As a result of military action by the US and Israel against Iran since February 28, the Strait of Hormuz – a vital choke-point between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — has been effectively closed to most nations’ shipping. In response, US President Donald Trump has asked major European nations and US Indo-Pacific allies to participate in a ship escort operation.
Several European powers and also Australia have flatly rejected his request, however, and other nations, including China, Japan, and South Korea, have maintained a neutral and noncommittal stance.
The arguments presented by the US administration to justify its military operation against Iran have been inconsistent and remarkably incoherent. Further, this war is generally considered to be illegal, since it is not based on a UN resolution. Third-party nations therefore have no legal justification to intervene as President Trump desires.
Although both Iran and the US have signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), neither country has actually ratified the treaty. In practice, however, Iran had generally adhered to UNCLOS, managing the strait with a traffic separation scheme consisting of two lanes, each 2 miles wide.
Now, although Iran has not officially suspended freedom of navigation, it has attacked many ships in the strait, and has established a vetting system to allow the passage of vessels it considers to be from friendly countries.
Trump’s ego threatens global stability
The illegal military operation that the US vaingloriously terms “Epic Fury” has disrupted the global distribution of oil and gas, but what is it for?
President Trump’s two previous second-term military operations, Midnight Hammer on June 22, 2025, against Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Absolute Resolution on January 3, 2026, to abduct Venezuela’s president, seem to have encouraged him to ignore the warnings that he must have received about this much more problematic attack on Iran.
Trump’s attitude is clearly shown in videos released by the White House,which mix images of warfare with cartoon clips. This profoundly unserious approach to the use of the world’s most powerful military may go down well with his core supporters in the Make America Great Again movement, but to everyone else it simply reveals his narcissistic egoism and prompts further doubts about his fitness for command.
Without clearly articulated war aims, without consulting US allies and without the support of the US Congress, President Trump has embroiled the US in a military and geopolitical quagmire. Trump will likely suffer devastating domestic political consequences, but it is the global ramifications that are of immediate concern.
The US has started a war of choice – recklessly, unjustly and thoughtlessly causing an economic catastrophe for the whole world, not least for long-term US allies that he now expects to clear up his mess for him. It is hardly surprising that they are reluctant to get involved, but the closure of Hormuz Strait may ultimately oblige them to play some kind of role in reopening it.
Practicalities of a ship escort operation
A ship escort operation is generally conducted in wartime, when naval forces assist third parties to transit a war zone. But there has been no formal declaration of war against Iran, which makes the legal situation uncertain. Moreover, this war has now expanded to encompass all the Middle Eastern nations, since Iran has attacked at least seven Arab countries in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes.
Initially Iran focused on US military bases, but has subsequently targeted civilian, economic and infrastructural sites. A multinational naval operation to escort ships through the Hormuz Strait would be insufficient to restrain Iran from continuing to damage the global economy.
President Trump has compared the escort of ships through the Hormuz Strait to the effective anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, but the situation is fundamentally different and the comparison is flawed.
Early in the war, Trump stated that the US Navy would escort ships through the Hormuz Strait, but he apparently changed his mind and sought to dump the problem onto countries more reliant on this choke-point.
Well, the US broke it, so the US must fix it: the US 5th Fleet, stationed in Bahrain, should take responsibility for ensuring freedom of navigation.
Ignoring strategic realities
Some self-proclaimed military experts with no understanding of maritime security argue that Iran has laid extensive minefields to blockade the strait. These apologists for President Trump assert that the global energy supply chain is collapsing, so dependent nations must participate in ship escort operations.
But the claim about an energy crisis is overstated: the International Energy Agency agreed on March 11 to release emergency oil reserves to stabilize prices.
Furthermore, the assumption that Iran would lay extensive minefields takes insufficient account of national interest. History shows that while mines are effective, the eventual cost of clearance falls heavily on the coastal state – in this case, Iran. Iran says it has no need for mines, can control the strait by other means.
A need for strategic clarity
Trump must now clearly declare the goals of the military operations against Iran and, crucially, he must take responsibility for resolving the situation so as to ensure freedom of navigation. Otherwise, the US risks entering yet another disastrous and unending conflagration, much like the last 25 years of counter-terrorism efforts.
South Korea, facing an indefatigable enemy, feels especially badly used by Trump. The US has undermined the effectiveness of the ROK-US defense posture against North Korea by unilaterally relocating Patriot-3 and THAAD batteries from Korea to the Middle East without consultation, only to then request Korean naval deployments to Hormuz.
All in all, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this appalling and unnecessary war has resulted from President Trump’s personal agenda: to distract the US public from the continuing saga of the Epstein files, and to aggrandize his own ego via (so he expected) quick and satisfying military success. The parallels between Trump and Russian President Putin have never been clearer.
Sukjoon Yoon is a visiting research fellow at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, a policy advisor to the Republic of Korea Ministry of National Defense and a retired Navy captain. The views conveyed here are his own.