Iran’s conventional navy warships might be largely destroyed, but analysts say that’s never where its true sea power lay.
The country’s ability to credibly threaten commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz actually hinges on multiple layers of cheap and unconventional warfare systems – drones, mines and a fleet of small attack boats, which are harder to detect than traditional naval assets.
Dubbed the “mosquito fleet” by military analysts, these small vessels deployed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and crucially the missiles, guns and other weapons those boats can deploy, present a huge strategic challenge to the United States military as it attempts to mitigate…