"We have lost control of the seas to a nation without a navy, using pre-World War I weapons, laid by vessels that were utilized at the time of the birth of Christ."

Rear Admiral Allan E. Smith, who wrote these words, learned this the hard way at Wonsan Harbour in 1950, when he realised the US Navy could lose control of the seas not to enemy fleets, but to thousands of cheap mines scattered from wooden fishing boats. Seventy-six years later, the same trap is snapping shut in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN), the blue-water force built for conventional combat, has been pummeled by American and Israeli strikes, although its submarine fleet remains viable. But that was never the force that mattered. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), the asymmetric warfare specialists, remain intact, lethal, and purpose-built for exactly this confrontation. They do not seek to control the sea. They seek to deny it through swarming fast boats, drones, mini-submarines, coastal defenses, and the weapon that could easily neutralise the trillion-dollar carrier groups for the price of a used sedan: the naval mine.