NAVAL LESSONS OF THE 2026 AMERICAN ISRAELI CONFLICT WITH IRAN IN WEST ASIA

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the July 2026 issue of Medals and Ribbons magazine and is reproduced in the Indian Naval Despatch (INDES) with the permission of the publisher.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of India, the Indian Navy, or the editorial board of the Indian Naval Despatch.

Abstract: The 2026 American-Israeli conflict with Iran in West Asia highlighted the enduring relevance of maritime power in contemporary warfare and provided important lessons for naval strategists and practitioners. Although the conflict was dominated by air and missile campaigns, significant naval operations unfolded in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and parts of the Indian Ocean, demonstrating how maritime forces continue to influence political, military and economic outcomes ashore. Examining the conflict through the analytical lens of classical maritime theorists Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Corbett, this article identifies ten key naval lessons arising from the war. These include the growing vulnerability of surface combatants in contested littoral environments, the continuing value of fortified coastal positions, the strategic importance of bases and logistics, the impact of satellite-enabled maritime surveillance, the geographic reach of naval belligerency, the deterrent effect of maritime mining, the limitations of blockade operations, the challenges of amphibious manoeuvre against defended coasts, the importance of sustaining morale at sea, and the enduring requirement for naval forces to influence events on land. The conflict demonstrates that while technology has transformed the character of naval warfare, many foundational principles of maritime strategy remain remarkably resilient. The lessons emerging from this war offer valuable insights for navies seeking to adapt to an era characterised by precision weapons, autonomous systems, enhanced battlespace transparency and increasingly contested maritime spaces.

Introduction

The latest American-Israeli conflict with Iran in West Asia had a prominent naval dimension, mainly seen in the Persian Gulf and parts of the Indian Ocean. Though there have been hostile incidents involving the belligerents in the Caspian Sea, this article will primarily focus on the naval actions witnessed in the Persian Gulf and in the Indian Ocean.

From a theoretical and strategy perspective, the war has provided vital insights into the enduring postulations of masters of maritime strategy like Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Corbett, even as advent of new warfighting technologies may appear to challenge some of the tactical presumptions that they or others may have made of capabilities that existed in their times. Particularly, Mahan’s focus on strategic positions, fortified points, “value of the defensive” and the relation between fleet and fort (coastal defences) was reflected in developments as the war unfolded, while Corbett’s emphasis that maritime strategy must aim to influence events ashore by controlling “maritime communications”, and that command of the sea is always relative, bound by time/space, and needs to be purposive, was borne out in the manner the conflict shaped.¹

It is endeavoured in this essay to glean ten lessons of the war by looking back at events through an the analytical prism.

Surface Ships Near Shore Will be Vulnerable to Precise Long Range Missilery

One of the key lessons of the war is that surface warships, as also unsubmerged submarines operating/located near shore, can be exposed to precision strikes by missiles and drones that makes them highly vulnerable to early disability in the conflict. The war demonstrated that enhanced battlefield transparency, combined with highly precise, variable range missiles, drones, and distributed communication networks, has greatly eroded the survivability of combatant naval platforms operating in the littoral.²

This vulnerability was evident on both sides. Iranian ballistic and cruise missile missiles (Khalij Fars and Zolfaghar Basir ballistic missiles, Abu Mahdi, Noor, Qader, Ghadir cruise missiles), supported by drones and fast attack craft, were able to contest the approaches to Hormuz Strait and threaten US naval units like the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. Iranian naval bases and units near the shore, including larger surface combatants and at least one submarine, were decimated by missile strikes carried out by carrier borne aircraft and unmanned combat aerial systems, submarine launched cruise missiles (Tomahawk Land Attack Missile), and also shorter range missiles launched from ashore.³

Iranian warships and auxiliary ships operating in constricted waters in the Gulf lost the element of surprise to maritime surveillance too soon in the war and could not offer much resistance against overwhelming air and missile power of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).⁴

The lesson is not that large surface combatants or capital warships are redundant or obsolete. Rather, it brings home with urgency the fact that surface fleets must now be employed with a far more heightened appreciation of risk of precision munitions and drone attacks in the littoral. The reality of battlespace dominated by coastal missile batteries, drones, small craft, and cruise missiles launched from multi-dimensional platforms is upon us and needs to be addressed through stronger tactical and operational defensive measures.

The Fleet may Fight a Fort but it Seldom Wins

Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote about strategic positions, communications and the defensive power of fortified points.⁵ The recent war confirms that the insights he provided from his historical study remain valid and relevant even in the age of Artificial Intelligence. A fleet may attack, contain or isolate a “fort” (coastal defensive position), but where the fort is integrated into favourable geography and sustained by asymmetric offensive capabilities, heightened situation awareness, and layered defences, the fleet may find itself fighting inconclusively without prevailing decisively over the adversary.⁶

Iran’s defensive advantages in Abu Musa, Larak, Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, Qesham and Hormuz islands were evident in the strategy of sea denial it implemented in the Strait of Hormuz and its approaches from either side. These islands, located astride narrow waters of the Gulf, dominate the restricted navigable sea lanes, and can host supporting garrisons of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), especially the naval elements. The war showed that these defended positions in the littoral could impose disproportionate costs on a stronger adversary. US military planners contended with the difficulty of reopening the Strait by force, and the risks associated with seizing islands such as Abu Musa, Tunb or Larak, recognising them as fortified maritime positions. For an invading force, merely landing assault forces successfully is not enough, it must still hold the ground under the real and persistent threat of missile and drone attacks, not to forget sea mines, and sustain itself in such conditions.⁷

This is where Mahan’s discussion of strategic position and defence becomes relevant to modern missile, drone and mine warfare. A coastal “fort” of today resembles less a structure of stone masonry fitted with sea facing canons but is in effect a paraphernalia of mobile anti-ship missile launchers, shifting drone launchers, underground command nodes, and hardened pens/tunnels for mines, mine layers and fast-attack craft.⁸

Places and Bases Matter and their Defence Matters too

The war also reaffirmed that naval power depends not only on combat platforms but on access, involving places, bases, anchorages, logistics hubs, and friendly political environment. Without secure bases, repair facilities, underway and ashore replenishment arrangements, and faraway support systems, the operational advantages of even a large navy can be significantly eroded.⁹

In this regard, the relative contrast between the navies of US and Iran was stark. The US Navy retained a broad support architecture based on its posture of global reach, including allied facilities, integral logistics chains, underway replenishment, and the sustainment of deployed naval forces by the Military Sealift Command. Iran, by contrast, faced acute limitations and difficulties in sustaining naval presence beyond its immediate neighbourhood, especially in the Indian Ocean, where support to its naval forces became uncertain after hostilities commenced.¹⁰

The examples of IRIS Dena, which was sunk off the south coast of Sri Lanka after a torpedo attack carried out by a US Navy submarine, and of two other Iranian ships - IRIS Bushehr and IRIS Lavan which sought temporary refuge in regional ports in the Indian Ocean, highlight the truism that ships at sea eventually need to seek the protection of ports for shelter and sustenance. In times of hostility, during which the laws of armed conflict become applicable, the operational freedom of a navy without reliable external bases (or places) can shrink significantly to its disadvantage.¹¹

The conflict also showed that bases themselves require robust defence (especially air defence), without which such bases may be rendered “unsafe places”. Reportedly, US Central Command’s Naval facilities in Bahrain became vulnerable to missile and drone attacks.¹² In the missile and drone age, defence of ports, fuel tank farms, airfields and dockyards will demand layered defence, including anti-missile/anti-drone systems, deception measures, dispersal arrangements, and redundancy of key command and control facilities.

Surveillance Satellites can Surprise Ships by their Savviness

A further lesson of the war lies in the dramatic enhancement of battlefield transparency enabled by commercially available satellite imagery and open-source analyses. Publicly highlighted discussions based on satellite imagery of warships located at sea (combined with electronic and synthetic aperture radar signatures), assessments by open-source intelligence communities, and rapid digital dissemination appears to have narrowed the space for warships to remain undetected at sea. In a notable example, a Shanghai-based company Mizar Vision publicly and frequently posted imagery and assessments of warships in harbour and at sea, and damage to bases, through the conflict.¹³

This is an important lesson for navies because the element of surprise is becoming harder to achieve and preserve in the changing technological landscape. While commercially available satellite imagery by itself may not be sufficient for targeting, it definitely helps to improve situational awareness of adversaries and third parties, introducing higher complexities for naval planners. Operationally, this means that emission control and information security remain necessary, but no longer sufficient. It would need innovative concealment methods or countermeasures focussed on degrading detection/dissemination capabilities of satellite-based networks.

Naval Belligerency is not Bound by Geographical Considerations of the Air Land Battle

The sinking of IRIS Dena by a US submarine off Sri Lanka was among the war’s most important strategic events. Its importance lies less in the tactical neutralisation of a warship than in the reminder that naval belligerency can rapidly extend far beyond the immediate theatre of air-land battle. US PACOM (Pacific Command - formerly Indo-Pacific Command), in a post on the microblogging platform “X”, justified the targeting of IRIS Dena by stating that “Law of Armed Conflict authorised the use of force to target and destroy valid military targets.”¹⁴

Such actions may be politically controversial, or ethically questionable, yet navies would seek to exploit tactical advantages when the target is a lawful military objective, and the broader legal conditions of hostilities are met. The interconnectedness and vastness of the ocean allow belligerents to seek opportunities at far away distances, and this can produce escalatory effects.

One must also mention that the threats like these held out by the Houthi regime against US and allied shipping in the Red Sea, including warships could continue as in the past two years. In January 2026, as the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and guided missile destroyers escorting it moved towards the Red Sea, the Houthis put out public videos, images and messages threatening attacks on shipping.¹⁵ Such belligerency by the Houthis, widely viewed as proxies of Iran, evidently impacted subsequent US’ naval planning. This was seen in the safer route planned for the transit of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and its escorts around the Cape of Good Hope (off South Africa) to enter the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic in April 2026.¹⁶

A “Minefield in Being” can be More Impactful than a “Fleet in Being”

One of the most striking lessons of the recent war in the Gulf is the power of the undeclared minefield in maritime choke points. All through the conflict, Iran has not officially declared deploying a minefield in the Strait of Hormuz but has resorted to indirect insinuation to suggest the same through strategic communication.¹⁷ Iran’s actual ability to mine the Strait may have mattered less than the widespread belief that mines had been laid,  and there exists a credible “danger area” in the approaches to Hormuz.¹⁸ That belief alone created a decision dilemma for commercial shipping, marine insurers and also military planners, with effects far beyond the relative frugality of the weapon.¹⁹

We could call this a “minefield-in-being”. Much like the classical “fleet-in-being” concept (denoting a smaller or inferior fleet that may create strategic influence simply by existing), a “minefield in being” can influence events not by actual action but by extending a credible and potent threat to shipping by its existence, and the disproportionate costs it can impose. In this conflict, the Iranian “minefield’s effect” appears in some ways to have surpassed that of a fleet of warships, because it has severely constrained movements of both commercial and naval vessels in the narrow waterway of Hormuz.

A Blockade is only as Good as the Navy Enforcing it

The US decision to impose a naval blockade on Iran was strategically imaginative and served to put Iran on a backfoot after it exerted a chokehold over Hormuz. A blockade can curtail sea trade of the targeted belligerent, generate economic pressure, and signal resolve, but its practical effect depends on the capacity, endurance, and tactical freedom of the navy enforcing it.²⁰

Assessment suggests that implementation of the blockade by the US Navy was mixed. Some Iranian shipping was intercepted and partially deterred, but some movements reportedly escaped the US Navy’s net, while Iran’s own disruptive hard posturing in Strait of Hormuz imposed costs on shipping that was adapting to the regime of transit earlier promulgated by Iran. It can also be surmised that political pressure from allies, possibly also from China, whose shipping was impacted by the blockade, may have influenced US’ strategic thinking concerning the blockade. Cumulatively, all this created a situation of impasse in which blockade and counter blockade effects have interacted with one another undecidedly.

The lesson for navies is that for a blockade to be effective some essential elements need to be ensured, including persistent surveillance, large warship and surveillance aircraft numbers, broad capability of maritime interception, and ability to visit, board, search and seize vessels, backed by legal preparation, proactive diplomacy, and political will.

Hostile Shores can Deter Amphibious Operational Manoeuvre from the Sea

The war also demonstrated why amphibious manoeuvre from the sea could turn out to be one of the most difficult of operational plans, especially against a defended coast. There was speculation that US, with its Gulf allies, might launch operations to seize some Iranian islands and/or undertake ground operations to seize the enriched uranium held with Iran, possibly using assault forces launched from Amphibious Ready Groups. However, such operations have not occurred despite the requisite forces being mobilised to the theatre.²¹

The most important deterrent may have been the extended hostile Iranian shores. Iranian islands, defended coastline, and the wider southern littoral forms an integrated threat environment comprising missiles, drones, mines, fortified positions, and rapidly deployable armed boats. The difficulty is not simply in landing troops, but also in sustaining and protecting them afterwards against enemy counterattacks. In this backdrop, former US CENTCOM commanders General David Petraeus and General Joseph Votel were perspicacious in cautioning against ground assaults, in their public comments^.22

Maintenance of Morale at Sea Cannot be Taken for Granted

Sailors on combat platforms at sea fight within closed communities, often under physiological and psychological strain, responding to varying alert states, and while handling isolation from their families. Morale is one of the intangibles yet most important determinant in war, and naval warfare is especially impressionable in this regard. The recent war brought this truth home through reports of fires aboard US naval vessels and complaints about poor food service, both of which pointed to the human and material stresses of sustained deployment.^{23, 24} The reports about poor food standards were subsequently refuted by the US Chief of Naval Operations.²⁵

In this context, morale of the Iranian naval forces must also be considered. The sinking of IRIS Dena, the destruction of bases and numerous naval units, and the pressure of sustained strikes would have imposed severe psychological costs on Iranian naval crews and commanders. Reuters reported that the US pressed Sri Lanka not to repatriate the survivors of IRIS Dena. Nevertheless, they were subsequently transferred to Iran, possibly due to health considerations.²⁶ The morale of the concerned individuals must have been affected by the ordeal.

Ultimately, morale is not measured only by losses suffered but is also shaped by belief in purpose and endurance under adversity. The lesson for navies is that morale cannot be assumed as a given. It must be maintained through high quality leadership, logistics support, habitability, sound human resources management and human security.

The Ability to Influence Affairs on Land Ought to Remain a Paramount Consideration

The final and most important lesson for navies returns us to Julian Corbett. The highest purpose of maritime strategy is to influence events on land, because human communities, enterprise, economy, political legitimacy, and state power ultimately reside there.²⁷

Both sides used navies to shape desired political outcomes ashore. The US employed sea- based air power, submarines, blockade, and maritime interdiction in support of larger political and military goals. Iran used its critical geography and maritime position to employ an asymmetric naval strategy to severely disrupt the flow of commerce, impose economic stress on global markets, and deny the US a clear political victory. Sea control, sea denial, blockade, amphibious forces, and strike capabilities matter, but they matter because of the effect they can bring to affairs on land, to influence political decisions, and economic activities.

Conclusion

The naval war of the conflict has demonstrated unequivocally that command of the sea cannot be determined only by number or size of warships in a fleet, or the possession of overwhelming airpower alone.²⁸ In the confined waters of the Gulf and the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz (Gulf of Oman, Northern Arabian Sea), the naval contest was initially shaped by both sides seeking to deny the other the control of the sea that they respectively sought for obtaining favourable political and economic outcomes.²⁹ Later, the war transmuted into an impasse created by blockade 

and counter blockade actions, with no clear decisive strategic outcome for either side. Even as peace negotiations are underway between US and Iran through third parties, the ten lessons for navies discussed earlier could form “food for thought” for practitioners and students of warfare alike.