The US is working to restore freedom of navigation in the Middle East. This comes as it continues talks in Pakistan with Iran.
If the United States can pull this off, it will be a game-changer after the month and a half during which the Strait of Hormuz has been closed.
Opening the Strait is important for the world economy and for the image of the US in the region.
America has been a champion of freedom of navigation for over a century. This was a key aspect of the US’s decision to enter World War I and a key demand of the US in the wake of the war. America’s role in enabling ships to navigate the seas is a kind of legacy of the role the British Empire once played in the world’s economy and in safeguarding the seas.
This matters. US history and the rise of the US as a global power are tied to America’s naval power. After World War II, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, the US became a global superpower and global naval power.
This has been challenged in recent years by the rise of China, as well as by groups like the Houthis and now Iran.
China and others are watching.
If the US can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, it will appear globally weak.
If the world is now more multi-polar, then this will be evidence of how the US is weakening on the global stage. American anger at NATO allies, for instance, is a feature of the challenge to the world order that has emerged in the past decades.
US begins clearing mines from Strait of Hormuz
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its “forces began setting conditions for clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz Saturday, as two US Navy guided-missile destroyers conducted operations. USS Frank E. Peterson and USS Michael Murphy transited the Strait of Hormuz and operated in the Arabian Gulf as part of a broader mission to ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines previously laid by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper explained, “We began the process of establishing a new passage, and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce.”
CENTCOM concluded, “The Strait of Hormuz is an international sea passage and an essential trade corridor that supports regional and global economic prosperity. Additional US forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days.”
The influence of sea power on history was the subject of an important and influential 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, by Alfred Thayer Mahan, who became a kind of prophet of US sea power.
During the Cold War, one of the arguments that US president Lyndon B. Johnson apparently made regarding the Space Race was that control of space was similar to how the British once ruled the seas and the Romans built roads.
If the US can’t open the proverbial road through Hormuz, then America’s global role as an inheritor of the British Empire and Rome and as a Western power may be challenged.