![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776341531_624_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n The U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sails alongside guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. and dry cargo ship USNS Carl Brashear in the Arabian Sea on Feb. 6.<\/p>\n
Handout\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
hide caption\n <\/p>\n
toggle caption<\/p>\n
Handout\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Days after the U.S. Navy began blockading the Strait of Hormuz, key questions remain unanswered about how such a large-scale operation can be sustained \u2014 and history suggests naval blockades are difficult to enforce and their results are often unpredictable at best.<\/p>\n
The White House says it wants to choke off Iran’s main source of revenue, oil exports, by cutting the country off from global maritime trade. It’s a move aimed at increasing economic pressure on Iran after weeks of U.S. strikes have failed to persuade the country’s leaders to agree to end the war on Washington’s terms.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Middle East command, known as CENTCOM, said<\/a> on Sunday that it would intercept all vessels going to and from Iranian ports and will “not impede freedom of navigation” for ships from all other Persian Gulf ports.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, President Trump has made clear that stopping all shipping to and from Iran is aimed at strangling Iran’s ability to export petroleum. The administration labels the pressure tactic as a blockade \u2014 though Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, argues it’s more of a naval quarantine, because “the U.S. is only stopping traffic that’s coming from Iran.”<\/p>\n Such a tactic is simply a new facet in the long-term sanctions that the U.S. has placed on Iran, says Eric Schuck, an economics professor at Linfield University in Oregon. He says the U.S. is following the classic economic pressure tactic aimed at breaking an enemy’s economy. The way to do that is finding and cutting off “something which is nonsubstitutable, something that is so essential to their economy that everything else is going to come to a halt.” In Iran’s case, that is oil.<\/p>\n But will the strategy work? Here are three lessons learned from the history of naval blockades.<\/p>\n Blockades zap resources and are hard to enforce <\/p>\n For much of history, naval blockades were mostly enforced through coordinated patrols, control of key routes and strategic positioning of ships. During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century, for example, Britain imposed blockades<\/a> on key French ports, which required a significant portion of the Royal Navy’s ships. And even then, some nimble French vessels \u2014 blockade runners \u2014 were still able to slip through the British screen.<\/p>\n Unlike the British squadrons off French ports or blockades during the 20th century, the U.S. Navy can use shipboard position beacons, satellites, drones and helicopters to locate and watch vessels coming in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Steve Dunn, author of Blockade: Cruiser Warfare and the Starvation of Germany in World War One.<\/p>\n “Detection of vessels is much easier, with satellite, [planes and drones] and radar,” using helicopters and fast boats to send boarding parties to determine whether a ship will be allowed to pass, Dunn wrote in an email to NPR.<\/p>\n![\"Comrades,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776341531_784_.jpeg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n