The United States has been pressing NATO allies, Japan and South Korea to contribute warships to escort commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, yet responses have been sparse and sceptical. Military and shipping experts say the operation is unlikely to be feasible at scale: even a modest convoy scheme would require dozens of warships and would restore only a sliver of normal oil transit capacity.
Richard Meade, editor of a leading Lloyd's shipping intelligence service, says a basic naval escort typically needs eight to ten destroyers to shield each group of five to ten merchant vessels, a ratio that severely constrains throughput. Using that metric, experts estimate an escort effort could at best recover roughly 10% of the pre-conflict flow through the strait, leaving the global energy market exposed to significant supply shortfalls and price volatility.
Operational challenges extend beyond fleet size. The strait is narrow and littoral, meaning shore-launched attacks by Iran would leave escorts very little reaction time, notes Jennifer Parker, an Australian naval analyst. Former US Navy captain Karl Schuster adds that destroyers cannot operate in isolation: effective protection requires coordinated air assets and surveillance in adjacent airspace, complicating command, logistics and rules-of-engagement for a multinational force.
Threats are diverse and highly mobile. Analysts point out that Iran could employ swarms of small boats, converted fishing vessels, dhows, yachts, drones, cruise missiles and mines to harass or disable convoys, a mix that is hard to neutralize without escalating into wider conflict. Singapore-based security scholars observe that Western-led escort operations in the Red Sea against Houthi attacks have struggled to prevent strikes, and an Iranian arsenal of drones and missiles is substantially larger and more sophisticated than the Houthis' capabilities.
The net result is a dilemma for Washington and its partners: an escort mission that is militarily demanding, politically sensitive and economically limited could entangle contributors in a persistent, dangerous mission with little payoff. For many allies the calculus favours de-escalation, diplomatic pressure and commercial countermeasures—routing, insurance adjustments and hedging—over deepening a naval intervention that risks direct confrontation with Iran.