Retired Admiral Explains How a US Blockade of Iranian Ports Could Work

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

How might a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports actually work? I'm going to ask retired Navy Admiral James Foggo. He led U.S. naval forces for Europe and Africa. He was also a top NATO commander who took part in U.S. and NATO operations in Libya and led naval forces who struck chemical weapons sites in Syria in 2018. He's currently dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. That's a civilian nonprofit that supports U.S. sea power. Admiral, thank you so much for joining us.

JAMES FOGGO: Great to be here, Michel, with you and NPR.

MARTIN: So based on your experience, is a blockade like the one the president has ordered doable?

FOGGO: Yes, it's entirely doable. This is something that navies and our Navy has done before. You could go back to the Civil War when we blockaded Confederate ships that were running guns and supplies in and out of the South. So it's something that we're familiar with, the Navy is trained up on. And when given the order, as they have been, the Navy will execute.

MARTIN: Based on your knowledge of international and maritime law, is this legal? These are supposed to be international waters.

FOGGO: Right. The strait is nobody's strait. It's everybody's strait. So nobody owns the strait. It's there for free passage of goods and services on the high seas. So technically speaking, a blockade of a country or a country's ability to export goods and services is an act of war, but it's also illegal to charge $2 million a ship for transit through the straits, which is what Iran has been doing. And if you extrapolate that to a hundred ships a day and 365 days a year, that's a profit of $73 billion. That's more than the U.S. Navy got for its shipbuilding budget. So they'd be able to reconstitute those things that have been taken away from them.

MARTIN: How risky is an operation like this? I mean, the president says the U.S. is already clearing mines in the strait. We can play a clip from him on Fox News yesterday.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We'll drop one mine, two mines, 10 mines. And that will - if you have a ship that costs a billion dollars, you'll say, well, you know, I'd prefer not getting whacked by a mine, losing my ship or damaging it badly, at least. And so that's a little bit of a thing that they can do and that it's military might and military power don't do it. But, you know, it's extortion.

MARTIN: OK. But how serious a threat is this?

FOGGO: Well, the mine threat is a very serious threat, and conducting a blockade is very serious business. As far as mines go, we've been there before, too. As a U.S. Navy during the Gulf War, there were a thousand mines in the northern Arabian Sea and around Kuwait. We eliminated those, but at least three ships were hit, as I recall. The Samuel B. Roberts almost sunk, save for the efforts of the crew - USS Princeton, USS Tripoli. But those two ships continue to fight. So this is pretty dangerous what we're trying to do.

MARTIN: Iran has already used drones to attack allies in the region as well as sort of oil tankers trying to get through. So could drones be a factor here?

FOGGO: Yes, absolutely. And you've seen that Iranian drones have been purchased by the Russians and used very effectively in Ukraine. So the Iranians have still some missiles left. They shot down one of our M-15s (ph). That looked like it was a shoulder-fired missile. They've got drones, the Shahed drone, which has a fairly decent range. And the problem for us is we have been using high-value munitions. like the standard missile. to knock down a drone - a standard missile, a couple million bucks, a drone, $50,000. So they could swarm those drones on U.S. vessels that were entertaining the blockade.

However, those destroyers that would be part of this mission have been schooled in this for the last three years in the Red Sea 'cause the Houthis have thrown everything at them, and we have defended ourselves and defended others. So we know what we're doing. And we also know what we're doing with minesweeping. Minesweeping has evolved over the years from putting the minesweeper and the people in the minefield to remotely piloted vehicles. And those are available when the CENTCOM commander thinks he needs them.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, we've been talking about sort of tactics. But one of the things I'm curious about is CENTCOM says the blockade won't impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports. How do they do that? How do they figure that out?

FOGGO: Sure. Well, you know, one of the things about an Aegis-class destroyer is it sees everything for hundreds of miles. So it can pick out those ships that are coming out of Iranian ports and headed for the strait, those that have been doing business or maybe have paid a toll illegally, and they can be stopped at sea with a channel 16 hail and then vessel boarding search and seizure. And you can also do a hostile vessel boarding search and seizure. So if you need to, they won't slow down, you can get on board and you can stop the ship, and you can send the ship to another port like a Gulf Cooperation Council nation.

MARTIN: You feel confident of the abilities here.

FOGGO: I am supremely confident. The Navy's doing a great job and will continue to do so.

MARTIN: That is retired Navy Admiral James Foggo. He's dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. Admiral, we thank you.

FOGGO: Thank you, Michel.

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