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Analysis
An IRGC speedboat and a helicopter move around the British-flagged Stena Impero which was seized in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Sunday, July 21, 2019. Photo: Hasan Shirvani | Mizan via AP
The United States plans to assemble a multinational force to patrol the Persian Gulf and the coast of Yemen to protect shipping from seizure and sabotage in these strategically important waterways.
US Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US wants its allies to patrol these areas and escort commercial ships, which will fly the flags of their escorts. The US would focus on surveillance efforts and provide "command and control" ships.
Amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran, which have gradually escalated since May, it is unclear just how many of Washington's allies are willing to commit substantial resources to support such an initiative.
The initiative itself adheres to US President Donald Trump's stated aim of getting America’s allies to contribute more to collective security efforts. To date, there have been few successes.
This is not a reassuring precedent for US plans in the Gulf.
That said, if Iran continues making threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, or continuously interferes with oil shipments, this could compel US allies to assist in a combined show of force against Tehran.
In January 2012, an Anglo-Franco-American fleet of warships passed through Hormuz in a show of force, just a few miles from the Iranian coast, after Iran threatened to close the strait in response to sanctions targeting its oil exports.
However, tensions were not nearly as high then as they have been in recent months and the risk of a serious clash or outright war substantially less likely.
Despite the modest increase in the number of its forces in the Gulf region, the US has shown it has no appetite for mounting sizable patrols to safeguard Gulf oil shipments. Dunford's plan to get US allies to carry out patrols rather than the US itself aptly demonstrates this.
In June, Paul Selva, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out: "Specifically, in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf, we've taken on an international responsibility of ensuring freedom of navigation and the movement of oil in and out of the Gulf."
"That doesn't mean it's a US-only problem," he said. "If we take this on as a US-only responsibility, nations that benefit from that movement of oil through the Persian Gulf are bearing little or no responsibility for the economic benefit they gain from the movement of that oil."
Such sentiments were frequently expressed in Washington in the late 1980s when an Anglo-American task force escorted re-flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Gulf in Operation Earnest Will to deter Iranian attacks during the tanker phase of the Iran-Iraq War.
At the time, many in the US questioned why Washington should contribute so much of its military resources – it was the largest naval escort mission of its kind since the Second World War – to such a risky endeavour when the US had little directly at stake.
In July 1987, Robert Greenberger of The Wall Street Journal spoke of a bipartisan linking of "protectionism sentiment" and the "burden-sharing argument" in the US Congress in response to Earnest Will.
The oil tankers being protected by the US Navy were primarily destined for Europe and Japan at a time when Persian Gulf oil amounted to less than 10 percent of total US consumption.
That state of affairs led many in Congress to question why Washington should foot the entire bill for doing so or if it could afford to be the policeman of the world.
Some questioned why Japan did not help fund the endeavour given the fact it imported most of the oil from the Persian Gulf in those days. Incidentally, Japan and China still import far more oil than the US from that region today.
One prominent public figure to criticize this policy was none other than Donald Trump. In September 1987, he ran a full-page ad in major US newspapers to share his view that the US should stop paying for the defence of countries that could afford to defend themselves.
Notably, he used talking points almost identical to the ones that he later used against NATO and other US allies during the 2016 presidential election.
Trump claimed that Japan and other nations had taken advantage of the US for decades, insisting that: "The saga continues unabated as we defend the Persian Gulf."
The Gulf, according to Trump, was in reality "an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies, but one upon which Japan and others are almost totally dependent".
He therefore questioned why Japan and other countries were not paying the US for protecting their interests and was scathing in his contention that: "The world is laughing at America's politicians as we protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help."
He concluded his ad by insisting the US should: "Make Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others pay for the protection we extend as allies."
Echoing his infamous comments in the 2016 election about taking Iraq's oil, Trump also insisted at the time that the US should maintain a firm posture in the Gulf.
"The next time they fire so much as a bullet at one of our ships we ought to go in and take over their oil," he said, at that time most likely referring to Iran.
Operation Earnest Will is estimated to have cost the equivalent of $500 million today, a minuscule amount compared to the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003-11 Iraq War.
The operation ran some risks and ultimately saw the US militarily engage Iranian forces in two separate one-day operations. The first operation was against oil rigs used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to target tankers. The second was against the Iranian Navy itself in retaliation for Tehran's mining of the Gulf, which previously crippled a US warship, in a swift series of attacks that sank an Iranian frigate and severely crippled another.
Later, on July 3, 1988, the missile destroyer USS Vincennes tragically shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all 290 on board. The US claims the Vincennes had mistaken the airliner for an Iranian warplane.
Earnest Will ended just over a month after Iran agreed to end its unwinnable eight-year war with Iraq by accepting a UN-brokered ceasefire in August 1988.
The operation, which lasted just over a year, ultimately succeeded in countering Iran's targeting of oil shipping and mining of the Gulf with minimum US casualties. One Marine Cobra attack helicopter crashed during the confrontation with the Iranian Navy, killing both crew-members, likely as a result of malfunction since the wreckage showed no signs it had taken fire.
Unlike the current US aim of getting its allies to deploy more of their forces and resources to the region, Trump at the time talked more about getting US allies to pay for its escort mission – leaving himself open to credible accusations that he had no qualms with the US military serving as a mercenary force for paying client states.
US Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US wants its allies to patrol these areas and escort commercial ships, which will fly the flags of their escorts. The US would focus on surveillance efforts and provide "command and control" ships.
Amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran, which have gradually escalated since May, it is unclear just how many of Washington's allies are willing to commit substantial resources to support such an initiative.
The initiative itself adheres to US President Donald Trump's stated aim of getting America’s allies to contribute more to collective security efforts. To date, there have been few successes.
In Kurdish-controlled northern Syria, for example, the US has for several months tried to get its European or Arab allies to commit troops to the region as it draws down its own modest troop deployment. It recently asked Germany to deploy troops. Berlin promptly refused. Britain and France meanwhile agreed to a "marginal" troop increase of 10-15 percent.
This is not a reassuring precedent for US plans in the Gulf.
That said, if Iran continues making threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, or continuously interferes with oil shipments, this could compel US allies to assist in a combined show of force against Tehran.
In January 2012, an Anglo-Franco-American fleet of warships passed through Hormuz in a show of force, just a few miles from the Iranian coast, after Iran threatened to close the strait in response to sanctions targeting its oil exports.
However, tensions were not nearly as high then as they have been in recent months and the risk of a serious clash or outright war substantially less likely.
Despite the modest increase in the number of its forces in the Gulf region, the US has shown it has no appetite for mounting sizable patrols to safeguard Gulf oil shipments. Dunford's plan to get US allies to carry out patrols rather than the US itself aptly demonstrates this.
In June, Paul Selva, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out: "Specifically, in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf, we've taken on an international responsibility of ensuring freedom of navigation and the movement of oil in and out of the Gulf."
"That doesn't mean it's a US-only problem," he said. "If we take this on as a US-only responsibility, nations that benefit from that movement of oil through the Persian Gulf are bearing little or no responsibility for the economic benefit they gain from the movement of that oil."
Such sentiments were frequently expressed in Washington in the late 1980s when an Anglo-American task force escorted re-flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Gulf in Operation Earnest Will to deter Iranian attacks during the tanker phase of the Iran-Iraq War.
At the time, many in the US questioned why Washington should contribute so much of its military resources – it was the largest naval escort mission of its kind since the Second World War – to such a risky endeavour when the US had little directly at stake.
In July 1987, Robert Greenberger of The Wall Street Journal spoke of a bipartisan linking of "protectionism sentiment" and the "burden-sharing argument" in the US Congress in response to Earnest Will.
The oil tankers being protected by the US Navy were primarily destined for Europe and Japan at a time when Persian Gulf oil amounted to less than 10 percent of total US consumption.
That state of affairs led many in Congress to question why Washington should foot the entire bill for doing so or if it could afford to be the policeman of the world.
Some questioned why Japan did not help fund the endeavour given the fact it imported most of the oil from the Persian Gulf in those days. Incidentally, Japan and China still import far more oil than the US from that region today.
One prominent public figure to criticize this policy was none other than Donald Trump. In September 1987, he ran a full-page ad in major US newspapers to share his view that the US should stop paying for the defence of countries that could afford to defend themselves.
Notably, he used talking points almost identical to the ones that he later used against NATO and other US allies during the 2016 presidential election.
Trump claimed that Japan and other nations had taken advantage of the US for decades, insisting that: "The saga continues unabated as we defend the Persian Gulf."
The Gulf, according to Trump, was in reality "an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies, but one upon which Japan and others are almost totally dependent".
He therefore questioned why Japan and other countries were not paying the US for protecting their interests and was scathing in his contention that: "The world is laughing at America's politicians as we protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help."
Trump also described Saudi Arabia as "a country whose very existence is in the hands of the United States", a view which he openly repeats to this day.
He concluded his ad by insisting the US should: "Make Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others pay for the protection we extend as allies."
Echoing his infamous comments in the 2016 election about taking Iraq's oil, Trump also insisted at the time that the US should maintain a firm posture in the Gulf.
"The next time they fire so much as a bullet at one of our ships we ought to go in and take over their oil," he said, at that time most likely referring to Iran.
Operation Earnest Will is estimated to have cost the equivalent of $500 million today, a minuscule amount compared to the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003-11 Iraq War.
The operation ran some risks and ultimately saw the US militarily engage Iranian forces in two separate one-day operations. The first operation was against oil rigs used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to target tankers. The second was against the Iranian Navy itself in retaliation for Tehran's mining of the Gulf, which previously crippled a US warship, in a swift series of attacks that sank an Iranian frigate and severely crippled another.
Later, on July 3, 1988, the missile destroyer USS Vincennes tragically shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all 290 on board. The US claims the Vincennes had mistaken the airliner for an Iranian warplane.
Earnest Will ended just over a month after Iran agreed to end its unwinnable eight-year war with Iraq by accepting a UN-brokered ceasefire in August 1988.
The operation, which lasted just over a year, ultimately succeeded in countering Iran's targeting of oil shipping and mining of the Gulf with minimum US casualties. One Marine Cobra attack helicopter crashed during the confrontation with the Iranian Navy, killing both crew-members, likely as a result of malfunction since the wreckage showed no signs it had taken fire.
Unlike the current US aim of getting its allies to deploy more of their forces and resources to the region, Trump at the time talked more about getting US allies to pay for its escort mission – leaving himself open to credible accusations that he had no qualms with the US military serving as a mercenary force for paying client states.
Today, as the occupant of the Oval Office, President Trump has yet to prove he can compel US allies to contribute more to the protection of shipping in the Gulf region than the Reagan administration did 32 years ago.
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