{"id":165212,"date":"2026-04-01T17:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/the-strait-that-air-power-cant-open\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:39:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:39:48","slug":"the-strait-that-air-power-cant-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/the-strait-that-air-power-cant-open\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strait That Air Power Can&#8217;t Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\n\n\r\n<p><em>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/dozens-of-warthogs-gear-up-for-iran\/\">Dozens of Warthogs Gear Up for Iran<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Four weeks into the air campaign against Iran, the United States has struck more than 10,000 targets. Roughly 80 percent of Tehran&#8217;s integrated air defence network lies in ruins. Its navy has been functionally destroyed. By every traditional measure of aerial dominance, American air power has won.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>And yet the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 the 33-kilometre-wide chokepoint through which a fifth of the world&#8217;s oil once flowed \u2014 remains effectively closed. Tankers aren&#8217;t moving. Insurance rates have gone vertical. The global economy is bleeding.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>How can you own the sky and still lose control of the water beneath it?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=2061706674  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/8\/80\/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II_-_32156159151.jpg\/960px-Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II_-_32156159151.jpg\" alt=\"A-10 Thunderbolt II in flight\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/a-10-warthog\">A-10<\/a> Thunderbolt II. Dozens of Warthogs are now hunting Iranian fast boats in the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 yet air superiority alone hasn&#8217;t reopened the waterway. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Air Denial: The Cheap Counter to Air Superiority<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Writing in Defense News, analysts Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco argue that the Strait of Hormuz is offering a brutal real-time lesson in a concept most air forces have been slow to internalise: air denial. It is not the same thing as air superiority, and the distinction matters enormously.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Air superiority means controlling the sky \u2014 owning it so completely that your aircraft can operate freely while the enemy&#8217;s cannot. Air denial is the opposite strategy: you don&#8217;t need to control the sky yourself. You just need to make it too dangerous, too costly, and too unpredictable for the other side to use it effectively. The barriers to achieving air denial are dramatically lower than those required for air superiority. And Iran has figured that out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Tehran is flooding the air littoral above the strait with waves of cheap drones and short-range missiles, capable of reaching oil tankers and naval vessels in minutes. Each individual weapon is expendable. Together, they create a persistent threat blanket that no amount of precision strikes on Iranian territory can fully eliminate \u2014 because the launchers are mobile, distributed, and easy to hide.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=935489906  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/1\/16\/Strait_of_Hormuz_and_Musandam_Peninsula_%28MODIS_2018-12-10%29.jpg\/960px-Strait_of_Hormuz_and_Musandam_Peninsula_%28MODIS_2018-12-10%29.jpg\" alt=\"Satellite view of the Strait of Hormuz\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Strait of Hormuz seen from space. At its narrowest just 33 km wide, this chokepoint carries roughly a fifth of the world&#8217;s oil. (Photo: NASA\/MODIS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=984644124  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/0\/09\/Shahed_136_rendering.png\/960px-Shahed_136_rendering.png\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"Shahed 136 one-way attack drone\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An Iranian Shahed-136 one-way attack drone. Cheap, expendable, and produced by the thousands, these weapons are at the heart of Iran's air-denial strategy over the Strait of Hormuz. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Red Sea Playbook, Scaled Up<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The pattern should look familiar. Between 2024 and 2025, Houthi forces in Yemen used exactly this approach in the Red Sea. Cheap, distributed drones and missiles fired at commercial shipping created a crisis that more than 800 American airstrikes couldn&#8217;t eliminate. The Houthis were an Iranian proxy running an Iranian playbook. Now Iran itself is running the same playbook \u2014 with better weapons, more launchers, and shorter ranges to target.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The core problem is mathematical. A single drone costs a fraction of the interceptor missile used to shoot it down. Waves of drones exhaust defensive inventories faster than they can be replenished. And while the US Air Force can destroy launch sites, mobile launchers move. Destroying them all requires persistent surveillance and rapid-response strike capability over an enormous area \u2014 a combination the Pentagon has systematically underinvested in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Bremer and Grieco identify four specific capability gaps: large numbers of low-cost, attritable systems to continuously attack dispersed launch sites; mobile air defences deployable near threatened waterways; low-cost persistent airborne platforms for detecting and destroying drone swarms; and interceptors that can sustain high engagement rates without burning through their magazines.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BarryESharp\/status\/2033293804304744513\"><\/a><\/blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What This Means for the Future of Air Power<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Strait of Hormuz crisis is reshaping assumptions that have underpinned Western air doctrine since the Gulf War. In 1991, air superiority was decisive. In 2003, it was assumed. In 2026, it has been achieved \u2014 and it is not enough.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The lesson is stark: a technologically inferior adversary, using cheap and plentiful weapons, can deny the practical use of airspace above a critical chokepoint even after its conventional military has been shattered. That is a problem not just for the Persian Gulf. Any future conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the Baltic, or the South China Sea will feature the same dynamic \u2014 distributed, expendable weapons making traditional air superiority harder and harder to translate into strategic results.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;By that measure, the United States does not have air superiority where it counts.&#8221;<\/p><cite>\u2014 Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco, Defense News<\/cite><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>For anyone who has ever sat in a fighter jet cockpit \u2014 or dreamed of doing so \u2014 this is a sobering reminder. The age of unopposed air dominance may be ending. The sky still belongs to the fast, the skilled, and the brave. But holding it now demands a fundamentally different kind of arsenal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: Defense News, Air &#038; Space Forces Magazine, The War Zone<\/em><\/p>\n\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What is the Strait of Hormuz?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway about 33 kilometers wide at its tightest point, connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil once flowed through it, making it one of the most strategically important chokepoints on Earth.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What is the difference between air superiority and air denial?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Air superiority means controlling the sky so completely that your aircraft operate freely while the enemy's cannot. Air denial is the opposite, cheaper strategy: rather than controlling the sky yourself, you make it too dangerous and costly for the other side to use. The barriers to achieving air denial are far lower than those for air superiority.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Why can't air power alone reopen the Strait of Hormuz?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The article argues that even after U.S. forces destroyed most of Iran's air defences and navy, the strait stayed closed because mines, fast attack boats and shore-based missiles can deny the waterway cheaply. Owning the sky does not automatically grant control of the sea beneath it - a real-time lesson in air denial.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What is the A-10 Warthog used for?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The A-10 Thunderbolt II, nicknamed the Warthog, is a U.S. Air Force close-air-support jet built around a powerful 30 mm cannon and designed to attack ground and surface targets at low altitude. In the Hormuz campaign, A-10s were used to hunt Iranian fast boats. The Air Force <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/a-10-warthog-saved-extended-2030-iran\/\">once tried to retire the A-10 but kept it flying<\/a>.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Has Iran shot down any US aircraft?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Yes. The campaign saw losses on the U.S. side - our report on the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/39-aircraft-lost-the-full-cost-of-epic-fury\/\">full cost of Operation Epic Fury<\/a> details the totals, and Iran has downed drones such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/mq-1-predator-iran-shot-down-qeshm-island-retaliation\/\">MQ-1 Predator<\/a>. These losses show how air denial raises the cost of operating even against a degraded opponent.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is the Strait of Hormuz?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway about 33 kilometers wide at its tightest point, connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil once flowed through it, making it one of the most strategically important chokepoints on Earth.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is the difference between air superiority and air denial?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Air superiority means controlling the sky so completely that your aircraft operate freely while the enemy's cannot. Air denial is the opposite, cheaper strategy: rather than controlling the sky yourself, you make it too dangerous and costly for the other side to use. The barriers to achieving air denial are far lower than those for air superiority.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why can't air power alone reopen the Strait of Hormuz?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The article argues that even after U.S. forces destroyed most of Iran's air defences and navy, the strait stayed closed because mines, fast attack boats and shore-based missiles can deny the waterway cheaply. Owning the sky does not automatically grant control of the sea beneath it - a real-time lesson in air denial.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is the A-10 Warthog used for?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The A-10 Thunderbolt II, nicknamed the Warthog, is a U.S. Air Force close-air-support jet built around a powerful 30 mm cannon and designed to attack ground and surface targets at low altitude. In the Hormuz campaign, A-10s were used to hunt Iranian fast boats. The Air Force <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/a-10-warthog-saved-extended-2030-iran\/\\\">once tried to retire the A-10 but kept it flying<\/a>.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Has Iran shot down any US aircraft?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. The campaign saw losses on the U.S. side - our report on the <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/39-aircraft-lost-the-full-cost-of-epic-fury\/\\\">full cost of Operation Epic Fury<\/a> details the totals, and Iran has downed drones such as the <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/mq-1-predator-iran-shot-down-qeshm-island-retaliation\/\\\">MQ-1 Predator<\/a>. These losses show how air denial raises the cost of operating even against a degraded opponent.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Related: Dozens of Warthogs Gear Up for Iran Four weeks into the air campaign against Iran, the United States has struck more than 10,000 targets. Roughly 80 percent of Tehran&#8217;s integrated air defence network lies in ruins. Its navy has been functionally destroyed. By every traditional measure of aerial dominance, American air power has won. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":166140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-aviation","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Strait of Hormuz: Air Superiority Won, But Not Enough | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The US has destroyed 80% of Iran&#039;s air defenses \u2014 yet the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. 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