Pakistan Could Easily Open the Straits of Hormuz

Even with drones, U.S. air power will never succeed in discriminating anti-ship missile launchers from their decoys in the mountainous terrain of Iran’s Hormozgan province, leaving naval escorts and minesweepers vulnerable to attack in the narrow waterway. The IRGC Navy also has over 3,000 small craft, 18 submarines, 5,000 sea mines, and sea drones. Nor did the U.S. prepare the necessary division-sized force of U.S. Marines, Airborne and Airmobile required to secure the coast. With Iran-friendly Communist Chinese ships freely passing through the Straits, Iran retains the option of purchasing Russian and Chinese weaponry. 

Pakistan could bypass Chabahar (130 km inside Iran) and seize Konark Airport (160 km) on the first day, bypass Bandar-e-Jask on day two (450 km), and isolate Bandar Abbas and Rajaei (770 km) within a week, and Bustaneh (1,000 km) within ten days. Supplies from the sea and through captured airports will minimize the danger of depending on the highway main supply route. The contribution of U.S., Saudi Arabia, and the UAE’s marines would be to secure the islands of Qeshm, Larak, Hormuz, Siri, Safan, and Lavan. The decisive Pakistani advantage in armor, artillery, and rotary and fixed-wing air power deployed against Iranians in the flat coastal plain, renders applying a high intensity combat model, like QJM-based ATC, unnecessary. Most Pakistani casualties are likely to be attritional resulting from harassment attacks by the IRGC operating from the mountainous interior. Iran’s maritime blockade and the resumption of oil exports from the GCC, will permit the U.S. coalition to better manage the costs of an extended stand-off with Tehran, and may create the conditions for war-terminating negotiations or even regime transition.      

The dealing with the closure of the Straits of Hormuz was frequently an aspect of strategic level wargames conducted by different agencies of the U.S. government during and after the Cold War. However, with the exception of Mark Herman’s commercial 1983 Gulf Strike wargame, which was the first simulation used by the Pentagon to examine options after Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, none examine Pakistan’s potential impact on the Persian Gulf. There have been a number of simulations exploring the difficulty of opening the Straits of Hormuz, including Charles Kamps’ 1984 Central Command, Joseph Balkoski and Austin Bay’s 1989 Light Division, Gene Billingsley and Mitchell Land’s 2024 Next War: Iran, and 2010 Persian Incursion. All of these emphasize the precarious logistics of any amphibious or airborne operation, although the latter two wargames are far more optimistic about the feasibility of identifying and destroying Iranian anti-ship missiles with drones and special forces-directed airstrikes.

This author explored the alliance effects of straits closure in classroom simulations focused on an India-Pakistan conflict (that was played for authorities at Coronado), an Iranian-Israel crisis and conflict, and a U.S. blockade of China. The design for these simulations are all based on an article wargaming escalation which indicated that the U.S. did not have escalation dominance with regard to an Iranian closure of the Straits of Hormuz. Although the U.S. could open the Straits by amphibious landing, and even seize the entire northern Persian Gulf littoral, capturing 90 percent of Iran’s oil reserves and isolating it from the sea, it had insufficient ground forces to stop Tehran’s strategy of an attritional war.

Besides fully funding the Pakistani effort, Washington (and/or Europe and democratic East Asia) could incentivize Pakistan with a generous trade and financing package, it could raise the issue of Kashmir in international fora, or offer Pakistan the P-8 or F-35 aircraft (as it did with Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Pakistan, and simultaneously draw Pakistan away from China). Pakistan has a justification for intervention in its 2025 Mutual Defense Pact with Saudi Arabia, and an interest in keeping from being supplanted by India as regional maritime guardian. Pakistan is experienced at managing Iran’s unpredictable foreign policy, such as its January 16 2024 missile strike on Pakistan. India is also historically far closer diplomatically with Iran than Islamabad. It is in Pakistan’s long-term interest for Iran to democratize. It is very likely U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to organize an international coalition may not succeed: NATO, Australia, Japan and South Korea, which are all dependent on Persian Gulf oil, and are likely to eventually send naval forces, are unlikely to be willing to invade Iran with ground forces. Finally, Beijing is reluctant to commit to backing Iran, reducing the costs for Pakistan to cooperate with the U.S.

There are of course important reasons why Pakistan would be reluctant to attack a permanent neighbor on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. 15 percent of Pakistan’s population is Shia, and it seeks not to aggravate sectarian tensions, particularly in the Pashtun areas. Pakistan is wary of denuding V Corps while it is conducting punitive raids on Afghanistan, an Indian ally. Historically Islamabad and Tehran have collaborated in managing Baloch separatism (or joint misgovernance, as this professor heard from two of his Baloch students from either side of the border). Pakistan would therefore be reluctant to challenge Iran within its provinces, given their common fate as multi-ethnic societies, and the impossibility that U.S. bombardment will ever compel Tehran to give up its sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf, regardless of regime change. Nor would Pakistan want to become a target of an Iranian nuclear weapon that is now presumed to be Tehran’s priority. 

Pakistan is also very concerned about its diverging interests with Israel, despite both countries having cooperated during the 1980s in Afghanistan, and sharing similar methods of dealing with terrorism. Pakistan has an alliance stance akin to Turkey, in that it cultivates a close relationship with Washington as indispensable ally, while counter-balancing it with relations elsewhere, such as with China and Europe. Finally, Pakistan’s tankers have also been able to bypass the Iranian blockade by Islamabad’s association with China, reducing its need to address the closure of the straits.

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is associate professor of international relations at Concordia University, and author of Militarization and War (2007) and of Strategic Nuclear Sharing (2014).