints rarely function in such absolute terms. Shipping does not require a perfectly safe ocean. It requires a corridor that is predictable, defensible, and credible enough for commercial operators and insurers to accept the risk.

The debate surrounding the Strait of Hormuz often assumes that the only way to restore shipping is to eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten the waterway. That assumption leads immediately to the
prospect of a large regional war—air campaigns against coastal missile batteries, naval battles across the Gulf, and months of escalation.

But history suggests a different path. During past maritime crises, naval powers have frequently restored commerce not by eliminating every threat but by establishing managed transit systems
that compress risk into a narrow and controllable space.

The solution for Hormuz may therefore lie not in dominating the entire Persian Gulf but in creating a temporary defended corridor through the chokepoint.

Such a corridor would rely on a layered structure of naval escort, airborne surveillance, close maritime protection, and a small defensive presence on the southern side of the strait. The goal
would not be to make the Gulf harmless. The goal would be to make passage governable.

A surface escort layer would provide command and air-defense protection for merchant vessels approaching the chokepoint. Overhead surveillance aircraft and supporting fighter coverage
would maintain a continuous operational picture, allowing rapid response to emerging threats. Shipborne helicopters would monitor the corridor closely, investigating suspicious vessels and countering small craft or unmanned surface threats.

One of the most important—and most overlooked—components of such a system would be a small but visible defensive node on the southern side of the strait, operating in cooperation with regional partners. Positioned near the tip of the chokepoint, this element would provide persistent radar coverage, counter-UAS capability, and rapid-response support for the corridor.

Such a presence would serve not only operational purposes but also political ones. It would demonstrate that the coalition physically holds the non-Iranian side of the chokepoint, reinforcing the legitimacy of the corridor and strengthening deterrence.

A defended corridor strategy would also emphasize scheduling. Instead of allowing ships to transit independently at random times, merchant vessels would move through the chokepoint in controlled waves under escort. This approach concentrates defensive assets during the moments of greatest risk while reducing operational costs and exposure.

The corridor would not eliminate Iranian capabilities. Mobile launchers, drones, and small craft would still exist. But the layered defensive structure would compress the time and space available for attacks, raising the probability that hostile actions would fail.

Most importantly, the corridor strategy would be temporary.

Rather than establishing a permanent naval security regime, the mission could be designed with a fixed six-month duration. During that period, repeated successful transits would restore commercial confidence and stabilize insurance markets. If the corridor proves effective, the operational burden could gradually shift toward regional partners and routine commercial practices.

The alternative to such a strategy is a choice between paralysis and escalation: either accept the disruption of global shipping or embark on a large military campaign aimed at destroying Iran’s entire coastal defense network.

A temporary defended corridor offers a third option. It acknowledges that the Gulf will remain dangerous while demonstrating that danger does not automatically translate into closure.

The Strait of Hormuz does not have to be perfectly safe. It only has to be open.

Francis J. Bell is a graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business. He works as a private consultant with interests in strategy and international security. His writing focuses on maritime doctrine, deterrence, and emerging operational concepts.

Featured Image: MH-60 supporting Strait of Hormuz transits in 2018. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Grant G. Grady/Released)

Europe

“With the Shield, or On It?”: Aspides and the EU’s Aspirations for Sea Control

1 Comment

By Giacomo Leccese 

On 23 February 2026, the Council of the EU decided to extend the mandate of the EU naval operation EUNAVFOR Aspides, launched in March 2024 to safeguard the sea lines of communication (SLOC) in the Red Sea and protect European commercial vessels from Houthi attacks. Aspides has marked the most demanding naval engagement of the Union to date, moving beyond the low-intensity context that has traditionally characterized EU maritime operations. The choice to operate separately from the U.S.-led Prosperity Guardian coalition also signaled a deliberate effort to assert European strategic autonomy, with distinct assets, rules of engagement, and political objectives. The renewal of the operation, after two years of sustained deployment, therefore provides a valuable opportunity to assess the performance of the mission and to measure it against the stated ambition of the EU to act as a “global maritime security provider.” Regardless of how the situation in the Red Sea and the Houthi threat will evolve in the near future, an analysis of the mission provides the opportunity to examine some general gaps in the organization and efficiency of EU naval operations, as well as some limitations in the combat capabilities of NATO navies to address high-intensity threats at sea and counter potential sea denial actions in strategic chokepoints around the globe.

The name of the mission, Aspides, comes from the Greek word for “shield” (ἀσπίς). In ancient Spartan tradition, a warrior would return from battle either carrying his shield or borne upon it. After two years at sea, will the EU return with its shield in hand, or be carried back upon it? The evidence suggests the latter. Despite some operational and tactical achievements, the mission has struggled to meet its objectives, constrained by limited naval capabilities and a mandate that remained narrow and largely reactive to Houthi actions.

Measuring Success against the Mission Mandate

To evaluate the effectiveness of Aspides, it is necessary to measure its outcomes against its mandate. The mission’s objectives were to restore and safeguard freedom of navigation, escort and protect vessels, and enhance maritime situational awareness in the Red Sea. From this perspective, Aspides achieved notable operational and tactical results, yet did not fully accomplish its stated goals, especially those related to the restoration of freedom of navigation and the protection of ships.  During the operation, shipping agencies continued to avoid the Suez route, as concerns persisted regarding the safety of merchant vessels. Despite an additional 3,000 nautical miles and approximately ten days of sailing on the Asia-Western Europe route, the shipping industry continued to choose the Cape of Good Hope route, circumnavigating Africa. Even with a modest increase in traffic following the halt in Houthi attacks, the number of ships transiting the Red Sea remained well below the pre-crisis average of 72–75 per day recorded before the onset of Houthi sea denial operations in November 2023. To resume normal traffic in the Red Sea, shipping needs to have “safe enough” conditions, which means more protection. Aspides did not achieve this threshold.

Figure 1: Traffic trends in the Red Sea Route between November 2023 and November 2025. (Source: Hellenic Shipping News)

Concerning the protection of vessels, Aspides provided support to over 1,200 ships, demonstrating the ability of the European warships employed to intercept the various air threats posed by the Houthis.  Despite this, the inability of the mission to meet the commercial timelines of the shipping industry prompted some vessels to risk transiting the Red Sea without waiting for escort availability. This led several European vessels to be targeted by Houthi attacks, in some cases suffering severe damage or loss.  In this sense, also the objective of escorting and protecting vessels cannot be considered fully achieved, as the escort model failed to meet acceptable standards for responding to the needs of the shipping industry.

Insufficient Assets, Insufficient Protection

A key factor explaining the inability of Aspides to guarantee the required level of protection concerns the scarcity of naval assets at its disposal. Throughout its deployment, the mission maintained an average presence of only three warships, far below the estimated operational need of at least ten naval units supported by air assets. Such a limited presence inevitably constrained the mission’s capacity to ensure regular and comprehensive coverage along a maritime corridor extending for more than 1,200 nautical miles. Under these conditions, Aspides was able to organize only a maximum of four escorted transits each day (typically two northbound and two southbound) in spite of a minimum of eight to ten daily convoy movements indicated by shipping companies to be necessary to restore pre-crisis traffic levels. The mission is based on an escort-on-demand model, in which close protection is provided to vessels upon request and naval units are assigned when available. In this model, the limited number of available warships inevitably creates long waiting times and queues for maritime traders before receiving an escort.  In a commercial context where voyage decisions are made weekly, such delays have led many companies to reroute their merchant ships to the Cape Route or to attempt the dangerous passage through the Red Sea without protection. This explains both the failure to resume normal trade flows towards Suez and the attacks suffered by some unprotected European vessels, such as the Greek-operated Eternity C and Magic Seas, as well as the Dutch freighter Minervagracht.

The limited number of available naval assets reveals some significant gaps in European naval power. After the end of the Cold War and during periods of severe fiscal austerity, European navies underwent a significant downsizing. The decline in defense spending and the allocation of resources to the detriment of navies, given the importance of counterinsurgency operations in the early 2000s, reduced the number of naval units.

Despite this, European fleets have expanded their theater of operations beyond the usual seas surrounding the continent, as demonstrated by recent engagements in the Indo-Pacific. This deprives the European mission in the Red Sea of useful assets and places further strain on already limited available budgets. Furthermore, European fleets have been reshaped to focus on low-intensity operations, from crisis management to the fight against illegal trafficking, search and rescue, counter-piracy, and disaster relief. In this context, European navies lost 32% of their main surface combatants (frigates and destroyers) between 1999 and 2018, and Europe’s combat power at sea is considered to be half of what it was during the height of the Cold War. This decline is particularly impactful in the case of Aspides. Unlike other recent European naval operations, such as EUNAVFOR Atalanta, countering the Houthis requires high-end capabilities, with warships capable of providing air defense against threats such as anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in addition to unmanned surface vessels (USVs).

After years of downscaling, European navies retain only a limited number of frigates and destroyers designed for air defense. These warships are comparatively lightly armed and lack the necessary number of Battle Force Missiles (BFM) and corresponding vertical launch system (VLS) cells to conduct and sustain high-end naval operations effectively. In this context, not only are there only a few usable ships for Aspides, but these vessels also have a limited operational tempo. Indeed, in a high-intensity environment like the one presented by the Houthis, the limited number of VLS cells compared to US and Asian warships forces European units to return to a nearby base to reload their interceptor missile magazines more frequently. Added to this already limited capacity are several problems with onboard systems malfunctions, which some experts believe are due to the cost-saving construction that characterizes European warships. Several naval units destined for Aspides, such as the German frigate Hessen and the Belgian frigate Louis Marie, experienced problems with their onboard missile systems, which affected their availability for protection missions.

Mandate Limitations and the Cost Asymmetry of Protection

These limitations highlight that Aspides, and European navies more broadly, are materially unable to guarantee the level of protection required to restore normal trade flows in the Red Sea in the event of prolonged and intense Houthi sea denial operations. Beyond the difficulty of covering such a vast area and meeting a high demand for protection with limited assets, European forces face the challenge of countering a persistent missile and drone threat. The major issue is not the difficulty of intercepting them, but rather the cost of doing so. As Cranny-Evans and Kaushal note, and as already demonstrated during the Tanker War of the 1980s, “securing shipping requires a disproportionately resource-intensive effort on the part of the defender relative to the attacker when the latter has the advantage of proximity.”

In addition to the aforementioned need for replenishing VLS cells rotating to a friendly reloading facility, European naval units deployed must expend disproportionately expensive interceptors to engage relatively cheap targets. For example, in the initial stage of the operation, French frigates launched dozens of Aster interceptor missiles, costing €1-1.5 million each, against drones costing just a few thousand dollars. This economic imbalance is compounded by the strain such operations place on limited interceptor missile production capacity and stockpiles.

European navies have resorted to various tactical measures to reduce this asymmetric disadvantage, but these do not allow for completely solving the problem. One of the most used alternatives was the use of guns on deck or helicopters to shoot down enemy drones. However, as explained by Italian Navy officers, even though this solution allows for a drastic reduction in costs and does not deplete interceptor missiles stockpiles, it has two drawbacks: first, guns have a shorter range than missiles, so the drone is neutralized much closer to the ship, reducing reaction time and increasing risks; second, when used near merchant vessels for their protection, stray projectiles risk hitting them.

Another solution employed against UAVs has been the use of non-kinetic measures, such as jamming to disrupt the link with the operator and GNSS. An example of this was the use of the Centauros anti-drone system by the Greek Navy. Even in this case, however, these countermeasures were not completely resolutive. Like guns on deck and on helicopters, electronic warfare (EW) remains much less effective against other types of airborne threats, such as anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs). In this sense, the primary defense remained tied to the use of expensive Aster interceptor missiles, as demonstrated by the engagements of the French Navy.

In this context of persistent asymmetric disadvantage, the only sustainable solution would have been to deter Houthi attacks or to limit their operational capabilities. However, Aspides’ exclusively defensive mandate has constituted a significant limitation in this sense. In Operations Poseidon Archer and Rough Rider (2024–2025), the United States and the United Kingdom conducted repeated airstrikes on Houthi missile sites and storage facilities in an effort to degrade their offensive capacity.

The effectiveness of these operations remains contested. Some analysts argue that their impact was limited, given the Houthis’ ability to relocate or conceal assets underground. Others, such as Knights, emphasize that the operational tempo between successive attacks in the Red Sea increased considerably after the strikes, suggesting a temporary reduction in capability.

Whatever their true effect, such operations were never a viable option for the European Union, being fundamentally incompatible with Aspides’ mandate and political objectives. Indeed, the decision to establish Aspides and not join the US-led Prosperity Guardian coalition stemmed from the preference of several EU members to avoid participation in kinetic actions in Yemen, both to prevent further escalation in the region and to avoid straining relations with Iran. Yet Aspides’ exclusively defensive and therefore reactive posture has left the mission particularly exposed to prolonged sea denial campaigns, without degrading enemy capabilities, a situation that is neither sustainable nor productive in the long term.

Addressing the Limits of Aspides: Rationalization, Coordination, and Prevention

Countering air and surface threats in coastal waters and confined basins has clearly proven a particularly difficult challenge, not only for the EU. Other operations in the Red Sea, such as Prosperity Guardian, have also failed to ensure the resumption of normal maritime traffic and have encountered similar difficulties in sustaining prolonged high-end militia threats. Both the U.S. and Royal Navy have faced the combined effects of depleted interceptor stockpiles and the cost asymmetry of defending against cheap threats, along with constraints in the number of ships available to meet operational requirements. The EU, however, unlike these two actors, in choosing to maintain an exclusively defensive approach, could have placed greater emphasis on the sustainability and effectiveness of Aspides by adopting the measures that are discussed henceforth.

The limited number of available air defense vessels is an issue difficult to overcome in the short term. European navies have begun a modernization process, commissioning new warships to restore some lost capabilities, but it will take years for these vessels to enter into operation, as many are expected around 2030. However, one of the main problems highlighted by Aspides was the inability to optimize the limited assets available. Of the 21 nations participating in the mission, only a few have contributed combat vessels (Italy, France, Greece, Belgium, and the Netherlands), and only Italy, France, and Greece have deployed assets continuously since the start of the operation. Like previous EU-led operations such as Atalanta, as well as ad hoc coalitions among European states such as Operation Agenor in the Strait of Hormuz, Aspides confirms the recurring pattern of an unbalanced commitment, especially towards the countries with the greatest interests at stake. It is no coincidence that the ports most affected by the Red Sea crisis were precisely those of Greece, Italy, and France, the main contributors to the mission.

Even the overlap between different operations with European participants in the same waters contributes to straining already limited European naval capacities. For example, several EU members, such as Denmark, Finland, Greece, and the Netherlands, participate in the Prosperity Guardian coalition, providing public, logistical or active military support. This forces some European warships to rotate and reduce their participation in Aspides to contribute to other missions. The decision to launch Aspides and not expand the existing EUNAVFOR Atalanta operating in nearby waters further contributed to a dispersion of resources.

Given the difficulty of materially and economically sustaining a prolonged threat from the coast, the EU also missed several opportunities that would have allowed it to reduce the Houthis’ offensive capabilities, even without kinetic operations on Yemeni soil. Despite the ability to produce much of their arsenal locally, the Houthis remained heavily dependent on Iranian supplies for most of the weapons used in their attacks in the Red Sea. In particular, it appears highly likely that the militia imported components or ready-made weapons in the case of short- and medium-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, and Waid drones, the most sophisticated long-range UAVs used in maritime attacks. These weapons require components and know-how not available to the militia for local production. The Houthis were therefore dependent on Iranian supplies by sea or by land on the Yemen-Omani border. As Knights evidenced, this reliance, which constitutes one of the main weaknesses of the militia, was not exploited by the naval forces engaged in the Red Sea.

The EU could have reduced the offensive capabilities of the Houthis by blocking Iranian weapons and components, both by intervening directly to intercept shipping by sea, but above all by supporting the Yemeni coast guard and border forces with capacity-building initiatives and economic and material backing. In this sense, the EU has provided partial support to the coast guard, but local experts considered the level of aid “far below what is required.” Yemeni forces have demonstrated on several occasions their ability to intercept Iranian supplies if properly equipped and assisted. For its part, the EU has shown on other occasions, such as the fight against piracy in Somalia, how it is particularly adept at capacity-building initiatives and supporting local forces. Consistently backing the Yemeni Guard Coast would have allowed the EU to degrade the capabilities of the Houthis without risking regional escalation and worsening relations with Iran. It would have also allowed the EU to enhance its reputation as a maritime security actor, working cooperatively with regional actors.

Figure 2: Houthi Weapons Supply Chains. Source: Orion Policy Institute. https://orionpolicy.org/the-houthi-drone-supply-chain/

Conclusion

Beyond the specific case of the Houthis and the Red Sea, the analysis points to broader lessons. It underscores the need to improve the efficiency of EU naval operations, particularly in high-intensity contexts, while also highlighting implications for NATO as it prepares to confront the practical challenges of sustaining protracted operations in littoral waters against a well-armed, land-based opponent.

In the short and medium term, to address its limited high-end naval capabilities, the EU is called upon to better rationalize resources and improve burden-sharing. On the rationalization side, the overlapping of numerous missions involving multiple European navies in the same area of ​​operations should be avoided because it reduces the already very limited number of warships available for each mission. From the burden-sharing perspective, once again, the particular interests of member states have constituted the main lever of contribution, leaving the level of commitment of some countries with useful naval capabilities very low, such as Germany, or inexistent, such as Spain. Increasing the level of engagement of these members is essential to increasing the number of large surface combatants available.

Even the exclusively reactive posture of Aspides has proven unsustainable given the asymmetric disadvantage of Western navies in the face of Houthi threats. In such cases, against adversaries heavily dependent on external arms supplies, the EU should combine its preference for de-escalation with its expertise in low-end capabilities, attempting to support local actors in degrading the enemy’s offensive arsenal.

Finally, the logistical and economic challenges posed by the Red Sea engagement provide an incentive to invest in specific capabilities in anticipation of possible future similar conflicts in littoral waters involving NATO. First, the need for new measures to ensure the continued availability of interceptor missiles has emerged. In this regard, the first attempts to recharge VLS at sea by the French and US navies are noteworthy. Second, the need to reduce the asymmetric cost disadvantage in the face of low-cost threats, such as drones, has been evidenced clearly. Particular attention must be given to appropriate countermeasures, such as EW and directed-energy weapons, capable of reducing defense costs.

Aspides would probably return home “on the shield” at this time, but the mission, with its difficulties, provides an opportunity to improve the European naval power.

Giacomo Leccese is an External Researcher at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CISS) at LUISS University of Rome. He also serves as a Subject Matter Expert for the course of Strategic Studies at the Department of Political Science of the same university. His main interests concern maritime security, both in its surface and submarine dimensions, European defense, and the security dynamics in the MENA region.

Featured image: EU Extends Red Sea Maritime Security Operation Through 2026, Expands Intelligence Sharing. Source: gCaptain. https://gcaptain.com/eu-extends-red-sea-maritime-security-operation-through-2026-expands-intelligence-sharing/

Capability Analysis

Desert Storm Made the PLA. What is the Iran War Making?

2 Comments

By Commander Ander S. Heiles, USN

In January 1991, Chinese military officers watched CNN footage of the United States dismantling the Iraqi Army and experienced what one People’s Liberation Army (PLA) analyst later called a “psychological nuclear attack.” Desert Storm displayed every capability the PLA lacked, and China had no choice but to begin remaking its military from the ground up.

Two years later, China’s Central Military Commission codified these lessons in the Military Strategic Guidelines centered on “Local Wars Under High Technology Conditions” and acknowledged the PLA had been preparing for the wrong war. The Gulf War didn’t just scare China, it gave it direction.

Thirty-five years later, the classroom has reopened. The United States and Israel are engaged in a military campaign against Iran, and the Persian Gulf is once again the center of a maritime crisis. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Not by minefields or naval blockade, but by the withdrawal of maritime insurance and the cascading commercial decisions that followed.

Tanker traffic dropped first by approximately 70% with almost 150 vessels loitering outside the Strait. Transit has since collapsed to nearly zero within the first week, disrupting roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas. Roughly 750 vessels are now stranded within the Persian Gulf, and the PLA is paying very close attention.

The instinct is to assume Beijing is enjoying the bedlam: a distracted America, its military tied down in the Middle East, and precision munitions being expended far from the Pacific. That instinct is wrong.

What the PLA’s most attentive analysts are likely doing is war-gaming a Taiwan scenario in real-time using the Hormuz crisis as a live stress test for assumptions they have been modeling for decades. Some of what they are finding is deeply uncomfortable. The tactical lessons are significant but broadly familiar. However, the deeper strategic lessons, the ones that will reshape Chinese planning for the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, are maritime.

The Chokepoint in the Mirror

In 1991, China’s Desert Storm lesson was almost entirely about its capability gap. The maritime domain barely registered because the Gulf War was largely a land-air campaign. The 2026 crisis is fundamentally a maritime crisis, and China is learning a new lesson: chokepoints do not just threaten an enemy, they threaten anyone who depends on them.

Approximately 84% of the oil transiting through the Strait of Hormuz flows to Asian markets. China alone imported roughly five million barrels per day through the Strait, representing approximately 40%-45% of its total crude imports. The Hormuz closure does not primarily threaten Houston or Rotterdam. It throttles Tianjin, Qingdao, and Zhoushan.

Prolific naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan understood this. He spent much of his seminal work, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, explaining not just how navies project power but how dependence on sea lines of communication creates strategic vulnerabilities. A nation that does not control its own supply lines does not truly control its own strategic fate.

The PLA absorbed this lesson from Mahan and filtered it through the lens of Desert Storm’s demonstration of American power projection. In response, China has been building a blue-water navy and acquiring global port access in response.

However, the Hormuz crisis is forcing Beijing to confront a gap that was not illuminated by Desert Storm nor discussed in any specificity by Mahan: China remains critically dependent on chokepoints it cannot protect and does not control. The Strait of Hormuz is the immediate problem, but the Strait of Malacca, through which 80% of China’s oil imports transit, is the permanent one.

Beijing’s Foreign Ministry has been reduced to urging all parties to “keep the shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz safe,” and reports that China has opened direct talks with Iran to negotiate safe passage for energy shipments underscores that vulnerability. A nation that must ask permission to use a chokepoint does not command it. For PLA planners gaming a Taiwan contingency, the lesson is immediate: any conflict that triggers a disruption at the Malacca Strait could strangle China’s economy before a single shot is fired.

The Insurance Blockade

If the chokepoint lesson is uncomfortable, the insurance lesson may be worse. Within 72 hours of the start of Operation Epic Fury, multiple members of the International Group of Protection and Indemnity (P&I) Clubs, which collectively insure roughly 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage, issued formal cancellation notices for war-risk coverage in the Gulf. Major container lines suspended operations. Lloyd’s Market Association confirmed that roughly 1,000 vessels with a hull value of over $25 billion sat anchored in the area.

The chokepoint was not closed by missiles. It was closed by spreadsheets.

The PLA is likely studying this closely because it maps directly onto a Taiwan scenario. Beijing has long assumed that the critical question in a cross-strait contingency would be whether the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) could establish sea control. The Hormuz crisis suggests a different question entirely: would commercial shipping continue to flow through the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea once insurers withdraw coverage and container lines suspend service?

The same insurance mechanism that shut Hormuz in 72 hours could shut the commercial sea lanes on which China’s economy depends. Unlike a naval blockade, an insurance withdrawal cannot be stopped by force. No navy can compel an underwriter to write a policy.

China has been building state-backed maritime insurance mechanisms and positioning its commercial fleet to operate under sovereign-risk coverage precisely to insulate itself from the kind of Western-backed market dependency that has strangled Gulf shipping. The Hormuz crisis validates that investment.

On the other hand, it also reveals how far Beijing needs to go. China’s maritime insurance ecosystem does not yet have enough depth or international credibility to underwrite the scale of coverage that a Taiwan-related disruption would demand. A harder problem still is even if China can insure its own flag vessels, it cannot compel foreign-flagged ships to continue sailing into a warzone.

The roughly 750 vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf are a preview of what the South China Sea could look like 48 hours into a Taiwan crisis. Commercial shipping frozen, supply chains severed, and the PLAN unable to restart them regardless of how many ships it deploys.

The Fleet Behind the Fleet

The Hormuz crisis is also teaching China a lesson about commercial shipping as a military instrument. When the United States declared a maritime warning zone in the Persian Gulf, it came with an unusual public admission: it could not guarantee the safety of merchant shipping. The major container lines made their own risk calculations and suspended operations. The financial architecture of global trade enforced a blockade more completely than any naval minefield.

Sinokor, a South Korean shipping conglomerate, began asking the equivalent of roughly $20 per barrel to transport oil to China. This is an extraordinary premium compared to the nominal $2.50 per barrel, and this illustrates how quickly commercial sealift becomes a strategic weapon when maritime risk spikes.

China has been preparing for exactly this scenario. Over the past two decades, Beijing has expanded its merchant fleet to over 4,000 internationally trading ships, captured over 46% of global commercial shipbuilding, and invested in the mariner training pipeline to crew those vessels. Critically, the PLA has also been integrating commercial shipping into military logistics planning. China’s national defense mobilization laws allow the requisitioning of civilian vessels, and its merchant fleet has been designed with dual-use capability in mind.

The Hormuz crisis is validating China’s investment in a state-linked merchant marine fleet while simultaneously demonstrating the cost of America’s failure to maintain one. However, it is also exposing a gap in China’s own planning: a fleet that can be mobilized for war is also a fleet that can be commercially paralyzed by insurance withdrawal, sanctioned by coalition financial instruments, or stranded at foreign ports. In a Taiwan contingency, the PLAN’s ability to move troops across the Strait may matter less than whether China’s commercial fleet can continue to feed, fuel, and supply the mainland economy under wartime conditions. The Hormuz crisis is the first live demonstration of how quick commercial architecture can collapse.

What This Means

Desert Storm inspired China spend 35 years building the military it now has. Operation Epic Fury will not trigger the same kind of wholesale structural overhaul – the PLA has already done that work. What the 2026 crisis is doing is stress-testing China’s maritime strategy against live data and finding specific, uncomfortable gaps: chokepoint dependency that blue-water naval investment has not yet solved, an insurance architecture that can impose a blockade no navy can break, and a commercial fleet that can be mobilized for war but paralyzed by the financial instruments.

Each lesson applies directly to the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. PLA planners are not watching the Hormuz crisis as a distant curiosity. They are watching it as a dress rehearsal, and they are taking notes on themselves as much as on the United States.

Mahan argued that sea power rests on two pillars: naval force and commercial maritime enterprise. China has been absorbing both halves of that doctrine. The Strait of Hormuz crisis is revealing that even both halves may not be enough. The question is whether the United States, which builds less than 1% of the world’s commercial ships, fields fewer than 80 vessels in international trade, cannot crew the sealift fleet it already has, and had no war risk insurance mechanism ready when the crisis broke, is learning it too.

Commander Ander Heiles is a student at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School in Norfolk, VA. He commanded USS Monsoon (PC 4) and is the Prospective Executive Officer (P-XO) for the Naval Talent Acquisition Groups (NTAG) Empire State. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official positions or opinions of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Featured Image: Cosco Shipping Lines ultra-large container vessels at Rotterdam. (Photo via Kees Torn/Creative Commons)

History

The Sicilian Expedition: Lessons from an Ancient Disaster

4 Comments

By Austin McLaughlin

The world’s preeminent naval power launched a vast armada west to secure distant allies from a threatening rival. It underestimated the enemy’s resolve. The rival rallied, repelled the invaders, and left the naval power reeling—its fleet shattered, alliances frayed, and homeland stunned.

This isn’t a U.S.-China clash in the Taiwan Strait, but Athens’ 415 BC Sicilian Expedition–a misstep that doomed it to Spartan domination. Losing over 100 warships and 5,000 troops, Athens’ strategic blunder marked the tipping point of the 431-404 BC Peloponnesian War.1

Today, the U.S. can learn from Athens’ failure–intelligence gaps and tactical errors–as a strategic warning to a rising China, sidestepping a modern parallel.

Introduction – Alcibiades’ and Nicias’ Leadership Preludes Disaster

Pericles’ death in 429 BC left lesser men at the helm of the ancient world’s naval hegemon: the cunning general Alcibiades and the cautious statesman Nicias. Alcibiades drove Athens’ reckless Sicilian gamble, but Nicias spearheaded its destruction. The two willfully ended a six-year peace guaranteed by the 421 BC Peace of Nicias.2

Athens aimed to subdue Sicily for “glory and tribute,” eyeing a base for future incursions against Carthage and Mediterranean Africa.3 Alcibiades sold his plan to a willing assembly infected with “Alcibiades syndrome,” a toxic combination of capability and egotism.4 His charm convinced the assembly to deploy 60 ships. Upstaged by his junior, Nicias opposed this front far from Sparta, insisting Athens could win only by doubling the size of its force in a quixotic attempt to dissuade decisionmakers.5 Nicias’ bluster unintentionally worked – the assembly “far from being scared, eagerly agreed,” mustering 5,100 hoplites aboard 134 triremes and organizing command between Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus.

Alcibiades was slated to spearhead the armada, but the Affair of the Herms in June 415 BC forced his recall–busts of Hermes, symbols of Athenian patriotism, were defaced across Athens and Alcibiades became the chief suspect. Rather than stand trial, he defected to Sparta and advised stationing the general Gylippus in Syracuse to meet the expedition.6

Nicias now headed an expedition he once opposed. Athens, intertwined with its leaders, leapt from foolhardy confidence to trepidation. While personality differences do not presage inferior performance–as exemplified by Admirals Halsey and Spruance in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War–they can alter intelligence assessments and operational planning. Alcibiades’ arrogance engendered overconfidence in the assembly’s assessment of Sicilian affairs and capability, while Nicias’ indecisiveness led to the fleet’s rotting in Syracuse’s harbor and his force’s routing ashore.7

Intelligence Gaps – Hermocrates of Syracuse Outplays Athens’ Assessments

Syracusan general Hermocrates believed Athens was using specious alliances to aggravate existing hostilities and wear out Sicily’s defenses until they could “one day come with a larger armament and seek to bring all of [Sicily] into subjection.”8 In accord with Hermocrates’ argument, Sicily united at the 424 BC Congress of Gela and issued a doctrine of self-determination. In Athens, Sicily had a common enemy.

In 415 BC, Athens misjudged Sicily’s unity, assuming its cities, divided along Ionian and Dorian lines, would not resist en masse. The 416 BC call for aid from Segesta, a Hellenized city, against Selinus, a Dorian city, likely bolstered this belief – Athens expected support from Sicilian Ionians as Greek diaspora and their sympathizers. Athens thus justified the invasion under a pretense of protecting the island’s Ionians from Dorians, concentrated in Syracuse. However, the city state’s assessment of Sicily was overly simplistic, relying on a notion of shared heritage to overcome any local rivalries. Worse, Athens underestimated Sicily’s wariness of Athenian expansionism.

Athens was oblivious to Sicily’s own security assessments. In 415 BC, the Syracusan assembly held debates on whether the Athenians were coming to invade. The prescient Hermocrates claimed “a large Athenian force was sailing on the pretext of helping allies,” but intended to subjugate them.9 He foresaw the invasion, warning of Athens’ intent to subjugate Sicily under the guise of aid. To prepare, Hermocrates advised sending envoys across Sicily, Italy, and Carthage for aid, as well as to Sparta and Corinth to instigate a distracting conflict on Attica. He further urged a forward offensive: an open water attack near the Iapygian peninsula (modern day Apulia) to intercept a weary Athenian armada.

Hermocrates heard of Nicias’ fabled uncertainty, that the “‘most experienced of the Athenian generals’ was reluctant to make the expedition and might seize on evidence of resistance to abandon the project.” Despite public efforts to adhere to the “officially limited purposes” of the expedition, Sicily aptly assessed Athens’ intent.10

Athens had a limited understanding of the Syracusan order of battle. Encountering by fortune no fleet in the harbor, Athens was unprepared for an army at parity with its own.11 During the First Battle of Syracuse, the defenders’ front line was twice the weight of Athens’: sixteen-deep to Athens’ eight-deep phalanxes.12 Most importantly, Syracuse’s cavalry numbered approximately 1,500 to Athens’ 30.

Athenian intelligence gaps on Sicily’s unity, grasp of their true intent, and order of battle set up the expedition for failure. The astute leader Hermocrates had preempted the worst of Athenian aggression through shrewd argumentation and decision making. In the war for information dominance, Syracuse knew its adversary far better than Athens.

Tactical Errors – Nicias Squanders Opportunities and Misapplies Forces

Athens’ defeat in the First and Second Battles of Syracuse stemmed from critical errors: assuming Syracuse’s surrender, neglecting cavalry, and failing to counter Spartan head-on trireme ramming.

At Syracuse, the Athenian general Lamachus envisioned a decision tree with three major branches of action.13 Most optimistically, he hoped to intimidate Syracuse into surrendering without fighting. Failing surrender, Lamachus would challenge Syracuse’s forces to battle outside the city’s walls. And if they refused to fight, he would stage an amphibious landing in the outlying farms, pinning Syracusans and establishing supply lines to feed and quarter his own troops. This last option, Lamachus hoped, would impress Sicilian cities and win their allegiance.

From Catana to the south, Nicias staged the First Battle of Syracuse. Hoplites from Argives pierced Syracuse’s left phalanx while Athens split the center. A thunderstorm caused inexperienced Syracusans to break ranks and flee, fearful of the bad omen. But Athens could not capitalize on victory: with just 30 cavalrymen, Athens could not pursue its helpless enemy.

Nicias clung to Lamachus’s fantasy of winning without fighting. With winter approaching, he sailed back to Catana, making no effort to request cavalry reinforcements. Historian Donald Kagan posits this was “more a failure of purpose than of judgment, that it resulted, at least in part, from his original disinclination for the expedition, from his hope that it would never be necessary to fight at all.”14 Plutarch affirmed Nicias’ delay after victory “destroyed the opportunity for action… in getting up the nerve to act, he was hesitant and timid.”15

For two years, Athens’ army made no progress sieging Syracuse. Its fleet languished, “rotting in the stagnant waters of the harbor, their crews inactive for over a year, had passed their peak of readiness.”16 Spartan ships fortified with stray-beams attacked the ill-prepared Athenian triremes head on, preventing the Athenians from ramming broadside, their preferred method. Covering their decks with animal hides, the Spartans repulsed Athenian grappling hooks. Deprived of room to maneuver, Sparta trapped Athens’ fleet in the harbor, driving oarsmen to beachheads where inland forces routed them on arrival.

Rather than escape and fearing he would be “put to death on a disgraceful charge,” Nicias heeded superstition surrounding a lunar eclipse and delayed withdrawal. Syracuse and Sparta exploited this opportunity to finish the trapped fleet. With no ships on which to return, Nicias and his men fled to Catana and were routed by cavalry. With survivors enslaved, the Second Battle of Syracuse came to a disastrous end.

Nicias “had let slip the time to action.” He was “slow and wanted assurance to engage,” misusing assets available to him while hoping to win the fight without fighting. Unlike Nicias, the U.S. Navy must use its forces as intended.

Two Lessons for the U.S. Navy Today

During the Peloponnesian War, Athens reignited a great power conflict rather than maintain an uneasy peace, sacrificing sea control because war was seen as foregone. It is incumbent now that the U.S. must not succumb to this same fate–looking back on the Sicilian Expedition reveals two major lessons for U.S. naval intelligence and operations today.

For naval intelligence, assess intent separately from capability. Athens misread Sicily’s will to fight despite a smaller, nominally divided force, predisposing itself to rash action. Athens’ superficial view of Sicilian politics and overreliance on shared values with partners missed Hermocrates’ machinations toward Sicilian unity. Further, despite an initial naval overmatch, Athens grossly underestimated Syracuse’s capabilities on land.

Taiwan’s political divisions today, particularly with the Kuomintang’s status quo orientation, cannot be mistaken for a lack of willingness to fight should an invasion occur. Russia recently repeated this mistake in Ukraine, possibly causing China to delay forceful reunification with Taiwan in the near term. Analysis in the years ahead must focus on changes in tactics, techniques, and procedures as indicators for intent, like shadowing or pressurization behavior and amphibious rehearsals, rather than fleet size and capability. U.S. naval intelligence should emulate Sicily, not Athens, to gauge aspirations hidden behind Chinese posturing.

For naval operators, use forces as they were intended. During the siege of Syracuse, Athens’ navy was misused operationally and tactically. Operationally, its triremes were intended for fast maneuvering in the littorals, not blockading ports in an exposed forward position. Tactically, their concentration in Syracuse’s harbor deprived the triremes freedom of maneuver and thus their preferred method of assault: broadside ramming. Applying the perspective of Jomini, Athens had “invert[ed] the natural order” of its arms.17 The trireme fleet distributed across the Mediterranean Sea, then the global commons, led to Athens’ naval preeminence. Concentrating the force immediately outside Syracuse misapplied this purpose-built utility.

Similarly, U.S. Navy platforms equipped for maritime cooperation and green-water engagement like the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) are not best-suited for sea denial and blue-water conflict. Ideal application of the LCS, for example, might be as a presence multiplier further from conflict zones. In the last few decades, mission creep led U.S. service branches to extend their capabilities beyond their original purposes. Corrective efforts like the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030, adjusting “from inland to littoral, and from non-state actor to peer competitor,” are the vanguard.18 The U.S. Navy must also direct present resources around their intended mission.

A Strategic Warning… for China

Themistocles, father of Athenian seapower, stated “he who commands the sea has command of everything.”19 In a generation, the arrogance of Alcibiades and the indecision of Nicias destroyed Athens’ fleet and Themistocles’ legacy. Beyond major losses in ships and manpower, Athens lost prestige and morale. In disbelief, the city’s archons and general assembly branded news of their defeat “false intelligence” and discredited or tortured those who spread word of it.20 But they could not stop the internal revolts and Spartan-Persian alliance, eager to “overthrow Athenian seapower in the Aegean,” to follow.21

In 2015, Xi Jinping dismissed the Thucydides Trap, stating there was “no such thing… [but]  should major countries time and time again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.”22 With the Thuycidean dynamic at play, rather than imitate Athens’ reckless abandon, the U.S. must purposefully send its Navy forward to maintain maritime superiority without allowing heightened operational tempo and requirements to reduce readiness. China must engage transparently about its regional ambitions without needlessly antagonizing our nation or its partners throughout the Indo-Pacific.

Athens and Sparta serve as parables for the U.S. and China. While Athens offers lessons to the U.S. as a historic precursor, ultimately it was a foolhardy rising power that collapsed following a disastrous invasion of an island hundreds of miles offshore. Perhaps while the Taiwan Strait is no Ionian Sea and technological advances have long rendered triremes obsolete, this strategic warning is more relevant to China. Sparta, a status quo power like the U.S., simply had to await its adversary’s fatal misjudgment to invade Sicily–the rest is history.

Lieutenant Austin McLaughlin is currently assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He previously served as intelligence officer for Destroyer Squadron 1 aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) in San Diego, California. Before naval service, he was a presidential writer at the White House. He graduated cum laude from Cornell University in 2018.

Notes

1. Strauss, Barry S., and Josiah Ober. The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists. St. Martin’s Press, 1992, pp. 61.
2. Strauss and Ober, pp. 66.
3. Strauss and Ober, pp. 60.
4. Strauss and Ober, pp. 51.
5. Strauss and Ober, pp. 61.
6. Strauss and Ober, pp. 63-65.
7. Potter, E.B. “Halsey and Spruance: A Study in Contrasts.” U.S. Naval Institute. April 2016.
8. Thucydides, A History of the Peloponnesian War, 4.58-65.
9. Kagan, Donald. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 220.
10. Kagan, pp. 245.
11. Thucydides, 6.52.
12. Kagan, pp. 235.
13. Kagan, pp. 211-216.
14. Kagan, pp. 252.
15. Plutarch, 16.8.
16. Strauss and Ober, pp. 63-65.
17. Jomini, Antoine-Henri. The Art of War. Translated by G.H. Mendell and W.P. Craighill. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1862.
18. Berger, David H. Force Design 2030. Department of the Navy, United States Marine Corps. March 2020.
19. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, X, 8. c. 391.
20. Plutarch, Life of Nicias. c. 75. 30.2.
21. Strauss and Ober, pp. 65.
22. Allison, Graham. “The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed to War?” The Atlantic. September 24, 2015.

Featured Image: Artist rendering of the Sicily Expedition (Courtesy of War History Online)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.