The US Navy told shipping industry leaders on Wednesday that it does not currently have sufficient assets to operate a regular convoy programme through the strait of Hormuz. The admission directly contradicts President Trump's announcement two days earlier that the Navy would provide escorts alongside government-backed insurance from the Development Finance Corporation.
Convoy escort requires a fundamentally different force structure from combat operations. A carrier strike group projects power; an escort programme requires vessels on a predictable schedule at fixed chokepoints, with enough hulls to rotate without gaps. During Operation Earnest Will from 1987 to 1988 — the last US convoy programme in The Gulf — the Navy escorted re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers using cruisers, destroyers, and frigates drawn from a Reagan-era fleet of more than 550 ships, nearly double today's 296. Even that smaller operation, covering a fraction of Gulf traffic, stretched resources thin. The frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine while on escort duty in April 1988.
The Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, maintains roughly 20 vessels in the region, including the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group — which Iran targeted with anti-ship ballistic missiles on Sunday. Those vessels are engaged in combat operations and force protection across four bodies of water: The Gulf, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Pulling them into escort rotations means pulling them from strike missions or defensive screens.
With the P&I deadline at midnight Thursday and no confirmed escort schedule, tanker captains and charterers cannot plan voyages. Insurance — whether government-backed or commercial — is meaningless if the insured party cannot confirm a military escort on a specific date at a specific location. Brent Crude held above $82 per barrel, its two-day gain of approximately 12% the largest since 2020. The oil market has registered the distance between the political commitment and the ships available to honour it.
