This Ain't Your Father's Tanker War || Peter Zeihan

TL;DR

The US cannot repeat 1980s tanker escorts because the Navy has shrunk, Iran now fields autonomous drones, and 2,000 ships are trapped versus a handful back then.

Key Points

• 1.The current conflict is fundamentally different in nature from the 1980s Tanker War. In the 1980s, the US was a neutral latecomer escorting ships caught in Iran-Iraq crossfire; today it's a direct US-Iran confrontation where Iran actively targets all shipping and the US blocks all Iranian ports.
• 2.The US Navy is too small to replicate the 1980s escort operation. The fleet has shrunk from 500+ ships to under 300; the US only has 60 destroyers total, half reserved for carrier protection, versus the 60 escort ships deployed simultaneously in the Gulf last time.
• 3.Iran's new drone technology — the Super Shahids — makes the Persian Gulf lethally dangerous for US surface ships. Unlike the 1980s Chinese Silkworm missiles (50-mile range), these autonomous drones can select their own targets without GPS, and the US has already depleted its interceptor stockpiles defending Gulf Arab partners.
• 4.The scale of trapped shipping and the only realistic exit both make military escort impractical. With 2,000 ships currently trapped versus convoys of 11 ships in the 1980s, only a political deal with Tehran can reopen the strait — and those talks have not yet begun.