In the coming days or weeks, Iran, with its own oil industry very likely to be wrecked and its oil exports shut down by that point, may close the Strait of Hormuz. 20% of global oil shipping will stop when the strait is closed. The global economy will crash as the price of crude oil soars. Industry in China, Japan and South Korea will grind to a halt.

The US Navy "will be forced to intervene," in order to open the Strait of Hormuz and save the global economy. We will very likely lose ships in this effort. Does anybody remember the USS Stark? In 1987 during the "tanker war" in the Persian Gulf, one "accidentally fired" Iraqi Exocet missile almost sent her to the bottom, and 37 of her crew were killed.

During the Falklands War, the British Navy lost six ships to enemy action, including the Sheffield, sunk by an Argentinean Excoct missile.

But how can we stop hundreds or thousands of truck-launched mobile anti-ship missiles from being fired at ships attempting to sail through the Strait of Hormuz? Anti-ship missiles that are hidden in caves across thousands of square miles? Will the US Army and Marines put boots on the ground in Iran? Across an area a hundred times larger than Okinawa and Iwo Jima?

It took the combined US Navy, Army and Marine Corps three months just to subdue Okinawa, an island that was cut off from resupply by Japan. Our military was vastly more powerful in 1944 and 1945 than it is today.

So if U.S. airpower alone can't stop the Iranians from firing anti-ship missiles, is it realistic to send in ground forces to do it "the hard way?" Ponder this map I created, which compares the invasion of Okinawa to a potential CCP invasion of Taiwan, then extrapolate the forces required for a successful ground invasion of Iran meant to eliminate all the mobile missile launchers concealed within range of the strait. It's absurd to even consider it.

But would Trump order our naval ships into "harms way" in order have them attacked by Iran, and possibly sunk?

Well, it's not as if great powers have not used this strategy before. The Lusitania was sent directly through "U-Boat Alley" below Ireland to generate enough anti-German outrage to bring the USA into WW1. This was even after the Germans had placed notices in American newspapers warning potential passengers heading across the Atlantic that a state of war existed between Germany and Great Britain, and that all ships heading to Britain were "fair game."