The Implications of Iran Mining the Strait of Hormuz Are Many—and Ugly

Source: The New Republic · Bias: Left

Summary

And now, Iran has begun mining the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump simultaneously denied this on Truth Social and threatened that “military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before” if it did happen to be true. How the United States can escalate beyond 8,000 Israeli and U.S. airstrikes that have killed much of the Iranian government is an open question, but it demonstrates that the administration is genuinely afraid this will happen. They are right to be afraid. Mining the strait would mean a protracted closure of at least a month, because finding and removing mines is a difficult and time-consuming process. This would create a global economic disturbance well beyond what we are already seeing.Laying mines is comparatively easy and can be done from both modern fishing boats and dhows. In the area of the strait, both of these number in the thousands. Iran used this strategy for conducting the clandestine mining of the Persian Gulf in the 1980s as part of the “tanker wars,” the name for the series of military attacks by Iran and Iraq against merchant vessels in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz from 1981 to 1988, and later U.S. intervention to protect maritime traffic. Stopping these boats would require constant surveillance of a large area, a difficult task even with the vast array of forces in the area. Indeed, during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq managed to lay 1,300 sea mines right “under the noses” of the coalition. Iran also has the capability to flood the zone with dozens or hundreds of civilian boats at the same time. It can be difficult or impossible for the U.S. to tell which ones have mines and which don’t. Exacerbating the problem is that the munitions used to sink these boats would likely be more expensive than the boats themselves.The mines themselves are potentially very cheap and easy to produce, and can be deployed in large numbers. Simple contact mines with a design dating back to World War I can cost as little as $1,500 each. More advanced magnetic influence mines are still remarkably cheap, as low as $25,000 apiece. The relatively shallow waters of the Persian Gulf are an ideal place for using mines against shipping, and this creates many of the same cost-imposing problems as the Iranian Shahed-136 drones that have been employed in vast numbers against U.S. and Gulf State air defenses. Mines, like Shaheds, are cheap, plentiful, relatively easy to produce, and easy to deploy. They can disable or destroy vessels worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or even a billion dollars (such as an Arleigh-Burke-class guided missile destroyer). Countering them requires expensive, rare, specialized equipment, highly trained personnel, and a lot of time to carry out the mission. Mines are effective, and they are a big problem even for warships designed to withstand hits. Of the 19 U.S. vessels sunk or disabled since World War II, 15 were damaged by mines. These include the Aegis cruiser USS Princeton and the Iwo Jima–class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli on the same day during the Persian Gulf War. A World War I–era contact mine nearly sank the 4,500 ton guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts on April 14, 1988, which survived only due to exceptional damage-control efforts by her crew.Once mines are in the water, they’re very difficult to find, even with modern gear. The process of finding them is slow and painstaking, leaving the ships and aircraft conducting the search as sitting ducks in the middle of a hot war. It also requires multiple sweeps of the same area to ensure that all mines have been neutralized. Currently, U.S. mine countermeasures, or MCM, assets in the Gulf are likely a squadron of aging MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopters (due to be retired in 2027) and three Independence-class littoral combat ships, or LCSs, with the new MCM module. Both the LCS (less than affectionately called the “little crappy ship”) and its MCM module have experienced extreme cost overruns and teething troubles (e.g., failures and cancellations of key components, redesigns of the system due to weight increases, and immature autonomous underwater systems). The LCS replaced the four dedicated, wooden-hulled Avenger-class minesweepers in September 2025, which was seen as a questionable move even before this year’s air campaign.Mine hunting and minesweeping involve sailing at low speeds in predictable patterns, often while teams of sailors are in small boats operating underwater drones or supporting divers. This places the ship and its crew in a very vulnerable position in the strait, which is only 21 miles across at its narrowest. Thus, clearing the strait while a “hot war” is still going on would be exceptionally dangerous, and I expect the Navy would be reluctant to do so. Iran has numerous ways to cover the strait, including anti-ship missiles, armed speedboats, suicide speedboats, and artillery.

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The Implications of Iran Mining the Strait of Hormuz Are Many—and Ugly
The New Republic

The Implications of Iran Mining the Strait of Hormuz Are Many—and Ugly

Left

And now, Iran has begun mining the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump simultaneously denied this on Truth Social and threatened that “military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before” if it did happen to be true. How the United States can escalate beyond 8,000 Israeli and U.S. airstrikes that have killed much of the Iranian government is an open question, but it demonstrates that the administration is genuinely afraid this will happen. They are right to be afraid. Mining the strait would mean a protracted closure of at least a month, because finding and removing mines is a difficult and time-consuming process. This would create a global economic disturbance well beyond what we are already seeing.Laying mines is comparatively easy and can be done from both modern fishing boats and dhows. In the area of the strait, both of these number in the thousands. Iran used this strategy for conducting the clandestine mining of the Persian Gulf in the 1980s as part of the “tanker wars,” the name for the series of military attacks by Iran and Iraq against merchant vessels in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz from 1981 to 1988, and later U.S. intervention to protect maritime traffic. Stopping these boats would require constant surveillance of a large area, a difficult task even with the vast array of forces in the area. Indeed, during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq managed to lay 1,300 sea mines right “under the noses” of the coalition. Iran also has the capability to flood the zone with dozens or hundreds of civilian boats at the same time. It can be difficult or impossible for the U.S. to tell which ones have mines and which don’t. Exacerbating the problem is that the munitions used to sink these boats would likely be more expensive than the boats themselves.The mines themselves are potentially very cheap and easy to produce, and can be deployed in large numbers. Simple contact mines with a design dating back to World War I can cost as little as $1,500 each. More advanced magnetic influence mines are still remarkably cheap, as low as $25,000 apiece. The relatively shallow waters of the Persian Gulf are an ideal place for using mines against shipping, and this creates many of the same cost-imposing problems as the Iranian Shahed-136 drones that have been employed in vast numbers against U.S. and Gulf State air defenses. Mines, like Shaheds, are cheap, plentiful, relatively easy to produce, and easy to deploy. They can disable or destroy vessels worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or even a billion dollars (such as an Arleigh-Burke-class guided missile destroyer). Countering them requires expensive, rare, specialized equipment, highly trained personnel, and a lot of time to carry out the mission. Mines are effective, and they are a big problem even for warships designed to withstand hits. Of the 19 U.S. vessels sunk or disabled since World War II, 15 were damaged by mines. These include the Aegis cruiser USS Princeton and the Iwo Jima–class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli on the same day during the Persian Gulf War. A World War I–era contact mine nearly sank the 4,500 ton guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts on April 14, 1988, which survived only due to exceptional damage-control efforts by her crew.Once mines are in the water, they’re very difficult to find, even with modern gear. The process of finding them is slow and painstaking, leaving the ships and aircraft conducting the search as sitting ducks in the middle of a hot war. It also requires multiple sweeps of the same area to ensure that all mines have been neutralized. Currently, U.S. mine countermeasures, or MCM, assets in the Gulf are likely a squadron of aging MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopters (due to be retired in 2027) and three Independence-class littoral combat ships, or LCSs, with the new MCM module. Both the LCS (less than affectionately called the “little crappy ship”) and its MCM module have experienced extreme cost overruns and teething troubles (e.g., failures and cancellations of key components, redesigns of the system due to weight increases, and immature autonomous underwater systems). The LCS replaced the four dedicated, wooden-hulled Avenger-class minesweepers in September 2025, which was seen as a questionable move even before this year’s air campaign.Mine hunting and minesweeping involve sailing at low speeds in predictable patterns, often while teams of sailors are in small boats operating underwater drones or supporting divers. This places the ship and its crew in a very vulnerable position in the strait, which is only 21 miles across at its narrowest. Thus, clearing the strait while a “hot war” is still going on would be exceptionally dangerous, and I expect the Navy would be reluctant to do so. Iran has numerous ways to cover the strait, including anti-ship missiles, armed speedboats, suicide speedboats, and artillery.

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