If the Iranians are successful in extracting the Strait of Hormuz, the consequences for the world economy – including the price of fertilizer and oil for American farmers – will be dire. The US will have to do something about it. The question is: What?
Having spent several years in my early 20s as a minesweeper officer on two US Navy minesweepers, I have given this some thought. I claim no expertise as a military strategist, but perhaps my experience allows me to ask the right questions.
Please do not thank me for my service. Thank you Americans who volunteered to fight the Vietnam War. I was drafted, and instead of ending up a foot soldier in a war I didn’t believe in, I enrolled in Naval Officer Candidate School.
In fact, I owe Marina for her contribution to my personal development. A minesweeper, being a small ship with a small crew and a complement of officers, the 23-year-old boot, Ensign Lehner, was put in charge of two departments – deck, including minesweeping and gun firing, and supply. On a destroyer each would have his own head, a full lieutenant, two ranks above the ensign.
With all that responsibility on my shoulders, I had no choice but to grow up.
In 1972, the US mined Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam’s main seaport. International law says that those who are mine must be prepared to delete. It wasn’t long before the mine officers in my flotilla were each asked to submit a plan for demining Haiphong.
Two years of clearing transmission equipment in practical minefields convinced me that we should not send minesweepers into real minefields. Better to do the job, I thought, without endangering ships and crews. My plan: First, send a small inflatable boat with people towing a sonar probe to find the mines, then either detonate them by shooting them from a safe distance or have the divers disarm them.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who suggested keeping minesweepers out of minefields. To sweep Haiphong Harbor in 1973, the Navy used helicopters to tow the sweeper. Helicopters hadn’t occurred to me, but I was glad to see that risk aversion prevailed.
Within years of my return to civilian life, the minesweepers were deactivated. The Navy is even ditching the somewhat more sophisticated mine countermeasure ships that replaced them. If the US decides to mine the Strait of Hormuz, helicopters or unmanned ships with high-tech sonar probes will locate the mines. Underwater drones will blow them up.
But will the US wipe out? Mines are not the only weapon of the Iranians. They could attack mine-sweeping helicopters with drones, which would be difficult to defend against. Clearing mines is hard enough without having to do it under fire.
Even in peacetime, liberating Hormuz from mines would take weeks. Dropping mines is slow, painfully slow. The ocean is a proverbial straw when it comes to finding mines. In my day minesweepers could only make four knots or so while transmitting equipment.
But at least then we had a lot of minesweepers. Today’s cleaning technology is much more advanced and can clean faster, but the Navy has much less of it.
Instead of sweeping, the US could try to prevent the placement of mines in the first place. There is no doubt that the attack of small boats with mines that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is deploying.
Experts say The IRCG has spent decades preparing to block the Strait of Hormuz. When the war began, it had about 5,000 sea mines and hundreds of small submarines and other small mine-laying vessels.
Perhaps the surest way to keep the mines out of the strait would be to occupy the adjacent coast. Deploying ground troops would constitute a major escalation that would make the war even more unpopular at home. However, the US is reportedly sending 2,500 marines and an amphibious assault ship to the front.
Iran no doubt intends to continue shipping its oil through the strait, mines or no mines. According to a March 10 Wall Street Journal storyIran was exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war.
To continue exporting, the Iranians will have to leave a safe channel open through the minefield. The US can use satellite cameras to figure out where that channel is, so you might wonder why friendly tankers couldn’t use the same channel.
I haven’t seen anyone address this question, but the likely answer is that those friendly tankers and any US destroyers accompanying them would be sitting ducks. The Iranians could send drones against them. They may even have high-tech Chinese or Russian anti-ship missiles to use for this task.
Using mines, drones and missiles to control the Strait of Hormuz gives Iran great leverage and makes it difficult to end the war quickly. Don’t be surprised if the American solution to this dilemma is a major escalation.
Former Wall Street Journal Asia correspondent and editor Urban Lehner is editor emeritus of DTN/The Progressive Farmer. This article, originally published in March 16 from the latter news organization and now reprinted by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2026 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner at X @urbanize.
