Iran’s navy may not be a match for the U.S. on the high seas, but the Strait of Hormuz offers plenty of ways for it to make life tricky.
New Year in the Persian Gulf has opened in the usual atmosphere of scurrility, mistrust and competition. The Iranian nuclear crisis – already animated by economic and cyber warfare, an unrelenting diplomatic offensive, and a systematic program of sabotage, espionage and assassination – has, over the past month, incorporated yet another aspect: the specter of naval confrontation.
Iran is planning a new round of naval war games in February. These follow an earlier round, which unfolded against the backdrop of two unusually bold threats: the first, to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to the imposition of new sanctions; the second, to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier should it return to the Gulf.
Neither threat has so far been acted upon, of course, nor are they likely to be. As a number of analysts have noted, any attempt by Iran to disrupt the passage of oil out of the Gulf would be a largely self-defeating move, given its current economic fragility and abiding dependence on oil exports.
Rather, Iranian bellicosity is better understood as an attempt to shape expectations about its future behavior. In the rough-and-tumble world of international politics, a reputation for recklessness, even irrationality, can be a useful bargaining tool, as North Korean negotiating behavior attests. In particular, Iran is determined to drive up the risks of an attack on its territory, especially its nuclear facilities, by conveying the resolve and ability to respond with naval operations along a spectrum of intensity, from low level harassment of merchant shipping to the kind of hit-and-run attacks on U.S. naval platforms more commonly associated with Chinese strategy in the Western Pacific.
That questions remain about the credibility of these threats is cold comfort for U.S. military planners, though. For them, a preoccupation with capabilities rather than intentions, which can change, means they now confront a potentially asymmetric challenge in the Gulf at a time when they are trying to make deep cuts in the defense budget and reorient their strategic focus to Asia. Indeed, evidence suggests that Washington is taking Tehran’s threats seriously.
This is no surprise. By regional standards, the Iranian navy represents an atypically strong coastal force with a coherent force structure designed not to defeat a superior naval power so much as impose prohibitive costs on intervening in Iran’s southern air and maritime approaches. Built for sea denial, it comprises submarines, mines and fast attack craft armed with anti-ship cruise missiles. Each of these capabilities is cheap relative to the platforms against which they’re being fielded, and each places a disproportionate burden on the side seeking to defend against them. Submarines are hard to find; mines take a long time to clear; and Fast Attack Craft, especially when used in numbers and dispersed formations, are difficult to prevent closing to a range at which their missiles become a serious risk to even well protected ships.
The effects of this force are magnified by congenial naval geography. By contrast with the Western Pacific, with its oceanic expanses and concentric archipelagic chains, the Persian Gulf is a narrow body of water, making it conducive to offensive denial operations. It has one constricted entry point. This creates a funneling effect that allows Iranian forces to concentrate their firepower. Short distances make operations less surveillance intensive, and therefore less technologically demanding. They also compress the warning time available to an enemy defending against missile strikes, while long stretches of noisy coastal water create an ideal acoustic environment for lurking Iranian submarines.
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Technorati
Yahoo
Google
Plurk
Major Lowen Gil Marquez, Phil Army
The way i see the Iran hostile behavior in their plan about their submarine used in the gulf, they resulted to the designed of inflicting damage to their enemy naval armada by using the unconventional tactics of strike and swift withdrawal it is a tactics of the Chinese communist… this kind of tactics were already obsolete, its better for the Iran to keep simple and become human to their fellow human being or else Iran will be destroyed in the long run because of their psychotic strategy…
concerned
Despite the hubris in which it wallows, Washington understands the vulnerability of its Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and would not risk losing a fleet and 20,000 US naval personnel unless it was to gain an excuse for a nuclear attack on Iran.
A nuclear attack on Iran would alert both China and Russia that they could suffer the same fate.
The consequence would be that the world would face a higher risk of nuclear armageddon than existed in the mutually assured destruction of the US-Soviet standoff.
Doug
If Iran were to try and implement its threat, what it would boil down to is how much punishment it is willing to accept to its infrastructure in order to attack shipping in the Persian Gulf. I would have to think that besides protecting any tankers and freighters transiting the straight, our naval and air forces in the region would be striking every Iranian military and industrial asset within range. Those are the attacks that will quickly bring any Iranian adventure to a quick conclusion.
Roy Lofquist
Remember the amphibious assault on Kuwait? Didn’t think so. The U.S. has an overwhelming armada of land based aircraft that can strike Iran’s coastal regions with impunity.
muted
U.S. naval superiority in and around the Persian Gulf ensures the secure transit of energy resources from this vital area to points beyond. China has neither the desire nor the capability to provide this type of global good. I don’t disagree with the author that there are motivations for Beijing to sell naval armaments to Iran, but his assessment of these motivations are off-the-mark. Few countries are as dependent on global trade as is China. So long as it maintains generally positive relations with Washington, Beijing is able to ‘free ride’ on the security the U.S. Navy provides for global shipping.
China wants to see a military conflict involving Iran and the Western powers about as much as it wants to take responsibility for securing global sea lines of communication.
Dale Lanan
Earth is the only platform capable of supporting life in the Universe within striking distance of what I can possibly say here on the internet for peace.. That is important as the little guy, whoever wants can step from essentially anywhere and perhaps alter the course of history.
There is talk of power and symmetry in the world but the leverage things like oil and nuclear power, their byproducts and mixing with chemically unstable explosive is like a ‘thousand points of light’ all fuses lit while at the same time the sky is filling or has filled to point of self inundation with gasses capable of keeping heat from escaping to space.. Don’t know where that says anything of the kind in the Koran or Bible but I bet it can be read between the lines somewhere or something. Money is leveraged by fractional reserve loan as well and defusing is like strike Hope
SLO
it’s a shame that’s the way obama thinks can boost his dwindwling popularity!
MO
You are confusing Obama with the GOP….it should read it’s a shame that’s the way the GOP thinks can boost its dwindwling popularity!
MO
You have Obama confused with the GOP party….