US President Donald Trump is sending over 5,000 Marines to clear the key waterway, the Strait Of Hormuz. The unit, officially known as the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, will head to the Middle East on board the Japan-based USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, to join other forces.
The force could include roughly 2,500 Marines along with additional sailors operating the amphibious ships that carry them. The Marines, capable of launching ground assaults, have already departed from Okinawa in Japan and will take two weeks to arrive in the conflict zone, where the US aircraft carriers USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford are stationed.
The US move was necessitated after Iran began blocking cargo ships, mostly oil and gas tankers, from transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the only maritime passage between the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Reports have it that over 1000 ships have been blocked that way as Iran began mining the narrow waterway. The Iranians would launch these mine boats from an archipelago of islands closer to the strait, and this helps them “swarm” targets, making it more difficult to counter.
Now that Trump has deployed Marines near the waterway, this indicates a shift in US posture. The Marines can now quickly launch raids onto the islands, which will have logistics and air support.
Though they are just 5000 in number, the Marine Expeditionary Units, known colloquially as “America’s 9-1-1 force,” are no ordinary troops. They can rapidly put detachments of troops and vehicles on the ground and conduct counter-drone operations with jamming vehicles placed on their ships, escort tankers and other merchant ships. Each unit includes an infantry battalion, an aviation element with helicopters and tiltrotor aircraft, and a logistics component capable of sustaining operations ashore.
This can include additional aircraft to strike targets inland, including F-35Bs, and to execute sea control missions, going after Iranian small boats, for instance.
Their presence also gives commanders the options to undertake special missions, evacuations, or limited operations without committing large ground forces, as it did in Venezuela.
But geopolitical analysts are concerned about the move. Some believe that with the deployment, the ghost of the Vietnam War is hovering over Trump. American political scientist Robert A. Pape, echoed his concern. “The Iran war is now showing the same strategic patterns seen in Vietnam and Kosovo.” Combat veteran Samuel Pascal Redfern also expressed concern. “The deployment escalation of the Vietnam War to direct US ground involvement began with the deployment of 3,500 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade troops.”
There are also fears that the US will finally carry out littoral warfare in the Strait of Hormuz.
During the Cold War, when the possibility of two large conventional armies going toe-to-toe with nuclear arms became implausible, analysts coined the term littoral warfare, which means the fighting will shift towards smaller operations. Littoral warfare involves naval operations in the restricted, shallow waters near coastlines, focusing on projecting power from sea to land, mine countermeasures, and special operations.