No, his point is that being unable to do that was (or at least should have been) a forgone conclusion. There are many things that we know the US (or UK or Chinese or etc) military can't do and that isn't a bad thing per se.

The US navy was unable to keep hormuz secure for civilian traffic but was able to blockade it themselves. I think that's exactly the outcome you'd expect in this scenario.

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rayiner 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> No, his point is that being unable to do that was (or at least should have been) a forgone conclusion.

No, not at all. As I said, controlling straits and keeping them open for shipping is a fundamental function of a navy going back to Roman times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy (“By far, the navy's most vital task was to ensure Roman grain imports were shipped and delivered to the capital unimpeded across the Mediterranean.”).

The inability to keep the strait clear shouldn’t have been expected. It’s a purely military objective that’s squarely within what our ridiculously overspecced Navy should be able to do.

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fc417fc802 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It is a fundamental function in the general sense, yes. But I don't think anyone was expecting that the US could do so in hormuz in this instance (at least without committing far more assets of a non-naval variety). I also think there are plenty of examples that take the form (strong navy, narrow body of water) where failure would be expected but that doesn't mean the navy in question isn't capable or that it fails to fulfill its role.

Similarly it is a fundamental function of the infantry to maintain ground control over a region but it is easy to come up with hypotheticals where any given power including the US would fail to do so.

> It’s a purely military objective that’s squarely within what our ridiculously overspecced Navy should be able to do.

I'm sure they could if cost was of no consequence but depending on the size of iran's drone stockpiles the interceptor costs might well bankrupt us. And even then they would only manage because (I assume) iran either can't or won't employ hypersonic missiles against tankers.

	▲	rayiner 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> But I don't think anyone was expecting that the US could do so in hormuz in this instance (at least without committing far more assets of a non-naval variety). I think that’s exactly what they thought. I think this was supposed to be a quick and dirty campaign like Venezuela. > I'm sure they could if cost was of no consequence but depending on the size of iran's drone stockpiles the interceptor costs might well bankrupt us. And even then they would only manage because (I assume) iran either can't or won't employ hypersonic missiles against tankers. I think this is the part they overlooked. The military has been planning to attack Iran for 50 years. I can totally believe that they underestimated Iran’s drone capabilities and hypersonic missiles. Either way, there’s a real military lesson here. Iran has enormous leverage over the world through its control of the strait of hormuz. Even the most powerful navy in the world can’t protect the world’s oil shipments without a land war against Iran (which I expect would be a trillion dollar effort). The Iranians are much more powerful than we thought.