12: Hormuz

🇮🇳 India's Prime Minister just asked 1.4 billion people to use less fuel, travel less, buy less gold, and eat less cooking oil.

Modi's full list of asks, announced today:

-Work from home and use online meetings to reduce fuel consumption

-Use public transport and carpool… pic.twitter.com/C0w0g8iQ52

— Jack Prandelli (@jackprandelli) May 10, 2026

The common counterargument, often driven by anti-Trump narratives, is that because the United States has not seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, it therefore cannot, and that Iran is somehow demonstrating a lasting strategic advantage it will carry forward. That logic is… https://t.co/CNNwIG1Z5t

— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) May 11, 2026

The common counterargument, often driven by anti-Trump narratives, is that because the United States has not seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, it therefore cannot, and that Iran is somehow demonstrating a lasting strategic advantage it will carry forward. That logic is deeply flawed. The absence of a U.S. operation to fully secure the Strait is not evidence of military incapability. It is evidence of political restraint and strategic calculation.

Just because the President has not ordered a combined air, naval, and ground campaign to seize and secure the Strait does not mean the U.S. military lacks the capability to do so. It means there are economic, diplomatic, escalation-management, and broader strategic reasons such an operation has not been ordered.

The United States has spent decades building the exact naval, airpower, logistics, ISR, mine-clearing, amphibious, and strike capabilities required to dominate chokepoints like Hormuz if directed.

Confusing political decision-making with military capability is a common uniformed mistake. Iran’s threats to shipping, harassment operations, mining efforts, or missile attacks do not demonstrate that the United States is unable to secure the Strait. If anything, they reinforce why freedom of navigation operations and deterrence have been central pillars of American power for decades.

The question has never been whether the United States could impose control over the Strait. The question has always been whether the political leadership believes the costs, escalation risks, and global economic consequences of doing so outweigh the benefits at a given moment.

Analysis of the Text
This is a concise, rhetorically focused defense of U.S. military superiority in the Persian Gulf, specifically regarding the Strait of Hormuz. It pushes back against narratives (often framed as "anti-Trump") that interpret U.S. restraint as weakness or evidence of Iranian strategic parity. The core thesis: Capability and willingness are distinct; failing to seize the strait reflects deliberate policy choice, not incapacity.Logical Structure and Strengths

• Clear distinction between policy and power: This is the text’s strongest point. It correctly identifies a common category error in strategic commentary—equating non-use of force with inability. Historical examples abound (e.g., the U.S. could have taken many actions in Vietnam, Korea, or the Gulf that it chose not to for escalation or cost reasons).
• Capability inventory: The listed elements (naval/air dominance, ISR, mine countermeasures, logistics, amphibious/strike assets) are accurate. The U.S. Navy and Air Force have invested heavily in platforms and doctrine for chokepoint control (e.g., 5th Fleet basing in Bahrain, forward-deployed carriers, Aegis systems, E-2/E-3 AWACS, mine-hunting MH-53 helicopters and Avenger-class ships, rapid deployment forces).
• Deterrence framing: It reframes Iranian harassment (mines, speedboats, missiles, proxies) as the justification for sustained U.S. presence rather than proof of U.S. failure. This aligns with classical naval strategy: freedom of navigation (FON) operations demonstrate resolve without full conquest.
• Prudential calculus: Emphasizing costs (economic disruption to global oil, escalation with Iran/China/Russia, diplomatic blowback, occupation requirements) is realistic. Seizing and holding the strait would be a major war, not a limited strike.

The argument is internally coherent and avoids overclaiming (it does not say an operation would be bloodless or cheap).Potential Weaknesses and Nuances

• Underplays real operational challenges: While the U.S. has superior capability, controlling the strait is not trivial. The waterway is narrow (~21 miles at its tightest), with Iranian coastal missile batteries (e.g., Silkworm derivatives, Fateh, Khalij Fars), drones, mines, and swarming tactics. Clearing mines under fire, suppressing mobile coastal defenses, and maintaining long-term security against an insurgency or proxy campaign would require significant resources. Past wargames (CSIS, RAND) have shown high losses in a full Iran scenario, especially to anti-ship missiles and asymmetric tactics. The text dismisses this too breezily by focusing only on "can vs. cannot."
• Political framing: Labeling the counterargument as "anti-Trump narratives" narrows its appeal. The restraint logic (costs > benefits) has applied across multiple administrations—Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden. Iran’s threats and incremental gray-zone campaigns have persisted for decades precisely because full U.S. escalation has consistently been judged too risky.
• Strategic assumption: It assumes U.S. political leadership could order such an operation and succeed if desired. This is mostly true for initial dominance, but "securing" implies sustained control, which involves nation-building-like challenges or indefinite presence. Global economic consequences (oil spike, inflation) are correctly noted but hard to reverse quickly.

Factual and Strategic ContextThe U.S. has repeatedly demonstrated relevant power projection:

• tanker reflagging and convoy operations (1980s Tanker War)
• destruction of Iranian naval assets (Operation Praying Mantis, 1988)
• rapid buildup and dominance in 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars
• ongoing carrier rotations and strikes against Houthis/Iranian proxies

Iran controls the northern shore and has invested in anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD), but it lacks the blue-water navy or air force to match the U.S. symmetrically. Its leverage is disruption and cost imposition, not denial of U.S. entry. Most analysts agree the U.S. could force open the strait militarily; the debate centers on sustainability, follow-on effects (e.g., Iranian closure attempts elsewhere, Strait of Malacca responses, Chinese oil import reactions), and opportunity costs.Overall AssessmentThe text is a solid, if partisan-toned, corrective to defeatist or overly credulous commentary on Iranian power. It rightly rejects the "they stopped us so far, therefore they can always stop us" fallacy. Its main contribution is reminding readers that strategy involves trade-offs, not just raw power tables. However, it could be strengthened by acknowledging that Iranian asymmetric tools raise the price of control substantially, even if they do not eliminate the capability gap. This is less a binary "can/can't" question than a "at what cost, and for how long?" one—which the text itself ultimately concedes in its final sentence.
In military-strategic terms, it scores high on Clausewitzian clarity (war as continuation of politics) but is lighter on the friction and fog that make Hormuz operations riskier in practice than on paper.