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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | ||
| What if the US Navy Isn't in a Hurry to Re-Open the Strait? | ||
| 2026-03-20 | ||
Every TV analyst in America is talking about minesweepers and carrier strike groups. They are asking the wrong questions. The binding constraint on Hormuz was never a minefield or insurance. It is the US Navy’s willingness and ability to reopen it. Every talking point suggests the White House and Navy are working hard to reopen the strait but progress is slow. A new posts on Truth Social suggests we may have to considet a new hypothesis. “I wonder what would happen if we “finished off” what’s left of the Iranian Terror State, and let the Countries that use it, we don’t, be responsible for the so called Strait?” wrote President Trump in a post this morning. “That would get some of our non-responsive “Allies” in gear, and fast!!!”
Look at what the Navy is doing. Or rather, not doing. The U.S. Navy is in no rush to solve this problem. They are methodically, deliberately, taking their time. Army battalions are not mobilizing. The Marines called in from Japan are slow-steaming across the Pacific; it could be weeks until they are ready. Minesweepers are still far from the battlespace. Carriers are slowly rotating, not surging. Someone at the top told them to take their time. That signal has to be coming from the White House. Every day, approximately 1,000 trapped vessels are not available for charter. Every day, European energy dependence deepens. Every day, the DFC reinsurance facility becomes more central to the global shipping system. Every day, the case for concessions on tariffs, the IMO, Greenland, and the SHIPS Act becomes harder for Europe to refuse. And what does the Navy get for playing along? Support for battleships and stronger allies willing to spend money building their own destroyers when it becomes clear to the world how weak their navies have become. WHAT I AM ARGUING, AND WHAT I AM NOT I am not arguing that Trump planned this from the beginning – The P&I club withdrawal was a cascading system failure that no central planner could have predicted or orchestrated – but it is possible. What I am arguing is that the administration has, whether by design or adaptation, assembled the tools to exploit this moment. The DFC facility is the option. The incomplete P&I coverage is the strike price. The Jones Act waiver and Venezuela sanctions easing are hedge positions. The Navy’s deliberate pace is time decay working in America’s favor. The strongest version of this thesis is not “Trump is playing 4D chess.” It is that the administration holds more options than anyone realizes, and the insurance mechanism, not the Navy, is the real lever of power. The man who launched the SHIPS Act, tariffed Chinese shipping, killed the IMO carbon tax vote, brought CMA CGM to the Oval Office, signed the most ambitious Maritime Executive Order in decades, and then made the U.S. government the insurer of last resort for the world’s most important shipping lane does not lack a maritime strategy. An alternative version of this scenario is simpler: apathy. America just does not care about ships or how long it takes to reopen Hormuz or what happens to Europe as a result. But that version raises its own question. It was European encouragement of American maritime apathy, and European exploitation of that apathy to corner the global shipping industry and keep control in London, that created this situation. If American indifference is the reason the Navy is taking its time, is that not Europe’s fault for cultivating it? | ||
| Posted by:Clem+Elmish4239 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-03-20 00:48 |