Staff Reports
The recent spike in hostilities dates back to the coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s territory on February 28, 2026, which Tehran and its proxies immediately characterized as a large-scale assault on the Islamic Republic. Those strikes set off a cascade of retaliatory missile and drone attacks across the region and markedly escalated the risk of a broader ground conflict.
In the weeks that followed, Iranian forces and state-aligned media moved to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, and commercial operators reported tankers avoiding the chokepoint amid warnings and broadcasts that effectively restricted transit. The disruption at Hormuz — a passage that normally carries a significant share of global oil shipments — quickly turned an already dangerous military crisis into an acute global energy emergency.
On March 26, 2026, Iran’s Tasnim news agency published a military-sourced claim that more than one million combatants had been organized and placed on alert to repel any potential U.S. ground invasion. Whether those figures reflect full conventional mobilization, reserve call-ups, or a combination of regular forces, paramilitaries and volunteers, the announcement was seized upon by multiple regional outlets as evidence Tehran is preparing for a high-cost, protracted defense.
Washington made its own moves: additional Marine expeditionary units and airborne forces were dispatched to the region in March as the Pentagon signaled a readiness to protect shipping lanes and U.S. facilities. U.S. and allied planners have publicly discussed a range of options short of, and including, limited ground operations to reopen critical oil export points, but those plans run up against the logistical, legal and political realities of a cross-border campaign.
The economic fallout was swift. Energy analysts warned that any prolonged interruption of traffic through Hormuz would squeeze global crude and LNG supplies and push prices sharply higher, a scenario economists likened to the most serious supply shocks of recent decades. Companies and governments began contingency planning immediately — rerouting shipments where possible, considering strategic reserves, and weighing the new costs of insuring vessels in a war zone.
Taken together, the military and economic signals show why policymakers in Washington and allied capitals face brutal choices: open a risky land campaign to secure chokepoints and U.S. bases, or intensify naval and air efforts while pushing diplomatic channels to avert catastrophe. The logistical hurdles of mounting and sustaining a ground invasion across the Gulf’s littoral, as spelled out in military doctrine, are formidable, and the mobilization claims from Tehran make clear that any such operation would carry heavy human and material costs unless de-escalation and credible negotiations prevail.
