strikeMay 20, 2026

The Navy Needs Precise Mass and Here Is How to Get There

Summary

Join War on the Rocks and gain access to content trusted by policymakers, military leaders, and strategic thinkers worldwide. Maintaining deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and around the world requires the U.S. Navy to change what it builds and how it fights. Sen. Roger Wicker observed in 2024 that the United States’ approach to fleet design and ship construction is “too small and too old.” The current model of naval power cannot scale at the speed modern war demands. The war with Iran is already exposing the limits. High-end ships are being consumed in sustained operations, munitions inventories are thinning, and replacement timelines for exquisite weapons stretch into years. Against a more capable adversary, such as China, those constraints would not be manageable. China’s advances in its ability to detect, track, and strike ships mean that America’s advanced surface ships — even aircraft carriers — are now profoundly vulnerable. The Navy’s struggles are putting deterrence and warfighting capabilities at risk. Naval power is as central to U.S. economic and military power today as it was when Naval officer and historian Alfred Mahan published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History in 1890 and coined the phrase that “whoever rules the waves rules the world.” To build a larger and more capable fleet by 2030, the Navy should double down on investing in, fielding, and sustaining smaller attritable autonomous systems to support Indo-Pacific Command’s Hellscape concept, which will increase short-term deterrence and warfighting capabilities. Further, as the Iran war shows, the American military is short on munitions, and replacing exquisite, expensive, hard-to-produce weapons like Tomahawks will take too long. To complement the existing arsenal, the Navy should aggressively procure lower-cost, long-range munitions. For example, the Navy should follow the example of the Air Force by rapidly moving a low-cost cruise missile into production. Third, and most disruptively, the Navy should maximize funding for the development and production of what it calls “medium unmanned surface vessels,” autonomous boats between 45 and 190 feet with displacement up to 500 tons. For the sake of using plain language, I will simply call these kinds of vessels, medium autonomous warships, given ever changing terminology and debates about is and is not a ‘drone.’ The Navy should look in particular at lessons learned from the USX-1 Defiant, which was christened on Aug. 11, 2025. Medium autonomous warships should be purpose-built to lower costs and increase efficiency, constructed in yacht yards, smaller shipyards where large speedboats or yachts are constructed, instead of larger shipyards, and made capable of installing vertical launch tubes for missiles or surveillance equipment. Medium autonomous warships should become the Navy’s Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels, the surface fleet version of Collaborative Combat Aircraft in the air. A larger fleet with autonomous ships will make the Navy more resilient and less vulnerable to losing any one particular ship, assist with operations in littoral areas such as the Strait of Hormuz, and also complicate China’s planning by generating more aim points and attack vectors. It will be organizationally difficult for the Navy to shift from focusing exclusively on small numbers of capital-intensive ships to a high-low mix that includes scaling multiple types of autonomous ships, requiring overcoming deeply embedded bureaucratic incentives and pathologies. The upsides for the nation are enormous, and the scale and timeframe of the China threat and pace of technological change means now is the time for boldness. Threats to the Navy’s surface fleet are growing from multiple domains — particularly from China, but also from Iran, the Houthis, and the many other actors capable of saturation attacks in the era of precise mass. Precise mass reflects the intersection of commercial manufacturing, advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy, and the proliferation of precision guidance technology that now means all actors can generate accurate sensing, strike, and potentially even platforms at lower costs. It’s critical for affordable mass, which Purple Rhombus CEO Mike Benitez defines as “the ability to replace losses as fast as they are likely to occur.” Ground-launched and air-launched missiles — both China’s sophisticated variants and more inexpensive ones deployed by Iran or the Houthis — can increasingly hold surface vessels at risk. China’s Navy has fielded at least six different modern anti-ship missiles over the last 15 years. They include air-launched and sea-launched subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles (YJ-12, YJ-18, YJ-83), ground-launched anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D and DF-26D), and ground-launched hypersonic cruise missiles (DF-17). China is also investing in low-cost, precise mass capabilities more like Iranian and Houthi capabilities that could stretch and overwhelm U.S. defenses, as Iran’s current attacks throughout the Middle East illustrate. The mix of these threats, combined with China’s increasingly extensive sensor network, places Navy assets at increasing risk, especially larger ships. While undersea superiority is the Navy’s ace in the hole, providing the backbone of U.S. conventional military superiority, China’s submarine forces and anti-submarine warfare assets are also improving. Russia’s sophisticated submarine forces, including the Severodvinsk-class boats, are also a threat. Even if U.S. submarines outmatch their competitors, adversary submarines also present a potent threat to Navy surface ships. As of May 4, 2026, the U.S. Navy has 291 ships. That total is well below the 355 mandated by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and even further below the 381 ships the Navy told Congress it needed in 2024. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, despite the billions invested by the Biden and Trump administrations into shipbuilding, fleet size will drop further to 283 in 2027, which is also the year General Secretary Xi Jinping charged China’s military with being able to mount an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Moreover, the Navy is expending massive resources in the fight against Iran, using several years of Tomahawk inventory, and with a third aircraft carrier group now headed towards the Middle East. Increasing the size of the fleet by preventing ship retirements en masse or bringing ships out of mothballs would lead to an older, less capable fleet. That will undermine, not improve, deterrence. Efforts to produce more ships through traditional shipyards and to repair the ones already deployed are struggling. Nearly every single U.S. Navy shipbuilding project is behind schedule by years and over budget. For example, Virginia-class Block IV submarines and Constellation-class frigates are both 36 months delayed, and the Virginia-class program is currently $17 billion dollars over budget. Fixing the defense industrial base is essential, but the billions invested by the Trump and Biden administrations to recover from the devastating impact of the 1990s peace dividend will take years to pay off. The United States stopped authorizing the procurement of attack submarines in 1991 with the order of the third Seawolf boat, gapping the submarine industrial base until procurement of the Virginia-class program was launched in 1998. In between, the industry collapsed, with companies merging, workers leaving and retiring, and facilities falling into disrepair. Industry is currently producing 1.2 Virginia-class submarines a year, compared to a requirement to produce 2 Virginia-class submarines a year plus 1 Columbia-class submarine a year. The Office of Shipbuilding and Maritime Security is another step forward towards revitalizing U.S. shipbuilding, but it too will take time to pay dividends for the Navy. There is a shortage of large shipyards, even if they operate efficiently. There are four outdated publicly owned shipyards. The newest dry dock at any of them, at Puget Sound, was completed in 1962. There are five private shipyards currently building large Navy vessels, and another 15 mostly focused on commercial construction. Nearly all are fully booked at their present capacity level for several years out. Increasing the construction rate, therefore, requires building ships faster, increasing building capacity, or both. Moreover, maintenance on Navy vessels is notoriously slow and expensive, as the decade-long USS Boise repair saga illustrates. But those are not the only places to build ships. There are 60 additional inactive facilities that once produced Navy ships, submarines, or oceangoing cargo vessels, 86 active smaller shipyards, and eight active yards capable of producing megayachts in the United States. This means there’s an opportunity to dramatically expand autonomous ship construction through the creation of yacht-sized boats under 200 feet or larger boats built in megayacht yards. Navy leaders already understand, in theory, what is necessary to expand the fleet before 2030, given the length of time it will take to fully address the naval industrial base: invest in robotics, AI, and autonomy. As Adm. Sam Paparo of Indo-Pacific Command writes: “Building capital ships takes years,” arguing for investing in autonomous ships “to increase warfighting capability in the near term … augment[ing] the multi-mission conventional force to increase lethality, sensing, and survivability.” A new generation of non-traditional contractors is ready to deliver, using additive and advanced manufacturing techniques and more modular designs. Leaps ahead in AI and autonomy for battle management and air power also suggest the time is ripe to construct a larger Navy more capable of sea control and sea denial around the world, especially against China. The top priority should be scaling a medium autonomous warship as a new ship for the Navy. The Navy’s new call to industry for off-the-shelf solutions is sensible, and the Navy should also look to Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (better known as DARPA) No Manning Required Ship program. When the Navy pivoted away from the behind-schedule, and over-budget optionally crewed Large Unmanned Surface Vessel program, a key driver of its woes and $500 million price tag for the first boat was the requirement for optional manning. Making room for sailors while the ship is underway requires space for the crew, heating and cooling systems, kitchens, beds, and other requirements that significantly increase the cost of the vessel. The DARPA test craft USX-1 Defiant, in contrast, costs approximately $25 million excluding mission systems or weapons. Large unmanned surface vessels were designed to be 200 to 300 feet with a displacement of 1000 to 2000 tons. The Defiant, which is hitting the water for sea trials, is 180 feet long and weighs 240 metric tons, meaning it can be produced in yacht yards. The ability to produce medium autonomous warships in yacht yards — given how backed up the larger shipyards are with production and the need to focus them on larger vessels and submarines — means there are opportunities for the Navy to scale ships faster at the maximum size that could be constructed in yacht yards. Yacht yard-sized boats could also carry substantial payloads for surveillance and strike. For example, a boat the size of the Defiant could carry two sets of four-cell launchers launching any missile that fits in a vertical launch system tube. A larger format ship named the Dauntless could carry up to four sets of four-cell launch tubes. Making the ship autonomous, not optionally crewed, generates the space savings that allow for the insertion of launch tubes or containerized surveillance packages. A promising concept would involve using medium autonomous warships as Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels linked to cruisers or larger ships via the Aegis Combat System, but operating mostly autonomously, with the degree of autonomy increasing as technology improves and inserted via an open architecture approach to the software. With the Defiant currently undergoing sea trials and a new solicitation out to industry, the Navy should immediately pivot to acquisition using the $2.1 billion appropriated to procurement of medium autonomous warships in the defense reconciliation bill. Medium autonomous warships that can launch weapons or conduct surveillance should then count as surface vessels for the Navy, though this will require changing the Navy’s counting guidance to include larger-format drones. Medium autonomous warships are not just ships on paper to solve a counting issue: They will have growing levels of autonomy and be able to conduct multiple missions, including launching up to 16 missiles, meaning it is appropriate to consider them a ship. The precise mass opportunities for the Navy do not just come from Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels, but from smaller drones based on the Hellscape concept promoted by Indo-Pacific Command, which involves unmanned surface vessels as munitions rather than ships. Both shorter- and longer-range surface drones, smaller than medium autonomous warships, are ready to scale now. While not every design will succeed, experimentation and fielding in Central Command today can pave the way for fielding in the Indo-Pacific. Lessons learned from Ukraine in the Black Sea show that smaller naval surface drones can effectively execute one-way attacks and launch attacks of their own, meaning they could increase the probability of success for the Navy in the Taiwan Strait before 2027. Surveillance platforms such as Saildrone and short-range attack surface drones are ready to scale now. For example, AEVEX, producer of the Phoenix Ghost one-way attack aerial drone, produces a naval drone called the Mako. There are recreational craft companies capable of producing small surface drones, whether as single-use for strike purposes or for surveillance. As the Iran war showed, the Navy — like the other U.S. military services — faces massive shortages in critical munitions, which would undermine its ability to fight at scale for more than a few weeks in the Indo-Pacific. A larger Navy will require low-cost munitions to arm the fleet. The Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector initiative to produce a low-cost cruise missile is promising. Navy and Air Force efforts to procure low-cost cruise missiles received $1.5 billion in the defense reconciliation bill, and $133 million is slated to go to the initiative. The Navy followed this up with a Fiscal Year 2027 budget request for the effort that includes $156 million to procure 353 missiles. The Navy also needs to follow through on the plan to spend $1.6 billion to purchase about 4500 low-cost missiles by 2031, which works out to under $400,000 per missile. Given delays in production and performance issues in past programs, this will require a laser focus to ensure it continues to progress. At the same time, Central Command’s fielding of emerging capabilities highlights the potential in the Indo-Pacific as well. In the early days of the conflict, Task Force Scorpion Strike fielded the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System — the American military’s first precise mass system — which can be launched from ships. Reverse-engineered from Iran’s Shahed-136, the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System has a similar price point and the ability to reverse the cost curve on adversaries. U.S. Central Command commander Adm. Brad Cooper has described the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System as indispensable for America’s operations. Given how just a month of fighting against Iran has substantially reduced U.S. stockpiles of exquisite, expensive, difficult to produce weapons such as the Tomahawk, naval variants of the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, and other one-way attack systems would complement low-cost cruise missiles and ensure the Navy has the weapons it needs for both a shorter-term and longer-term fight in the Indo-Pacific. Some might argue that increasing the number of autonomous ships and complementing the Navy’s arsenal of exquisite weapons and platforms might undermine deterrence because these ships and weapons will not have the credibility with allies and partners — or adversaries — as ships with people on them. Nonetheless, following the strategy suggested above will increase deterrence for several reasons. First, forward presence is already undermined because the Navy doesn’t have enough ships and cannot do maintenance on existing ships fast enough to keep them ready. Moreover, proposals to increase the size of the existing fleet that rely on existing shipyards will take years, and building a new shipyard would take a decade or more. The question isn’t adding autonomous ships versus a new wave of traditional ships, but whether it’s time for urgent change, given that deterrence is already eroding. Second, ships that are not useful for fighting China will not enhance deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The Navy should not sacrifice warfighting effectiveness because having sailors on boats that are at high risk of being sunk as a tripwire somehow makes war less likely. Third, the current demands on the Navy already place too much stress on the fleet, undermining readiness and deterrence. Fourth, deterrence is not the sole responsibility of the Navy: Other services could ramp up other forward presence activities. Finally, a bigger Navy means there will be more American-flagged ships in more places. That alone will increase deterrence. The war with Iran has also generated real-time operational evidence illustrating the value of precise mass and the threat it can pose to crewed surface vessels and other targets. Iran’s potential use of combined drone and missile salvos and fast attack boats in the Strait of Hormuz has exposed the threat to American and commercial ships in contested littoral environments. The lessons from the Gulf and Red Sea are not merely analogous to the Indo-Pacific problem: They are a direct rehearsal for it. If these systems prove effective against Iranian threats, the case for scaling them for Hellscape and Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels missions in the Taiwan Strait becomes substantially stronger. To be clear, the Navy’s existing experience with Sea Hunter and the Ghost Fleet Overlord program shows there is work to do to show that Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels will be operationally reliable in adversarial environments that include electronic warfare, GPS denial, and cyber attacks. Investing heavily in technology and operational concepts to address those issues is essential. The risk is worth it for several reasons. Improving autonomy technology means the risk of technology failure is lower than a decade ago, when the Navy decided to pursue an optionally crewed approved for the large unmanned surface vessel. Moreover, the long timelines for improving the production rate for larger warships and submarines means ships capable of construction in yacht yards, like medium autonomous warships, are the only option to improve capacity in the shorter-term. Especially in the wake of the Iran War, the Navy could struggle to meet deterrence requirements in the Indo-Pacific by 2027. The boost to the defense budget also reduces the investment tradeoffs, making now an opportune time to move forward. One might worry about the financial or credibility cost if the program does not succeed, but operating medium autonomous warships initially in lower-threat environments and theaters while progressively expanding their operational envelope is a sensible path to building the track record for trusted confidence in operating them in high-end contested environments. Finally, the well-documented struggles of the current ship construction approach mean the larger risk is not trying something new. The time has come to move towards Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels. The U.S. Navy is confronting a structural mismatch between the character of modern warfare and the force it has built to fight those wars. The era of precise mass is altering the economics and operational logic of naval power. A naval fleet built exclusively around a small number of exquisite, capital-intensive platforms and weapons is increasingly brittle. Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific will not hinge on marginal improvements to legacy systems over the next half-decade, but on whether the Navy can adapt its force design, acquisition practices, and operational concepts to this new reality. Improving naval deterrence and warfighting before 2030 requires making larger bets and being willing to take risks. The Navy should embrace Collaborative Combat Surface Vessels, small surface drones aligned to the Hellscape concept, and low-cost cruise missiles and one-way attack drones. Investing in medium autonomous warships, lower-cost long-range munitions, and surface drones is not about affordably generating the volume and diversity of effects necessary to survive and fight in a contested environment. The Navy should treat these capabilities not as adjuncts to the existing fleet but as central components of future maritime power. The primary barrier to adoption is organizational. The Navy’s entrenched preferences for large platforms and legacy procurement pathways risk slowing the transition at precisely the moment when speed matters most, given the scale of the challenges. China’s military modernization and the proliferation of precise mass capabilities mean that these changes should start today to be able to fight and win both tomorrow and in the future. A more distributed Navy will be a more resilient Navy, but the window for adaptation is narrowing. A Navy that can field a distributed, resilient force incorporating precise mass will strengthen deterrence. The choice is not between tradition and innovation — it is between relevance and obsolescence. Michael C. Horowitz is the Richard Perry professor and director of Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Image: U.S. Navy

Perspectives

Iranian Official

The Islamic Republic of Iran has successfully defended its sovereignty against U.S. naval aggression in the region, exposing the vulnerabilities of America's outdated and overstretched fleet amid sustained operations. This resistance has depleted U.S. munitions and highlighted the limits of its high-end warships, compelling Washington to scramble for new strategies rather than dominate the seas. Iran remains steadfast in countering foreign interference while upholding its right to secure its waters.

Israeli

Israel faces an existential threat from Iran's nuclear ambitions and its vast proxy network—including Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas—which encircles the Jewish state and enables sustained maritime attacks on critical sea lanes. The war with Iran and its proxies has already exposed the limits of conventional naval forces, as high-end platforms face relentless missile and drone attrition while replacement timelines stretch for years, leaving Israel dangerously exposed to escalation. Defensive necessity therefore requires accelerating fielding of smaller, attritable autonomous systems to restore deterrence and protect the nation's survival against a regime committed to its destruction.

Neutral

Senator Roger Wicker stated in 2024 that the U.S. approach to fleet design and ship construction is too small and too old. Discussions of Navy operations have noted strains on ship availability and munitions stocks in sustained deployments, with some analyses describing surface vessels as increasingly vulnerable to advanced detection and strike capabilities. Proposals have included expanded investment in attritable autonomous systems to align with Indo-Pacific Command planning concepts.

Western

The U.S. Navy must accelerate modernization of its fleet design to sustain deterrence and neutralize escalating threats from China in the Indo-Pacific, where advanced adversary capabilities now place even high-end surface ships at heightened risk. Lessons from sustained operations against Iran underscore the urgency of shifting from legacy platforms toward scalable, attritable autonomous systems that align with Indo-Pacific Command’s Hellscape concept for precise threat neutralization. This approach, endorsed by Sen. Roger Wicker, aims to deliver a larger, more resilient force by 2030 capable of maintaining sea control against peer competitors.

Pro-Peace

Escalating naval buildups and reliance on autonomous weapons systems for conflicts like a potential war with Iran or confrontation with China risk devastating civilian populations across the Indo-Pacific and Middle East, with mounting casualties, economic collapse, and refugee crises that strain global humanitarian resources. These approaches drain munitions and lives while exposing the limits of military power, far outweighing any strategic gains. Diplomatic negotiations and arms control agreements remain essential alternatives to prevent further human suffering and foster lasting stability.

Global South

The U.S. Navy’s outdated fleet design and thinning munitions stockpiles, laid bare in operations against Iran, expose the institutional failures of American naval hegemony as it seeks to dominate the Indo-Pacific through vulnerable carriers and exquisite weapons. This approach perpetuates neo-colonial dynamics, pressuring Global South nations to align with Washington’s “Hellscape” concepts and autonomous systems that undermine their sovereignty in favor of great-power confrontation with China. Regional states must instead prioritize independent strategies that reject such external militarization and affirm non-aligned control over their waters.

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Sources

Daisy Johnston; Michael C HorowitzBy Daisy Johnston; Michael C Horowitz
Join War on the Rocks and gain access to content trusted by policymakers, military leaders, and strategic thinkers worldwide. Maintaining deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and around the world requires the U.S. Navy to change what it builds and how it fights. Sen. Roger Wicker obser…

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Many experts have contended that that was an actual operation, a botched attempt to remove some of Iran’s “nuclear dust.” However, Scott Ritter may have squared that circle. See his brief clip starting at 11:55: From a lightly-edited machine transcript: Jawaid: Scott Ritter thinks that Israeli lap dog Trump will soon launch a ground invasion of Iran, but he will fail miserably.

Also, this is something Iran has been wanting Trump to commit to for a long time. Ritter: There’s a a mission called a raid. Um, and I, you know, we already had US troops fighting on the ground. We did a raid to rescue a pilot. We were in limited ground combat operations there.

I think there’s a high potential that the US will conduct a raid here and there because that’s a that’s a a very specific task. A raid is is the only military mission where we plan to retreat. You know, every other military mission there’s no plan. You commit and you go, but a raid is in and out.

So maybe we can do a raid, but the idea that we’re going to land in seize territory, there’s zero chance that will happen because there’s zero chance of success. Now admittedly, if pilot rescue came about as the result of the botched operation in Isfahan, that would be debatable as a raid.

Even though the intent again was to retreat, the US would have had to stage equipment for the removal and transport of nuclear material, so there would be a short-lived occupation of terrain and not just a fast snatch and grab, as with Maduro. Nevertheless, the US military may not be totally suicidal, so the plan may be for a fast landing to inflict some sort of concrete form of damage that cannot be well inflicted from the air and then to decamp.

This segment also includes a very informative explanation of how important the operations in Jordan are to the US, and how the Iran intend is destroy bases so that the US has to retreat to Israel and then Iran will proceed forcefully against the remaining assets there.

We’ll soon turn to updates, but to start with some bigger picture considerations: it is disconcerting to see how many commentators resort to the trope that neither side can prevail on the battlefield, that they will in the end negotiate an outcome. As we pointed out, a study of modern wars found that more than half did not.

The distrust between the two sides, which has now reached the level of mutual loathing as a result of the fast breakdown of the already likely to fail Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), means any “deal” is vanishingly unlikely. Iran knew even before it entered into talks that the US and Israel intended to execute a “mowing the lawn” strategy, of keeping crippling sanctions in place and beating up on Iran every so often to weaken it and hopefully create severe internal divisions that would trigger an overthrow or balkanization.

Even if Iran’s 47 year record of taking severe punishment and surviving says this plot would probably fail, Iran had been preparing since the Iraq War for the US and Israel to launch a major campaign. After the illegal launch, the assassination of a major part of Iran’s leadership, as well as war crimes exemplified by the massacre of school children in Minab, the nation is highly unified around inflicting a decisive defeat on the US, so that it won’t even think about military action against Iran for at least a decade.

We were far from alone in making that case early in the war and Iran’s resolve has only stiffened as it can see how it has weakened the US while Iran has learned from combat and claims to have even bigger inventories of key weapons than it had at the start of the war.

Critically, Iranian leaders have said, bluntly, that negotiating with the US is not just pointless but also demeaning. Consider the germane parts of a recent statement by the Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei,4 as summarized at PressTV: - Leader said the United States had once again violated the memorandum of understanding signed between the presidents of Iran and the US, proving that the signature of the American president is worthless and unreliable.

- He said bullying, hegemonic ambition, and savagery are inseparable characteristics of the United States and that Washington had once again revealed its true, unmasked face to the world. - He described the latest developments – US attacks against southern Iran, mainly targeting the civilian infrastructure – as further evidence of America’s deceitfulness, irrationality, unreliability, and wickedness.

- Leader said the United States is seeking to ignite further war despite facing heavier costs and greater disgrace. - He warned that the Iranian nation and the Resistance Front have unforgettable lessons for the United States, adding that the bravery of Islamic resistance fighters and the courageous people of southern Iran have already demonstrated examples of those lessons.

However, Araghchi subsequently gave an interview which can be read as pushing back against the Supreme Leader:5 Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says that negotiations with the U.S. should be pursued even if the chances of success are only 10 percent, further highlighting disagreements between Iran’s political and military echelons.

“I am the Foreign Minister for the interests of… pic.twitter.com/uW1DzcfRhG — Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) July 19, 2026 Keep in mind also that China is still bleating about the need to settle the conflict and Pakistan and Qatar (among others) are also pressing for a resumption of the talks, so Araghchi as Foreign Minister has to keep the idea in play, irrespective of whether he privately places much stock in the idea.

6 And there is another way to read Araghchi’s talk: So they wanted to manufacture a clean record of “we exhausted every diplomatic option." Once that record existed, the hardliners with Mojtaba could shut the process down without looking like the ones who refused talks.

Moderates who pushed the channel now own the failure, and… https://t.co/Y63yYJVaEZ — Vonbury Research (@VonburyResearch) July 19, 2026 Kinetic action seems likely to continue to dominate: ADVISOR TO IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER, MOHSEN REZAEI, SAYING: “I declare it is over.

Both negotiation and war are over. If in the next two or three days the Americans continue the war, we will enter a phase of complete offense and destruction.”#Iran #IranWar pic.twitter.com/1M3A1pboH9 — Iran Now – WANA (@WANA_Iran) July 18, 2026 Robert Pape also seems confident that US escalation will continue7.

I found this discussion noteworthy because Andrew Neil strongly resisted the idea that there would be no negotiated ending and also found it inconceivable that Iran could become, as Pape has argued, the fourth world power. In other words, Neil seems to epitomize a set of normally pretty smart people who find it hard to see where the direction of travel is going because those outcomes so conflict with their priors: From a lightly cleaned up machine transcript: Pape: This is not what’s coming in the next few weeks likely.

What’s much more likely is he’s [Trump’s] going to do the close blockade and if he can then use the southern corridor with that close blockade to reopen the Strait, he’ll he’ll be probably satisfied with that. Very unlikely that’s going to work and that’s why you’ve got the 82nd Airborne and the Marines there to push back further.

Now, I’m not saying this is going to work, Andrew…. Neil: So, I’ve got to ask you some questions in this because I’m unclear. Do you think that the of the limited options President Trump now has, that escalation as you describe it is the most likely?

Pape: Yes. Neil: And that escalation will begin with a much more aggressive, more comprehensive a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz with the possibility of ground incursion on the northern side of the straight in Iranian territory? Pape: Yes. Yes, and it’s our and and the first part has already started this week.

So, so you’re already seeing in fact last week was the beginning of the air suppression campaign for this week. And as President Trump laid out the bombing schedule last night, the reason he will, if he if this keeps going forward, okay, just keep saying that if, he’s going to want to take out things like electric power and bridges is because he’s going to want to try to suppress as much of Iran’s military defenses as he can as he goes forward here.

And the military is giving him the plans for doing that. One place where I differ with Pape is that he posits that Congress might get out of bed in six months and Do Something to check Trump then. To again invoke Stein’s Law, if something cannot continue, it will stop.

The US and Israel can of course carry on with terrorism within Iran, such as assassinations and cyber attacks. But the level of weapons depletion and on current trajectories, shortly-arriving fuel shortages, seems very likely to put a choke chain on US aggression soon.

From Larry Johnson in The US Faces a Strategic Crisis with Iran…The Rapid Depletion of US Battlefield Missiles:8 The tables below are based on the most recent publicly available analyses from CSIS, the Payne Institute, and major media outlets (as of mid-2026), and provide a current (overly optimistic in my opinon) estimate for US inventory levels of these key weapons systems.

Please note that actual inventories are classified; these are informed estimates derived from DOD budget documents, procurement records, and reported expenditures during Operation Epic Fury (the US-Israeli war with Iran). Air Defense Missiles Anti-Radiation / SEAD Long-Range Strike (Ground & Sea-Launched) Missiles These are not just the numbers currently in the hands of US CENTCOM (i.

e., the US military command in charge of the war against Iran), these are the total numbers available to all of the US military commands. If these missiles are allocated evenly to the other two critical commands — i.e., EUCOM (European Command) and PACOM (Pacific Command) — then you begin to understand the gravity of this deficit.

Let’s take the case of the Tomahawk missile. Let’s assume there are 3,000 left (I believe that is a generous over estimate) and the remaining number are divided evenly among CENTCOM, EUCOM and PACOM… That means each command gets 1,000. Does anyone want to argue that in the event of a hot war with Russia or China that EUCOM and PACOM respectively would be able to sustain combat operations for more than four weeks?

Hell, CENTCOM fired 850 of them during the first four weeks of EPIC FURY. Here’s another major problem: All eight missile systems rely on rare earth elements — there are no exceptions among modern US precision-guided weapons. The dependence is nearly universal because rare earth permanent magnets are irreplaceable for the high-performance actuators, guidance motors, and seeker gimbals that make these weapons accurate.

And who controls the supply chain of these rare earth minerals? China!… The supply chain isn’t just about mining — it’s about processing, separation, and magnet manufacturing, which China controls: - Mining: China ~60% of global rare earth oxide production - Refining/Separation: China ~91% - Sintered NdFeB Magnet Manufacturing: China **~94%** Now to updates.

From Aljazeera’s live feed: - A vessel is on fire in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile, forcing the crew to abandon ship. They were later rescued by a tugboat. - One person has been killed and several others wounded after the US military attacked the Iranian city of Tabriz in northwestern Iran.

The entries in the feed include ones describing how Mr. Market is taking cheer from the Iran Foreign Ministry admitting they are getting communiques from intermediaries and reviewing them as if they originated from the US. Recall that the negotiators have often developed ideas and tried to sell both sides on them.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas, who has been a consistent seller of lower oil prices, is refreshingly precise about Iran not saying either way as to whether the missives were from the US or just the negotiators operating on their own: Iran has received “some proposals” from unspecified mediators regarding the war with the US, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei says in press conference, without elaborating.

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) July 20, 2026 Contrast that with the Aljazeera account: Oil prices ease after Iran says US contacts continuing through mediators Oil prices have scaled back their gains after hitting their highest in a month after Iran said diplomatic exchanges with the US are ongoing via mediators despite renewed conflict in the Middle East.

Grr. Another Aljazeera live feed entry: Iran ‘counting down the minutes’ for US ground invasion [Today’s Iran war post launched more or less complete. I will be off duty for a while. If there are any updates, they will come in the comment section later] Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says the United States will face “consequences of any adventure” to seize Kharg Island in southern Iran.

He added there are people in Iran’s leadership “counting down the minutes to welcome” US forces in any ground invasion. Kharg is the heart of Iran’s oil industry. It sits 55km (34 miles) off Iran’s coast in Bushehr province. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize the territory during the war.

A raid on Kharg could fit Ritter’s raid scenario, with the US busting things up and then leaving.9 But experts have pointed out that Iran has at least four other export routes. Kharg is the most efficient but losing it while being repaired would be inconvenient as opposed to a fatal blow.

From Bloomberg’s landing page: From US Bombs Iran for Ninth Day as Standoff Over Hormuz Deepens: The US conducted a ninth straight day of airstrikes on Iran, trying to force the Islamic Republic to stop shipping attacks and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The American military bombed military targets and communications networks in a three-hour operation ending around 5:30 a.m. Iranian time on Monday. Iran continued to attack US bases in the likes of Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq. The standoff shows no sign of easing, with Iran refusing to relent over Hormuz and insisting it has a right to manage traffic through the waterway.

Energy prices have jumped on the worsening hostilities. Brent crude oil rose to above $90 a barrel for the first time in more than five weeks in early trading on Monday. US gasoline prices climbed back over the $4-a-gallon mark, potentially hurting President Donald Trump and his Republican party ahead of midterm elections in November… Hormuz Shipping Traffic Slumps as US-Iran Hostilities Worsen The tit-for-tat attacks are getting deadlier….

Shipping volumes have slumped and the number of tankers and other vessels going through Hormuz is roughly down to the same level from the height of the conflict in March and early April… US President Donald Trump warned Iran last week he’d escalate airstrikes and widen the scope of targets until it backed down… Kuwait continues to experience some of the worst attacks from Iran.

Over the weekend, Kuwait’s main state energy company said an unspecified site sustained “significant material losses,” causing its evacuation and a number of injuries, while two power and desalination plants have been hit in recent days. And from Hormuz Traffic Near Standstill as US-Iran Hostilities Escalate: - Visible traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appeared at a near standstill Monday after Iran targeted vessels in the narrow waterway.

- A Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier and a liquefied petroleum gas carrier appeared to approach the strait, with the bulk carrier turning off its transponder while approaching. - The targeting of vessels will likely raise fresh concerns over the safety of ships transiting Hormuz, which could deepen disruptions to energy flows from the Persian Gulf to global customers.

Indirectly importance of US operations in Jordan, the lead story in the Wall Street Journal is Jordan Becomes New Flashpoint in U.S.-Iran War as Troop Deaths Rise. But it fails to set forth any of the juicy details that Janta Ka presents. This is the thin strategic gruel offered: For years, Jordan sought to play down its close military and intelligence cooperation with the U.

S. The U.S. aircraft that carried out strikes on Islamic State from a base in Jordan during the American war with the militants didn’t advertise the country they were operating from. But Jordan’s role is now becoming too prominent to obscure. Jordan has become an attractive location for U.

S. armed forces since it is among the most permissive in the Arab world when it comes to allowing the U.S. to operate from its bases. A bit more on Jordan: The view from Tehran. “The increased focus on Jordan may serve as part of Iran’s preparation and testing of operational concepts for more intense and precise strikes against Israel in later stages of the conflict.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia—have at times sought to impose limits… — Policy Tensor (@policytensor) July 20, 2026 By contrast, the House of Saud published a remarkably revealing document (hat tip Eugene Linden), Iran Struck Prince Sultan and No One Was Required to Say So: Iranian ballistic missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Al-Kharj on July 18, wounding twelve US service members — two critically — and hitting KC-135 Stratotankers on the flight line while a second rotation was still climbing out.

Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense Authority cleared the sirens six minutes later without naming the weapon, the origin, or the damage, and neither Riyadh nor Washington has issued an official statement since. The strike was the first direct Iranian attack on Saudi territory in approximately four months, a gap during which the IRGC struck Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE while conspicuously sparing the Kingdom.

Its return to PSAB — confirmed by a US official to Axios, corroborated by satellite imagery, and detailed by Air & Space Forces Magazine — ended whatever territorial immunity Saudi Arabia believed it still possessed. But the more consequential development is not the strike itself.

It is the silence that followed, and the institutional architecture that sustains it: a three-party managed ambiguity in which Iran, Saudi Arabia, and CENTCOM each benefit from leaving the damage question unanswered, because answering it would force a public reckoning with a PAC-3 reserve that is approaching a ceiling none of them can afford to name.

The strike was confirmed by a US official cited by Axios as “the first time the Islamic Republic has directly attacked the kingdom in four months” — a description that the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Saudi Ministry of Defence have each declined to repeat on the record.

Air & Space Forces Magazine, drawing on multiple US military sources, reported at least twelve wounded and multiple Stratotankers damaged on the tarmac. Open-source satellite imagery corroborated the impact site within the base perimeter. Iran’s state broadcaster supplied what no government would.

The missiles were launched “moments after American refueling planes took off,” a detail that only makes sense if the IRGC had real-time ISR coverage of PSAB’s tanker rotation schedule. The aircraft hit were those that remained on the flight line after the airborne pair departed — the timing was deliberate, and the targeting message was not about maximising destruction but about demonstrating that PSAB’s daily operational patterns are watched, clocked, and within reach….

Riyadh cannot confirm the strike without confronting two questions it has spent the war avoiding. The first is defensive: if Iranian missiles hit PSAB and wounded US personnel, the Sakhir Declaration — the mutual defence framework Saudi Arabia negotiated with Washington — becomes the operative instrument, and invoking it requires publicly admitting what the Arab Center DC described as the core strategic dilemma: “the PAC-3 architecture is functionally exhausted.

” The second is economic. Aramco’s August Arab Light OSP already dropped $11 month-on-month to $1.50 per barrel below Oman/Dubai, the largest such cut in over two decades and the lowest since June 2020. Confirming that Iranian ballistic missiles are landing on military installations 77 kilometres south of the capital forces a sovereign-risk reassessment that Riyadh’s fiscal position — a Q1 deficit of SAR 125.

7 billion, with Aramco’s free cash flow at 0.85 times its quarterly dividend — is not structured to absorb…. Washington faces a different but parallel constraint. Confirming the strike means confirming that 2,300 US service members at PSAB are taking casualties at a base where 43 US warplanes have been grounded since Saudi Arabia’s Operation Project Freedom in May 2026.

CENTCOM cannot describe a defensive engagement at PSAB without also describing the legal anomaly: the 1977 USMTM memorandum governing US presence is not a Status of Forces Agreement, and Project Freedom severed the operational relationship between American air power and Saudi host-nation authority.

An official statement would invite the Congressional question that the Pentagon’s communications strategy is built to defer: why are American troops still at a base where their aircraft have been grounded by the host nation, absorbing Iranian fire under a legal framework that was designed for peacetime advisory missions?

Please read this article in full. It contains remarkable operational detail. It is over my pay grade as to why it was published, but it seems to suggest considerable unhappiness at Riyadh. Due to the length of this post, we have skipped over the fact that Ansar Allah seems just about to threaten or actually close the Bab el-Mandeb strait: 🚨 BREAKING 🇾🇪 YEMEN’S HOUTHI FORCES WILL MAKE A “HUGE” ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY AT 8:30 AM ET.

REPORTS EXPECT THEM TO ANNOUNCE A BLOCKADE OF THE BAB EL-MANDEB STRAIT. TOGETHER WITH THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ, THESE TWO CHOKEPOINTS HANDLE OVER 25% OF GLOBAL SEABORNE OIL TRADE. IF TRUE,… pic.twitter.com/yjavHpPKOi — Wimar.X (@DefiWimar) July 20, 2026 This does not look terribly negotiation-receptive.

And some additional sightings from Twitter: Israelis have never felt less secure. 64% are unhappy with how the endless wars have been run. 73% are upset at how there has been no real investigation of October 7. 73% of the public also feel the government has not dealt well with the rise in crime.

No one wins from these… https://t.co/4OjhLUD14O — Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (@academic_la) July 19, 2026 These remarks would seem to negate happy thinking about negotiations: ⚡️⭕️ Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says Tehran is determined to exercise sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz through measures already taken, and states the US failed to fulfill its commitments under a memorandum of understanding, so Iran will not fulfill… — Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) July 20, 2026 The average price for a gallon of gas hit $4, the second time it has reached that benchmark since the war in Iran disrupted global oil supplies https://t.

co/Cg8rE3XnJ7 pic.twitter.com/3UqHfwU4sc — CNN (@CNN) July 20, 2026 Done for today! See you tomorrow! ____ 1 What kind of admission of weakness is this? Part of the job description of a service member is that they may wind up dying for their country.

Admittedly, the US is widely suspected of suffering a much higher body count and covering that up. But this show of extreme sensitivity to losses again shows the US has a glass jaw. 2 Nima also discusses at some length at the top of a new talk with Larry Johnson why they look misguided.

He knows Bandar Abbas well, which is where the US has been hitting bridges so as to isolate it. Nima explains and even shows pictures that the bridges exist only to cope with seasonal floods for a few months a year. Those sluices are dry now, so Bandar Abbas is easily accessible by all sorts of routes.

3 🚨 BREAKING: Russia has evacuated 198 of its personnel from the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. It is believed that the plant could be targeted again. pic.twitter.com/lPoQB05qgo — GBC (@GBC_Press) July 17, 2026 4 A new trope in the US-backing commentary community is to depict the new Supreme Leader as a figurehead, which is easy to make stick given his lack of public appearances (I suspect that among other things, he is having facial reconstruction; that can take an extremely long time since procedures are done serially with healing time in between).

I believe it was on a recent Dialogue Works talk where Professor Marandi debunked one popular claim, that he IRGC was operating on its own authority. Professor Marandi described the governing structure and said the military (both the regular forces and the Guards) needed approval of the Supreme Leader for its operations.

Having said that, I have commented that Iran seems to have a Japanese-style decision-making structure, as in more bottoms-up than the West. That results in more time to make decisions but much more internal cohesion when they are reached, since those at lower levels would be able to voice concerns and make suggestions.

Upon reflection, this would make sense given that Iran adopted its “mosaic” structure of extreme decentralization so as to allow it to function well even when the leadership was killed or incommunicado, as we saw at the onset of the current conflict.

In the Japanese model, decisions are effectively made at the senior-middle level ranks, which does tend result in the board and CEO being ceremonial. But the top level can and does say no, or effectively does so by asking probing questions and sending the matter back down the chain for further study and perhaps some revision.

I have been involved in decisions in Japan where the board and CEO were highly engaged, and these were ones that were of critical strategic importance. 5 DropSite has a longer recap of Araghchi’s remarks: ⭕️ Iran FM Araghchi: Wars End Either Through Total Victory or Negotiations… Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi: 🔹 A war must be ended precisely at the point when you hold the upper hand on the battlefield.

Ending a war is possible either through total military victory or… pic.twitter.com/kHeYhShsXC — Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) July 20, 2026 IMHO his analysis is wrong-headed. As indicated above, a bit over half the modern wars do not end with a negotiated settlement.

And it is a false dichotomy to say that to win, Iran must conquer the US and Israel. FFS, please explain Vietnam. Bad logistics and depleting weapons mean that ex nukes, the US cannot win against Iran. The question is how long it takes and how much damage is done not just to Iran but also the world economy.

Keep in mind the intermediaries are still busy but motion is not progress: #Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson has confirmed that Tehran has received "ideas and proposals" from mediators. He declined to provide any further details regarding the specifics of the mediation efforts.

pic.twitter.com/8Pzs25eauc — Iran Nuances (@IranNuances) July 20, 2026 6 A memorable scene in the Daniel Ellsberg memoir Secrets is when Ellsberg, widely seen as the top US expert on Vietnam, briefed McNamara in a helicopter about how badly things were going.

McNamara said, “Just as I suspected,” and then upon landing updated the press on the great progress the US was making. 7 It has taken me too long to see why Pape often acts as if he is speaking to children or the stoopid. Making this his normal manner of presentation means that when he actually is having to speak to someone who is being stoopid, they won’t take offense.

8 However, to quibble with Johnson on another matter: he has been saying, as he does in the talk linked in Footnote 2 above, that the Iran attacks on a former US base in Syria, Al Tanf, were pointless because the base had been vacated for years. Vanessa Beeley, who has spent a lot of time on the ground in Syria and still has contacts there, begs to differ.

She says the base was recently restored to service. From Why did Iran target the US Occupation base at Al Tanf, Syria? On Friday 17th July, Iran carried out an extensive attack on the US occupation base at Al Tanf in Syria. A drone and missile strike targeted a US Special Operations Command base in south-eastern Syria..

the first strike on Syrian territory since the toppling of the former government in December 2024. In a statement, the IRGC said its aerospace forces conducted what it described as the 11th phase of “Operation Nasr-2,” targeting the strategically located base near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan.

The IRGC further claimed the attack destroyed a radar installation and several U.S. military helicopters, while alleging that many American personnel were killed. This strike occurred as the build up of both Turkish and HTS military forces increases inside Syria, along the border with Lebanon and in the coastal region to the north of Lebanon.

I have been reporting on this here and here. Syrian sources provided more detail on the attack: Despite previous reports of an almost total evacuation of the Al Tanf base, located on the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan, almost 5 months ago – the intensity of the strikes suggested a shift in the site’s operational status.

This was not an empty base, in fact, according to sources, the IRGC’s tracking systems and human intelligence in the region detected U.S. forces airdropping “Special Forces” units into the base approximately two weeks before the attack. Analysis would suggest that the purpose of these drops might be to prepare for a ground incursion across Iraqi territory (Sulaymaniyah Axis) in coordination with the local Kurdish separatist factions in Iraq.

One military analyst told me: The attack reflects the operator’s ability to breach the secrecy surrounding U.S. movements and to convert radio and visual data into precise target coordinates. According to reports from inside Syria, the strikes inflicted direct damage on the base’s newly constructed infrastructure, neutralised the US elite combat force and derailed the Iraq-Axis operation against Iran.

Of course, US media will not report on the planned operations or on the number of casualties – such a critical security breach and the significant scale of damage, as reported, will not be revealed. 9 Maybe mines?

Yves Smith

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIsraelIranProxy

Iran targets US military sites, Houthis make port threats

○ 1 source

Iran has targeted US radar and air defence installations in the Gulf, warning the US of "more decisive and powerful" attacks to come as the conflict threatened to widen with a blockade of Saudi ports by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked and stopped two "non-compliant oil tankers" attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz, part of an effort to tighten its grip on the vital waterway while the war reignited.

Following the deaths of at least three US soldiers in the past several days, the United States launched a new round of attacks against Iran which it said were "designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping" in the strait.

Hours later, the Iranian army said it had targeted US assets in Kuwait and Bahrain, including air defence systems, radar installations and administrative buildings. "With this radar sweep, the enemy should prepare for even more decisive and powerful waves of drone and missile attacks," the Guards said in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.

US President Donald Trump warned that Iran would pay "many times over" for every American soldier killed, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the conflict had become "a full-scale war". Nearly 100 US service members have been wounded since 7 July, the Pentagon said, most with minor concussions.

Red Sea threat Tehran's Yemeni allies, the Houthi rebels, meanwhile threatened a major broadening of the war, announcing they would blockade Saudi ports. Such a move by the Houthis would put at risk Riyadh's ability to bypass the flashpoint Strait of Hormuz for some of its oil exports and have major repercussions on the global economy.

Saudi Arabia and the Houthis traded fire last week for the first time in years, threatening a 2022 truce, but the rebels have largely remained on the sidelines since Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February. Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the threat from what it called the "terrorist Houthi militia" and said it "continues to support the brotherly Yemeni people and their legitimate government".

The Middle East war resumed after an April ceasefire and a June framework deal collapsed. Iran reimposed its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the US hit back by again blockading Iran's ports. Oil prices surged briefly to a one-month high before easing slightly early today as the sides battle to control the strait, through which a fifth of world oil travelled in peacetime.

Although far below its pre-war totals, Saudi Arabia has been able to continue exporting millions of barrels of oil a day via its Red Sea port of Yanbu. Oil markets have for months feared that the Houthis would return to attacking shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden - as they did during the Gaza war - potentially cutting off yet more crude from global markets.

The Houthis, who have been at war with Saudi Arabia for over a decade, have not said how they will enforce their blockade. Diplomatic exchanges In the Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guards said two tankers attempting to transit the strait "were hit by explosions, resulting in massive fires that brought them to a standstill".

The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) earlier reported that an "unknown projectile" struck a tanker off the coast of Oman. UKMTO later reported another tanker off the coast of Oman had been struck by a projectile. Despite the latest fighting, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said diplomatic exchanges with Washington via mediators were ongoing.

Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni is in Islamabad for a two-day visit during which he will meet with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and powerful army chief Asim Munir, according to Pakistan's interior ministry. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is set to meet with Mr Trump in Washington as pressure builds for Beirut to disarm Hezbollah, Israel's key condition before withdrawing from south Lebanon.

CurrentsAPI