Arleigh\u00a0Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) sails in the Arabian Sea during Operation Epic Fury, March 18, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo)<\/p>\n
U.S. Navy Faces Rising Costs for Hormuz Missions With Strait Still Blocked<\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) \u2014 As long as the<\/p>\n
remains unsettled, the US Navy faces millions of dollars in extra costs each time it sends a destroyer through the waterway, and such passages on their own are unlikely to reopen it.<\/p>\n
The Navy voyages remain fraught, and the ships are accompanied by fighter jets and helicopters overhead, along with extra surveillance measures.<\/p>\n
If the vessels need to defend themselves against Iranian attack \u2014 as\u00a0three warships\u00a0did during a transit on Thursday \u2014 the price tag could be even higher, involving missiles that cost up to $6 million each.<\/p>\n
Although many of the operating costs are already covered by this year\u2019s defense appropriations, the total for repeatedly escorting commercial shipping in and out of the Gulf would add billions to the price of a conflict the Pentagon says has already\u00a0rung up $25 billion\u00a0in expenses \u2014 a number others claim is too low.<\/p>\n
And Navy transits alone won\u2019t\u00a0open the strait\u00a0for the more than 1,500 commercial vessels stuck in the Persian Gulf, said Thane Clare, a retired US Navy captain and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the two transits make the strait materially safer,\u201d Clare said. \u201cIndeed, the fact that the US warships had to repel Iranian attacks indicates that unescorted ships will continue to be subject to persistent threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that dealing with those threats\u00a0depletes US stockpiles\u00a0of high-end air and missile defense weapons designed for more advanced adversaries like China or Russia.<\/p>\n
Navy air defense missiles cost about $1 million to $6 million, depending on the threat and range. RTX Corp. SM-3 Block IIA interceptors, which cost more than $25 million each, are designed to defeat ballistic missiles and are unlikely to be fired during a strait transit.<\/p>\n
The Navy spent more than $1 billion in air defense interceptors during its maritime mission in the Red Sea defending commercial ships from Houthi attacks.<\/p>\n
A run through the strait\u00a0last week, as part of what the US dubbed \u201cProject Freedom,\u201d involved two destroyers, about 100 aircraft, 15,000 service members and a variety of drones, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, three US destroyers transited the strait and came under attack, according to US Central Command.<\/p>\n
The destroyers cost about $600,000 per day to operate. Aircraft cost thousands of dollars per flight hour, and although the Pentagon doesn\u2019t publish its own costs, budget documents show what it charges other agencies for use, ranging from about $4,500 per hour for a C-130J utility aircraft to about $85,000 per hour for a B-1B bomber. An eight-hour mix of 100 fighters, surveillance aircraft, bombers and helicopters would cost about $10 million.<\/p>\n
Alongside the risk of an Iranian missile slipping through and hitting a ship, the cost of hundreds of such missions in and out of the Persian Gulf quickly stretches into the billions of dollars, said Becca Wasser, defense lead at Bloomberg Economics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more transits the US Navy do, the more likely it is that a hit will happen if Iran keep firing on them,\u201d said Emma Salisbury of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. \u201cAs long as Iran can keep up the risk of transit, whether through fires or mining, the strait won\u2019t get back to being \u2018open\u2019 like it was prior to the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The USS Truxtun, USS Rafael Peralta, and USS Mason reached the Gulf of Oman on Thursday without any US assets being struck, Central Command said in a statement. None of the ships involved in the Monday transit were hit.<\/p>\n
US officials haven\u2019t said what weapons Iran fired at any of the vessels. US strikes on Friday targeted missile and drone launch sites and other military assets in Iran that Central Command said attacked the three warships on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Commercial traffic through the strait remains at a standstill. Repeated warship passages on their own will not change that, said Caitlin Talmadge of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n
Controlling the areas from which Iran can attack transiting vessels or negotiating a resolution to the conflict are the only real means of restoring traffic. Both have costs, either militarily or in concessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are not great options for re-opening the strait through a brute force military campaign. If there were, the US would already have done it,\u201d Talmadge said. \u201cThe only thing that will really reassure commercial traffic in the strait is an end to the conflict. But that is a political outcome rather than a military one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a02026\u00a0Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n