Closing Time Caitlin Talmadge Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz

Closing Time Closing Time Caitlin Talmadge Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz tops the list of global energy security nightmares.1 Roughly 90 percent of all Persian Gulf oil leaves the region on tankers that must pass through this narrow waterway opposite the Iranian coast, and land pipelines do not provide sufªcient alternative export routes.2 Extended closure of the strait would remove roughly a quarter of the world’s oil from the market, causing a supply shock of the type not seen since the glory days of OPEC. Even if the strait were not closed in the sense of being physically barricaded, military conºict in the area could cause prices to skyrocket in anticipation of a supply disruption—and to remain high until markets could be assured that the ºow of commerce had been restored. Consider that when Iraq invaded Caitlin Talmadge is a doctoral candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is a member of the Security Studies Program. During the 2007–08 academic year, she was a fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. The author would like to acknowledge the helpful feedback she received on the research and writ- ing of this article from members of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), especially Michael Glosny, Brendan Green, Llewelyn Hughes, Colin Jackson, Jon Lindsay, Austin Long, and Barry Posen; the participants in a workshop on the Strait of Hormuz at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in August 2007; the staff of the MIT Geographic Information Services Laboratory; participants in the MIT workshop Energy and National Security in the Persian Gulf in February 2008, especially Eugene Gholz, Evan Medeiros, and Daryl Press; Steve Lehotsky and Vipin Narang; and the anony- mous reviewers. 1. See John Deutch and James R. Schlesinger, National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency, Independent Task Force Report, No. 58 (Washington, D.C.: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006), pp. 23, 68; and Eric V. Larson, Derek Eaton, Paul Elrick, Theodore Karasik, Robert Klein, Sherril Lingel, Brian Nichiporuk, Robert Uy, and John Zavadil, Assuring Access in Key Strategic Regions: To- ward a Long-Term Strategy (Santa Monica, Calif.: Arroyo Center, RAND, 2004), p. xvii. 2. In 2006 approximately 17 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of oil transited the Strait of Hormuz. There is only one pipeline alternative, which runs east to west across Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Its capacity is only about 5 million bbl/d, and about a quarter of that is in use, leav- ing slightly fewer than 4 million bbl/d of slack—hardly enough to compensate for closure of the strait. The United Arab Emirates is planning to build a pipeline carrying its oil to a port in the Gulf of Oman, but this pipeline would carry only 1.5 million bbl/d. Other Persian Gulf countries peri- odically express interest in building a larger 5 million bbl/d pipeline that would enable them to bypass the strait and ofºoad oil at Oman. Details on its potential route remain unresolved, and building it would take more than a decade. Plans for such pipelines have fallen through in the past. “Gulf Governments Plan Oil Pipelines That Could Lessen Possible Iranian Threats,” Associ- ated Press Financial Wire, March 20, 2007; “News in Brief,” Petroleum Economist, December 1, 2006, p. 40; and Energy Information Administration, “Persian Gulf Region,” Country Analysis Briefs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, June 2007), http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/ pgulf.html. International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Summer 2008), pp. 82–117 © 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 82 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.82 by guest on 27 September 2021 Closing Time 83 Kuwait in 1990, temporarily halting the export of oil in both countries, the world price of oil more than doubled merely on the expectation of future shortages. Although excess global supply combined with increased Saudi pro- duction helped lower the price within a few months, it did not return to the preinvasion level for nearly a year.3 Blockage of the strait would pose a vastly greater threat to the ºow of gulf oil, and at a time when excess global capacity is lower and the price of oil higher.4 Yet could Iran close the Strait of Hormuz? What might provoke Iran to take an action so contrary to its own economic interests? Does Iran possess the military assets needed to engage in a campaign in the strait, and what might such a campaign look like? Perhaps more important, what would the U.S. military have to do to defend the strait in the event of Iranian interference there? What would be the likely cost, length, and outcome of such efforts? Despite consensus on the importance of the strait, no open-source analysis has attempted to answer these questions systematically.5 Some analysts take the Iranian ability to block the strait as a given, whereas others are equally con- ªdent the United States’ military superiority would deter or quickly end any Iranian campaign.6 One observer argues that “countering any Iranian blockade might involve only a few days of ªghting, with major disruption to shipping lasting only slightly longer.”7 Another warns that the United States might have to engage in weeks or months of military operations to open and defend the strait.8 Anthony Cordesman, a highly respected expert on the Persian Gulf, 3. Francisco Parra, Oil Politics: A Modern History of Petroleum (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), pp. 305– 306. 4. On the economic impact of oil prices, see James D. Hamilton, “Oil and the Macroeconomy since World War II,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 91, No. 2 (April 1983), pp. 228–248; and Donald W. Jones, Paul N. Leiby, and Inja K. Paik, “Oil Price Shocks and the Macroeconomy: What Has Been Learned since 1996,” Energy Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2 (April 2004), pp. 1–32. 5. One exception is Anthony H. Cordesman, “Iran, Oil, and the Strait of Hormuz,” CSIS Brief (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 26, 2007), pp. 1–7. 6. For the former, see Simon Jenkins, “If This Is Ahmadinejad’s Bluff, It Is Bluff Worth Calling,” Guardian, May 10, 2006; and James Jay Carafano, William W. Beach, Ariel Cohen, Lisa Curtis, Tracy L. Foertsch, Alison A. Fraser, Ben Lieberman, and James Phillips, “If Iran Provokes an Energy Cri- sis: Modeling the Problem in a War Game,” Center for Data Analysis Report, No. 07-03 (July 25, 2007), http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda07-03.cfm. For the latter, see Dennis Blair and Kenneth Lieberthal, “Smooth Sailing: The World’s Shipping Lanes Are Safe,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 3 (May/June 2007), pp. 7–13. 7. Simon Henderson, “Facing Iran’s Challenge: Safeguarding Oil Exports from the Persian Gulf,” PolicyWatch, No. 1112 (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 7, 2006), http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID?2477. 8. Joris Janssen Lok, “Western Navies Eye New Tech to Defeat Mines,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 27, 2007, http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel ?dti&id?news/dtMINE0407.xml&headline?Western%20Navies%20Eye%20New%20Tech%20to%2 0Defeat%20Mines. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.82 by guest on 27 September 2021 International Security 33:1 84 concludes that “Iran could not ‘close the Gulf’ for more than a few days to two weeks,” although what leads him to this conclusion is unclear.9 Meanwhile, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, testiªed in 2005 that Iran has some capability to “brieºy close” the strait, with- out deªning what “brieºy” means.10 In short, analysts disagree about the potential likelihood, course, and outcome of U.S.-Iranian conºict in the Strait of Hormuz, but the nature of current debate on the subject makes it hard to ascer- tain the basis of differing assessments, much less determine which might be correct. This article attempts to remedy these deªcits through an open-source analysis of the potential interaction of Iranian and U.S. military forces in the strait. This type of analysis has its limits. It cannot draw on classiªed information. It cannot say much about intentions, only apparent capabilities. It cannot predict how a particular war will turn out, because such outcomes often depend on a host of nonmilitary factors. What it can do is encourage rigor in the public de- bates that inevitably occur, by showing how different assumptions and data about military capabilities generate different predictions about the parameters of potential conºict. From these results come different policy implications. An- alysts may still disagree, but at least they and those listening to them can ascer- tain the basis of their differences. The analysis presented here suggests that the notion that Iran could truly blockade the strait is wrong—but so too is the notion that U.S. operations in re- sponse to any Iranian action in the area would be short and simple. The key question is not whether Iran can sink dozens of oil tankers, which would be difªcult. Tankers are resilient targets. Their immense size, internal compart- mentalization, and thick hull plates allow them to survive hits by mines and missiles that would sink warships.

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