Sorry, it's a video but it does a fabulous job explaining this: https://youtu.be/khtWPycU-PA

It was never gonna work, but not because of the navy being weak.

How much of it would you attribute to bad planning? (The full plan of which the Navy will be part.)

No matter how much military we put into the strait, Iran was just going to blow up UAE and Qatari refineries.

And despite all the madman theory of our current President, there's just too many bribes in those countries who have the attention of the President. So Total War is unacceptable to USA leaders.

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That being said: I'm still amused that the ship we needed in this fight was the long cancelled Littoral Combat Ship

Now you can use a drone that costs a few thousand dollars to take out a hundred million dollar ship.

It's a pricing issue. Whereas before, you had to use expensive guided missiles or your own naval or air force assets, now you can send a bunch of cheap drones.

Everything we know about war is going to change.

this function is outdated since u-boat appearance, and now cruise missiles and drones. More important modern function of navy is projecting power.

Recommend studying the public comments of General MacKenzie who was the previous CENTCOM commander, comments from Admiral Cooper before he was appointed to current CENTCOM commander, or previous Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They've all given public interviews about Hormuz during the current war or before it over the last decade saying the same thing about what's required and whether it can be done.

There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarrassingly incompetent as this.

Ten years down the line it may be the case that India will sail up and enforce toll-free waterways instead. That will never happen as long as the US puts up the resources for it. The American taxpayer will be better off if the burden of global free trade is borne more equitably.

The military objective can be achieved, it would just require the 'No New Wars' party to implode from having 272 seats to having ~150 seats after the midterms.

The U.S. has been secretly moving ships for months. And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out. What is difficult to completely stop, short of glassing the entire country, is harassment by drones or other forms of "asymmetric warfare."

It has long been clear for any analyst that securing the straight without boots on the ground would be materially impossible. Air power isn't enough to stop the very modest force of the Houthis from closing the Bab-el-mandeb straight, it was clear from the beginning that it wouldn't work better against a much more capable Iran.

Trump launched a war without any plan, and absolutely no willingness to launch an full-scale invasion of Iran (rightly so, because it would have been unlikely to work well with regards to the polical goals), so it's not exactly surprising that it didn't work.

Starting a war is always a bad idea, even when you have bipartisan support for it at home, but starting a war you don't want to fight is absolutely dumb.

As others have said, the US can “reopen” the straight at any time they want. It’s not an issue of capabilities. But it’s very resource intensive and very expensive.

The logistics of escorting ships in and out of the straight isn’t trivial. I forget the name of the operation, but they did implement it for a few days before shutting it down. Politically, I imagine it’s pretty hard to justify the cost /benefit

On the Iranian side it takes a very small amount of resources and logistics. All they have to do is project power, whether they have it or not, and the shipping & insurance industries have to respect it.

Drones are really cheap, and that’s about all it takes for Iran to leverage their influence over the straight. Which is kind of crazy when you think about it. But it’s about the only bargaining chip they have left and they aren’t going let go of it easily.

Worse still, many mariners are effectively prisoners and can become trapped if corporate decides to cut them loose without also providing passage off the vessel

Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56842506

Stuck at sea for years, a sailor’s plight highlights a surge in shipowner abandonment https://apnews.com/article/abandoned-seafarers-labor-unpaid-...

"Traffic is generally picking up in the strait, with several laden tankers seen exiting into the Gulf of Oman over the weekend, though some of them turned off their transponders. The latest was a Greek-flagged tanker carrying Iraqi crude to Singapore."

https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/iranian-crude-oil...

Maritime Intelligence — AI-powered analysis of current strait conditions, insurance markets, and diplomatic developments using real-time web data.

Energy Market Feeds — Live Brent crude oil pricing from financial data providers.

AIS Vessel Tracking — Automatic Identification System data for real-time vessel positions.

TradingView — Interactive historical oil price charts with full technical analysis capabilities.

News Aggregation — Curated news from major international outlets covering the Hormuz crisis.

though they do not say what the actual data sources are.

It has to do with ships moving through the Oman side of the strait. Iran is unhappy with that, because the want to control all the movement through it.