ANALYSIS: The Strait of Hormuz, a strategic trap where Trump is discovering that wars are rarely won alone

The Underground Tunnels That Satellites Had Missed

Images released by the Iranian news agency Fars News revealed what analysts had long suspected: Tehran has stockpiled a considerable naval arsenal in underground tunnels. Hundreds of fast attack craft. Naval combat drones. Suicide boats. All protected beneath mountains of rock, out of reach of conventional airstrikes. It is no coincidence that Iran has found itself in a position to block the Strait of Hormuz. The country has been methodically preparing for this for years, perhaps decades.

The contrast with American improvisation is striking. On one side, a regional power that has planned every scenario, dug every tunnel, and positioned every mine. On the other, a superpower that discovers, after launching its initial strikes, that its own mine-clearing capabilities are virtually nonexistent and that its allies refuse to fill the gap.

A formidably effective asymmetric strategy

Iran’s military genius in this crisis does not lie in technological sophistication. It lies in the brutal simplicity of the calculation. A naval mine costs a few thousand dollars. An oil tanker carries hundreds of millions’ worth. The cost-benefit ratio is so lopsided that one would have to be strategically blind not to have anticipated it. And yet, the Trump administration seems to be discovering this elementary arithmetic only after having unleashed hostilities.

The Revolutionary Guards are not content with mines alone. Their threats come from three simultaneous dimensions: the air, the surface, and the depths. Tom Sharpe emphasizes this with measured gravity: unlike the Houthis in Yemen, who posed only an aerial threat, Iran combines all three. “And ideally, you want to destroy these threats before they’re launched,” he says. “Which isn’t always possible.”

Berlin says no—and says it loud and clear

The German response was unusually blunt—a diplomatic departure for a country that typically cultivates the art of euphemism. A government spokesperson stated that the war with Iran had “nothing to do with NATO.” Boris Pistorius drove the point home: Germany will not participate militarily in securing the Strait of Hormuz. Period. No nuance. No door left ajar. A wall.

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul added a condition that Washington cannot meet in the immediate term: Berlin wants to know when Israel and the United States believe they have achieved their military objectives before discussing new security arrangements. In other words, Germany refuses to board a train whose destination no one knows.

Brussels: Between Reluctance and Realism

Kaja Kallas, the head of European diplomacy, summed up the continental consensus in a single sentence: “This is not Europe’s war.” ” EU foreign ministers refused to expand the existing naval mission in the Red Sea. Operation Aspides, launched in 2024 against the Houthis, consists of only three warships. Three. For a theater of operations that now stretches from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.

And yet, everyone knows that inaction is not a viable option. The oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz accounts for about 20% of global consumption. Every additional day of the blockade drives up energy prices, weakens European economies, fuels inflation, and threatens millions of jobs. Europe can refuse to participate in Trump’s war. It cannot afford to ignore the consequences.

A Proposed Coalition That No One Is Joining

Emmanuel Macron is the only major European leader to have outlined a concrete initiative. A week ago, the French president announced his intention to form a naval escort coalition to guarantee freedom of navigation in the strait. The gesture was bold. What followed was far less glorious. A few days later, his defense minister, Catherine Vautrin, clarified that there were no immediate plans to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz.

The reason for this backtracking is as simple as it is embarrassing: Macron had set a precondition—to wait until the “hottest phase” of the conflict had ended. However, U.S. and Israeli officials are talking about a campaign that could last several more weeks. Macron’s coalition is therefore at the mercy of a timeline beyond Paris’s control, in a war Paris did not choose, against an adversary Paris would have preferred to contain through diplomacy.

The Gap Between French Ambition and Operational Reality

Even if France decided to act unilaterally, its naval capabilities in the region are limited. The French Navy has high-quality vessels, but not enough to simultaneously escort dozens of oil tankers through a mined corridor, monitored by drones and covered by coastal missile batteries. France, like the rest of Europe, has sacrificed its naval projection capability on the altar of the dividends of peace. The bill is coming due today, and it’s a steep one.

Starmer Is Looking for a Plan That Doesn’t Exist Yet

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, finds himself in the most uncomfortable position of all European capitals. London maintains a “special relationship” with Washington—a relationship that Trump has regularly trampled on, but one that the United Kingdom cannot afford to abandon. At the same time, Starmer must respond to British public opinion, which is overwhelmingly hostile to any involvement in a new military adventure in the Middle East.

During his press conference on Monday, the Prime Minister repeatedly used cautious language. Discussions are “underway” with the United States, European partners, and Gulf countries. A “viable plan” is being sought. But “we are not yet at the decision-making stage.” Translated from diplomatic language into plain English: we don’t know what to do, and we hope someone else will come up with a solution before we’re forced to choose.

The legal red line that London cannot cross

Starmer has set a condition that seems trivial but is in fact devastating to Trump’s plans: any deployment of British military personnel must be based on a “legal basis” and a “well-thought-out plan.” The memory of Iraq hangs over every word. The United Kingdom was burned once by an American war launched on dubious grounds. The scars of 2003 still dictate British foreign policy in 2026.

And that well-thought-out plan, as Starmer himself acknowledged, does not yet exist.

The Strait of Hormuz is not a “small effort”

The U.S. president described securing the Strait of Hormuz as a “very small undertaking.” This statement alone reveals either a profound ignorance of naval realities or a cynical ploy to downplay the scale of the problem in order to exert greater pressure on allies. The Strait of Hormuz, which is 48 kilometers wide but has navigable channels spanning only three kilometers, is one of the most difficult maritime areas in the world to secure.

Securing this passage would require simultaneously neutralizing underwater mines, fast patrol boats, naval drones, and coastal missile batteries—all while facing an adversary who knows every rock, every current, and every blind spot along this coastline, which he has been monitoring for forty years. To describe this operation as a “small undertaking” is either incompetence or a deliberate lie.

The Temptation to Strike the Iranian Coastline—and Its Consequences

Trump has raised the possibility of attacks on the Iranian coastline to eliminate the “bad actors” positioned along the coast. The United States has already targeted mine-laying vessels in Iranian ports. But a systematic campaign against the Revolutionary Guards’ coastal installations would represent a major escalation—precisely the scenario that every European ally is desperately trying to avoid.

No Western ally will agree to participate in strikes on Iranian soil. The line has been drawn. It is clear. And Trump does not have the power to move it, no matter how many times he invokes NATO in contexts where NATO has no obligation to intervene.

No one knows the objectives of this war

The most troubling question in this crisis is not a logistical one. It is a strategic one. What are the U.S. war aims in Iran? When will Washington consider itself to have “won”? At what point will military operations cease? Johann Wadephul has asked these questions publicly. He has received no answer.

This lack of response is not a diplomatic oversight. It is a symptom of a fundamental problem: the Trump administration appears to have launched a war without precisely defining what victory means. U.S. and Israeli officials speak of a campaign lasting “several more weeks.” But several weeks to accomplish what, exactly? To destroy Iran’s nuclear program? To overthrow the regime? To weaken the Revolutionary Guards? Each objective entails radically different timelines, resources, and risks.

The Shadow of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya

Recent history offers a catalog of warnings that no one in Washington seems to be heeding. Iraq in 2003: a swift military victory followed by twenty years of chaos. Afghanistan: the longest American war, ending in a humiliating withdrawal. Libya in 2011: a “limited” intervention that turned a country into a failed state. Each time, the same fundamental mistake—believing that firepower can replace political strategy.

Iran is neither Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Libya. It is a country of 88 million people, with a national identity forged over three millennia, a formidable security apparatus, and a capacity for regional disruption that far exceeds that of any previous adversary. While previous wars have been strategic disasters, this one has the potential to be far worse.

Every day of the blockade costs billions

While diplomats hesitate and generals weigh their options, the economic cost of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is mounting at a terrifying rate. Iran is allowing only a few ships carrying its own oil to pass through to allies such as India and China. Everything else is blocked. The already nervous oil markets are reacting with volatility that threatens to turn this military crisis into a global economic crisis.

The Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar—are seeing their exports choked off. European economies, still dependent on fossil fuels despite years of energy transition, are feeling the shock. And developing countries—those with neither strategic reserves nor energy alternatives—are the first victims of a war they never asked for.

The Bitter Irony of “America First”

Trump built his political career on the “America First” slogan. The idea was that the United States should stop acting as the world’s policeman, stop financing other countries’ wars, and stop sacrificing its interests in the name of costly alliances. And yet, by launching a war against Iran, the president has created a situation in which America desperately needs the very allies he has spent years scornful of.

The result is a strategic isolation of almost perfect irony. The allies are there, on the other side of the door marked “involvement in Iran.” They look at each other nervously. They know that inaction is not an option. But none of them is willing to cross the threshold for a president who has betrayed, humiliated, and threatened them for six years.

How the West Forgot a Vital Skill

Naval mine countermeasures was once a fundamental capability of nearly every Western navy. During the Cold War, entire fleets of minesweepers patrolled the approaches to Europe, ready to clear shipping lanes in the event of a conflict with the Soviet Union. Then the Wall fell, budgets were slashed, and mine clearance became a marginal capability, relegated to the status of a historical curiosity.

General Carter puts it bluntly: “No navy has invested in this area to the extent necessary, and the Americans even less so than the others.” This statement is an indictment of thirty years of strategic myopia. Western navies have invested in aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and missile destroyers. They have neglected the small, thankless vessels that do the dirty but essential work of clearing the seas.

Relying on Technology as a Substitute for Strategy

Faced with this glaring gap, Western navies are banking on technology: autonomous drones capable of detecting mines; remote-controlled neutralization systems; and artificial intelligence algorithms to map minefields. On paper, it looks promising. In practice, none of these systems has ever been tested under real-world conditions in a strait mined by a sophisticated adversary.

And therein lies the most dangerous gamble of this crisis: the West is staking global energy security on untested technologies, deployed in a rush, against an adversary that has had years to prepare its defenses. This is not a plan. It is a prayer.

Mines, Drones, and Missiles: Iran’s Deadly Trio

What makes the situation in the Strait of Hormuz fundamentally different from anything Western navies have faced recently is the simultaneity of the threats. In the Red Sea, against the Houthis, the threat was primarily aerial: ballistic missiles and drones. Dangerous, but one-dimensional. The missile defense systems on Western ships were able to counter it.

Iran poses a three-dimensional threat. Underwater: hundreds of magnetic, acoustic, and contact mines scattered throughout the area. On the surface: swarms of fast attack craft armed with rockets and torpedoes, capable of overwhelming a ship’s defenses through sheer numbers. In the air: kamikaze drones and anti-ship missiles fired from the coast. All three dimensions simultaneously. No navy in the world has been trained for this specific scenario.

The defender’s advantage in a confined space

The Strait of Hormuz is not the Pacific Ocean. It is a narrow corridor where ships have virtually no room to maneuver. The navigable channels are so narrow that a single damaged oil tanker could block the passage for days. In this confined space, all of the U.S. Navy’s technological advantages—its aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and long-range strike capabilities—are neutralized or diminished.

Iran, on the other hand, operates from its own coastline. Its bases are just a few minutes’ sail away. Its underground tunnels protect its reserves. Its fighters know every reef. In naval warfare, as in any war, geography always has the final say. And here, geography favors Iran.

A Defensive Alliance Called Upon to Go on the Offensive

Trump’s suggestion that inaction in the Strait of Hormuz would be “very bad for NATO’s future” has provoked reactions ranging from dismay to cold anger in European capitals. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty—which stipulates that an attack against one member is an attack against all—was never intended to cover a war of choice launched unilaterally by a single member.

What Trump is essentially asking for is a redefinition of NATO—no longer as a collective shield against aggression, but as a tool in the service of U.S. foreign policy, mobilizable at Washington’s request, regardless of the consent of other members. This is a vision of the alliance that no one in Europe is prepared to accept—and one that NATO would likely not survive.

The dangerous precedent Europe refuses to set

If European allies give in to Trump’s pressure today and send their ships to the Strait of Hormuz, what precedent are they setting? That tomorrow, any U.S. president could trigger a conflict anywhere in the world and automatically demand NATO’s support? European leaders instinctively understand that once this line is crossed, there will be no turning back.

And yet, the alternative—watching the Strait of Hormuz remain blocked for weeks, even months, while the global economy suffocates—is just as unacceptable. This is the trap Trump has lured his allies into. A trap where every option is bad, and where inaction is simply the least visible of the disasters.

Thirty Years of Defense Cuts Are Catching Up with Europe

This crisis is a cruel mirror held up to Europe. For three decades, European countries have cut their military budgets, dismantled their naval capabilities, closed their shipyards, and decommissioned their minesweepers. They did so in good conscience, convinced that the triumph of globalization had rendered conflicts between great powers obsolete and that sea lanes would remain open through the sheer magic of international trade.

The Strait of Hormuz has just demonstrated that this assumption was an illusion. Sea lanes remain open only if someone is willing to defend them. And when that “someone” is an unpredictable U.S. president who turns his allies into adversaries before asking them for help, the entire system collapses.

The lesson no one wants to hear

The real lesson of this crisis is not that Trump is unpredictable—everyone knew that. The real lesson is that Europe is structurally incapable of protecting its own strategic interests without American support. And that this support now comes with conditions that Europe can neither accept nor refuse.

Trump’s allies are standing at the door. They’re looking inside. They know they’ll eventually have to come in. But each one secretly hopes that someone else will cross the threshold first.

A crisis that won’t be resolved by press releases

Here’s where we stand on the evening of March 16, 2026. A strait is blocked. The global economy is holding its breath. Allies are refusing to commit. A president is calling an operation a “small undertaking”—one that his own generals don’t know how to carry out. Untested technologies sent to the front lines. Iranian underground tunnels filled with drones that no one can reach. And no plan. No plan at all.

Keir Starmer put it with a candor rare among heads of state: British troops deserve, at the very least, to know that they are being deployed on a solid legal basis and with a well-thought-out plan. As things stand, neither exists.

What the Strait of Hormuz Says About Our Times

The Strait of Hormuz is not just a maritime corridor. It is a test of civilization. A test that reveals whether democratic nations can still act collectively in the face of a crisis, or whether the strategic narcissism of a single man can paralyze a system of alliances built on seventy-seven years of cooperation. A test that reveals whether technology can replace strategy, whether drones can replace political courage, whether press releases can replace decisions.

For now, the answer to all these questions is no. And the oil is no longer flowing.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost