Why Military Force May Not Be Enough to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz, a 33-kilometer-wide chokepoint through which roughly a third of the world's seaborne oil passes, is effectively closed to normal commercial traffic. Iran has not blockaded the strait with a chain or a fleet. Instead, it has made the waterway ungovernable through a combination of kinetic strikes, mines, electronic warfare, and market fear -- creating a closure that is arguably harder to reverse than a conventional blockade. "I can think of no way to reopen and keep open Hormuz militarily and easily," Richard Allen Williams,…