French President Emmanuel Macron doubted the U.S.’s ability to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, calling it “unrealistic.”
Speaking to reporters during a trip to South Korea after catching the ire of President Donald Trump for refusing to contribute to a military effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Macron questioned the very idea of the concept’s viability.
“Some people defend the idea of freeing the Strait of Hormuz by force via a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the United States, although it has varied,” he said.
“This was never the option we have supported because it is unrealistic,” Macron added. “It would take forever, and would expose all those who go through the strait to risks from the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] but also ballistic missiles.”
His remarks are certain to draw the ire of Trump, who has threatened to leave NATO over members’ refusal to help reopen the key maritime lane.
How the US could reopen the Strait of Hormuz
The U.S. Navy has focused its efforts on striking Iran directly throughout Operation Epic Fury, including the targeting of the Iranian Navy, which has been almost completely destroyed. To fully reopen the strait while the war is ongoing, the U.S. would likely have to employ a convoy system, escorting vulnerable tankers with its vessels. A similar effort was undertaken in Operation Earnest Will during the tanker war of the 1980s, with around 30 U.S. surface ships escorting civilian shipping vessels through the strait.
Although this effort was effective, particularly after Operation Praying Mantis, where much of the Iranian Navy was destroyed, a similar operation today would be more difficult.
For one, though its ships are more advanced, the modern U.S. Navy has far fewer ships than during Operation Earnest Will. During the 1980s, the U.S. had around 250 surface ships, while today it only possesses about 100, the Washington Institute reported. Each oil tanker, or group of oil tankers, would need to be escorted by at least one U.S. surface ship. The U.S. used around 30 surface ships for Operation Earnest Will, and a similar number would be required today. It is unlikely the U.S. can even spare that many ships, which are already stretched thin around the world. A convoy system of 30 ships would represent nearly one-third of the U.S. Navy.
The mere presence of U.S. ships is also unlikely to change Iran’s harassment of shipping, which has already shown itself defiant in the face of overwhelming odds. During Operation Earnest Will, the presence of U.S. ships caused Iran to cease its small boat attacks on shipping vessels but instead switch to mining the strait. Any serious convoy effort would therefore require air defenses and minesweeping capabilities.
The minesweeping problem
Dr. Emma Salisbury, a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program, described naval mines as “perhaps the most cost-effective weapon in modern arsenals.” The weapon is cheap and easy to conceal. Navies created dedicated minesweeper ships to counter the threat.
Despite being the most advanced in the world, the U.S. suffers from a critical shortage of minesweepers. It planned to replace its ageing minesweeper fleet with the Littoral Combat Ship, a small multipurpose vessel whose capabilities could be easily switched out, including minesweeping. The program was, by all accounts, a disaster, with the ships vastly underperforming and drawing criticism for their bloated cost and ineffectiveness. The last four Avenger-class minesweeper ships were decommissioned in September 2025 and arrived in Philadelphia for scrapping the day before combat operations in Iran began.
The institutional knowledge in minesweeping has also disappeared since the end of the Cold War, with many military planners feeling the naval mine threat had gone with the Soviets.
The U.S. has since relied on other NATO navies for minesweeping expertise. Belgium and the Netherlands are particularly noted for their minesweeping capabilities, a factor that likely played a role in Trump urging them to join efforts to clear the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is believed to possess between 2,000 and 6,000 naval mines and has begun deploying them in the strait.
Despite the destruction of its surface fleet, Iran can still deploy mines through its unconventional fleet — converted fishing boats that can carry a couple of mines at a time. The ease with which naval mines are deployed makes completely disabling Iran’s minelaying capabilities a near impossibility. Tehran also only needs to lay a handful of mines to sow doubt in the minds of shipping insurance companies and bring traffic to a halt.
A serious minesweeping effort, as it currently stands, would require the presence of NATO minesweepers, which still have not been assured.
Dealing with more advanced weaponry
The biggest difference between the military situation in the tanker war and the current war is the 40-year leap in technology. Even in its degraded state, Iran’s military is vastly more capable today, able to easily target and destroy shipping vessels at will. Its primary method so far has been through drones.
While superior to its minesweeping capabilities, the U.S. Navy has also struggled to fully counter hostile drones. Though its drone capabilities are also heavily degraded, Tehran has continued to lob them at targets all across the Persian Gulf. On Tuesday, an Iranian drone hit a Kuwaiti oil tanker anchored in a Dubai port for the first time.
The U.S. still relies on surface-to-air missiles to shoot down drones, tapping into a limited stockpile that has shrunk with the war.
Intensified strikes along Iran’s coast would likely accompany a convoy effort, but Tehran can fire drones from hundreds of miles inland at shipping.
Escalation as leverage
The most probable military solution to reopening the Strait of Hormuz would be the usage of the U.S.’s escalation dominance to pressure Iran to halt its attacks. Michael Eisenstadt, the Kahn senior fellow at the Washington Institute, and Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion, former head of the Israeli military’s Strategic Planning Division, outlined several efforts Washington could undertake to pressure Iran to halt, such as its own blockade of Iranian vessels shipping oil to China through the strait.
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The U.S. has mines of its own, and rather than seizing Kharg Island, the epicenter of the vast majority of Iranian oil exports, the Navy could mine the waters around it, denying its use to Tehran. While this carries risks of its own, it would strangle the Iranian economy faster than Tehran can starve the world economy.
As done previously, the U.S. could also carry out limited energy strikes to showcase its willingness and ability to cripple Iran if it so wishes. Trump’s long-promised bombing of power plants and the floated destruction of Iran’s South Pars gas field would completely cripple Tehran, though at the cost of a massive humanitarian crisis. Limited strikes that would damage Iran’s power grid without crippling it could be a more palatable weapon in Trump’s arsenal.